By Luis A. Fernandez, co-author of Shutting Down the Streets: Political Violence and Social Control in the Global Era
Recently we saw police react to the Occupy Movement in several, seemingly contradictory, ways. For instance, the Mayor of Albany ordered the police to physically remove protesters occupying Academy Park for violating the 11 p.m. park curfew. However, the police defied orders and refused to arrest occupiers, stating that protesters were not “causing trouble.” According to the Albany Times Union, they added that it was best to leave policing to them, since “the bottom line is the police know policing.” In sharp contrast, the Mayor of Oakland, California, ordered their police to clear Occupy Oakland, resulting in several days of brutal law enforcement that ended in a serious head injury to Scott Olsen, a protestor and military veteran. Why did the police act differently in these two cases?
One possible answer is that Albany Police defied orders out of conscience, feeling solidarity with protesters. Or, perhaps Oakland Police are inherently brutal and unable to calibrate an appropriate response. However, neither of these is correct. Rather, the police in both Albany and Oakland “know policing” equally well, but are implementing strategies based on different racial and economic context. That is, they are following strategies to maintain order in specific circumstances, each requiring different tactics. To understand these seemingly contradictory police reactions, we must keep in mind a) the role of police in society and b) the social/racial context.
Generally, the role of police is to maintain the existing social order. In contrast, the role of mass mobilizations is to disrupt the social order. In the case of the Occupy Movement, then, the role of protesters is to take over public space to highlight economic inequalities. In turn, the police function to minimize the disruption so that “order” continues. These are opposing forces that can lead to strong clashes like in Oakland. However, they can also lead to police tolerance of unthreatening demonstrations. As we argue in our book, Shutting Down the Streets, law enforcement adopt policing tactic (i.e., containment, isolation, preemptive arrests, etc.) to either minimize the impact of the disruption or to suppress the threat of future and larger demonstrations.
The racial context also matters in explain why police select one tactic over another. For example, 65% of the population in Oakland is people of color, while Albany has the inverse with 63% of the population identifying as white. Taking into consideration that unemployment in Latino and African American communities is approximately 40%, then we can see why Oakland has a much higher potential for generalized disruption. That is, the occupy movement could go from the parks to the neighborhoods to the entire city in a way that is more explosive than is the case in Albany. We know from research that police are friendlier to crowds they deem non-threatening, which can include whites, perhaps older, middle class formations.
As we look to the future, what will determine if police will be more or less aggressive will have everything to do with the make up and location of the specific occupation. The more “threatening” the group to police, the more repressive the response.
Just a little more detail to a great read. In Albany, the order from the mayor was pressured by the governor of NY, Andrew Cuomo. The protest is in a city park, but it’s next to state buildings and parts are considered state park, which has the strict curfew. They had to get state police to clear the state park, cause the APD didn’t see any reason to arrest anyone. The atmosphere of the protest is becoming state vs city, regardless of what side you are on the protest. The news also reported everyone who was arrested got ticketed by the state for appearances, and the city plans to dismiss all of the cases when they come to court (I hope the city stays firm on that.)
Scott Olson is white, as were the most of those who went to rescue him, so the racial theory doesn’t make much sense.
A better correlation is probably from a more meaningful statistic: the time required to foreclose on a home.
CA has lightning fast foreclosure times. NY is considerably slower, and more deliberative. Despite that Wall Street is in NY virtually every sub-prime predator was based CA.
Stereotypes paint CA as a hippie granola state and NY as, well, home to Wall Street. But maybe the reality is that NY residents,including the police, tend to care more about protecting the interests of regular people than their counterparts in CA.