EDITORIAL: Taking a knee, paying a price, at a Chicago cop shop

When two Chicago cops got down on a knee and raised a fist alongside an anti-violence activist in a police station, they must have known they were violating department rules.

Yet, they did it all the same. The two unidentified cops, both African-American, from the 6th District police station in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood became willing participants in an act of civil disobedience and broke a rule for what they saw as a larger good.

We see great importance in both the CPD rule that prohibits cops from making political statements while in uniform and the officers showing solidarity with the activist by “taking a knee.”

The two cops almost certainly will be reprimanded — and rightly so. If the department let them off the hook, it would invite other cops to make political statements while on duty. Similar to the military, we can’t have a police department that becomes politicized or an active participant in a social movement. It would hinder — directly or indirectly — the effectiveness of police. There can be no exceptions.

Another police officer, John Catanzara, also now faces a reprimand for making a political statement while on duty. The officer was photographed standing, in uniform and outside a police SUV, next to a sign reading, “I stand for the anthem. I love the American flag. I support my president and the 2nd amendment.”

In another context in another time, those are hardly inflammatory views. But in this moment, with dozens of NFL football players being castigated for not standing for the anthem, Catanzara’s gesture is obviously political — and out of bounds for a cop.

Just as in the case of the officers who posed with the activist, there can be no allowance for Catanzara’s political activism under the rules. Let’s keep it that way.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge, though, that flouting a rule can be worth the fallout, with a price worth paying. That’s how we see the cops who joined Englewood activist Aleta Clark in “taking a knee” in the police station lobby. It was an olive branch from two officers who work for a department that has been blistered by the Justice Department for its policing tactics, which includes coverups and mistreatment of people in minority communities. CPD still is trying to recover its reputation since video of then-cop Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald to death became public in 2015.

So two cops expressing unity with an activist means something — something good.

Clark wrote on Instagram: “That Moment when you walk into the police station and ask the Men of Color are they Against Police Brutality and Racism & they say Yes… then you ask them if they support Colin Kapernick (sic)… and they also say yes… then you ask them to Kneel!”

Kaepernick is the biracial NFL quarterback who last season chose to kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality and the oppression of people of color. He, too, is paying a price for civil disobedience: He’s out of work despite being worthy of an NFL job. His actions took on newfound meaning after President Donald Trump said NFL players who disrespect the flag should be fired. (It doesn’t matter at all to Trump that taking a knee is a peaceful protest meant to bring attention to injustice.)

Let’s remember that American history is replete with examples of high-minded people who have broken rules and laws to make this country a better place. In 1960, four college students sat a whites-only lunch counter at a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina. Demonstrators in Alabama endured horrific beatings in 1965 when they defied Gov. George Wallace to march from Selma, Alabama, to the capital in Montgomery. Rosa Parks in 1955 dared to sit at the front of a bus.

We are witnessing widespread protests again today because inequality remains too much the American story. We look around the country and we see states attempting to diminish the voting rights of minorities. We see police departments brutalize people of color. We see a White House trash people because of their religion.

If you follow police blogs or rhetoric from the Fraternal Order of Police, you’d think all cops believe that attempts at police reform are oppressive, excessive and without justification. They have the loudest voices but don’t speak for all cops. That’s the real story of the photo of the two cops taking a knee in a police station. Chicago’s men and women in blue are hardly of one mind on issues of brutality and racism.

A year or two ago, a black activist wouldn’t have dared enter a police station to ask cops to partner in a message about brutality or oppression. The photo says something new and good is happening.

Political activism has no place in a police department. The two officers at the station will have to pay the price, as we suspect they knew all along. A politicized police force is a dangerous police force.

But somebody sure took a powerful photo, too.

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