Balance, Balance, Balance: Finding a Middle Ground

"The truth will set you free. But not until it's finished with you."

-David Foster Wallace

            It seems that the time has come to write my final post for this blog. As I closed the last post, I established the conditions under which I would hold it to be the case that a democratic failure had occurred as a result of the use of 1033 equipment by police departments in this country. The conclusion that I came to was that if this equipment were to be used to enact violence in excess, or moreover give police the ability for violence in excess, we would be witnessing a democratic failure. Herein lies the question that has remained unanswered until now: is the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department complicit in the creation of a democratic failure?

            Before answering this question, I would like to rehash an essential point that will more or less act as the crux of the answer to this question. This point harkens back to my second post and the discussion of equality of force between the citizens and the police, and the balance that is to be struck between these two groups. It was framed so as to make it seem that the only imbalance that could occur would be a shift in power towards the police. This of course misses an essential point: any imbalance would constitute a democratic failure. In the words of Locke, “In the state of nature there wants a known and indifferent Judge, with Authority to determine all differences according to the established Law” (Locke 351). This “known and indifferent Judge,” that Locke mentions is of course government, and more specifically the judicial branch of said government. Essential to this judicial branch, and really what makes it the judicial branch, is its capability to exercise its power as a mediator. How does it exercise this power? Through the police of course. To bring the point back to the real world, if the power of the citizenry is, on a person-to-police basis unequal in the citizen’s favor, then the power of the judicial branch effectively ceases to exist. Coming full circle, we have arrived at vital point in the unraveling of this question. While it seems to be easy to blindly wave the flag of the citizen against the state, it is no different, in its essence than the view of the autocrat advocating for absolute power in the state. Balance, balance, balance. This is the key. So it begs the question: is the citizen-police relationship balanced in Oakland County?

Sheriff Mike Bouchard

Who better to shed light on this issue than Sheriff Michael Bouchard himself? Sheriff Bouchard was kind enough to give me unfiltered access to both himself and his view on not only his department’s use of 1033 equipment, but as Vice President of the Major County Sheriff’s Association, a somewhat broader view of the equipment’s implementation across the country. The main point of the Sheriff’s statements was very clear: this equipment is defensive in its nature. Sheriff Bouchard referred me to an incident that occurred in 2012 where a West Bloomfield man had barricaded himself in his house with an assault rifle after killing an officer. It is these “active shooter” situations that the Sheriff Bouchard states vehicles, such as the county’s Lenco “BEAR” MRAP, are used for. The Sheriff also emphasized the defensive nature of such armored vehicles by noting that they are not equipped with weapons. Sheriff Bouchard felt that a great deal of the discussion around disarming police departments descended from a perception that what Americans saw in Ferguson, Missouri was the norm for American policing when it was in fact a distinct outlier. I’m tempted to agree with the Sheriff on this point. What truly swung me was when he reported that only 30—30—officers in his department of 1300 were SWAT officers. I find it hard to believe that the presence of these 30 officers and their equipment would be evidence enough to argue that in a county of 1.2 million they create an imbalance or inequality of power between the citizens and the police. But, this isn’t the standard that I was going to hold the police to. I stated above that there must be a balance on the one-citizen-one-officer level, or at least something approaching this micro-level.

Sheriff Bouchard pointed to the Bataclan shootings in Paris as an example of an "active shooter" situation requiring a robust defensive capability for police.

In my most honest understanding of the situation, I do not believe it to be the case that in terms of the capability for violence the citizenry of Oakland County and its Sheriff’s Department are imbalanced. I believe what truly brought me to this point was two-fold. First was the point that the county’s MRAP was used for strictly defensive purposes. This seems to set the range of its use more or less out of the realm of “violent capability.” The second was slightly more anecdotal, but drove the point home. As we were leaving the interview, I asked the Sheriff about his service pistol, a Glock 17, asking him if it were law enforcement specific. He told me that I could easily buy an identical pistol and I realized that this was the case for a good deal of the “offensive” equipment that’s use is so contested. In a MCSA Senate report, it was noted that the majority of rifles received through 1033 are converted to semi-automatic fire modes, rendering them nearly identical to civilian models (Major County Sheriffs’ Association, Statement for the Record – U.S. Senate Hearing). Largely they are rifles that I could buy any day of the week with ease.

So where does this leave our question? It would seem to be the case that what we are witnessing in Oakland County does not constitute a democratic failure. Would I say that in other places in the country we may be? Probably. But I had to ask the Sheriff—what if the people felt that what he was doing was constitutive of a democratic failure. His answer was simple: “Hold a recall election, and if the people vote against me, it’s my duty to step down.” In essence the Sheriff echoed the sentiments of John Stuart Mill who stated, “The meaning of representative government is, that the whole people, or some numerous portion of them, exercise through deputies…the ultimate controlling power” (Mill 422). So, remedy-wise, Oakland County seems to be in the clear. If the situation were to progress to a point that the police held the capability for violence in excess, the people would hold the reins of recourse.

So, what does all of this mean? Well for one, what I found was that the state of policing in America is not a simple “yes it’s militarized,” or a “no it’s not militarized.” The answer seems to lie somewhere in between and is based entirely upon context. I think that a final important aspect of the conversation harkens back to a quote from Rousseau in the first post in this series that dealt with the illegitimacy of “might makes right” governance. If we saw such a governing structure, a key aspect of the system would not be a Sheriff who feels he is beholden to the voters and citizens of his county. As long as our representatives hold themselves to this standard, I find that ultimately the balance of power between the people and the police will remain in its proper state. With the people lies the power of good governance.

In closing, I would like to thank my readers for following with me in this blog and engaging in the issues discussed therein. I would also like to extend extreme gratitude to Sheriff Mike Bouchard for taking the time to discuss the 1033 Program and his department with me. On that note, I would also like to congratulate the Sheriff on being named the National Sheriff's Association Ferris E. Lucas Sheriff of the Year--the first in Michigan history.
Well, that's it for me. I leave you with the simple request that no matter where you find yourself in life, always, always, always question your government. If you don't the term "citizen" means nothing.

Bibliography

Locke, John, and Peter Laslett. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, n.d. Print.

Major County Sheriff's Association. Major County Sheriffs’ Association Statement for the Record – U.S. Senate Hearing. Issue brief. N.p.: MCSA, 2014. Print.

Mill, John Stuart. Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Ed. Bruce L. Kinzer and John M. Robson. Toronto: U of Toronto, 1988. Print.

"Oakland County Michigan QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau." US Census Bureau. US Census Bureau, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Rousseau's Political Writings: New Translations, Interpretive Notes, Backgrounds, Commentaries. Ed. Alan Ritter and Julia Conaway. Bondanella. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988. Print.

"Special Weapons and Tactics." Oakland County Sheriff's Office. Oakland County, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

Stone, Sharon. "West Bloomfield Police Officer, Fenton Resident Shot and Killed (Patrick O’Rourke)." Tri-County Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.