The memorializing of the four police officers fatally shot in Lakewood, Washington is simply too tempting for me to pass up. Early one morning, the four officers were in a coffee shop preparing for their shift when a man walked in and killed them. The killer was hit by a bullet, but he escaped and kept most of the police in the Seattle on edge for more than 24 hours. The killer was ultimately cornered by an officer, who shot him to death. It turns out the killer, who is not white, had been paroled from prison in Arkansas. The governor of Washington wasted no time announcing that parolees from Arkansas are no longer welcome in her state. The former governor of Arkansas wasted no time telling the governor of Washington that she ought to familiarize herself with the facts before assigning blame via national television.
And with that, it began.
It’s very difficult to write about the police. I think some of them live right down to the worst stereotypes, but I feel the same way about lots of attorneys, and reverends, and politicians. I often feel the same way about myself. It’s fun to criticize the police, but when something goes wrong they cannot arrive quickly enough. I don’t know many cops, because I’m not that crazy about authority, and I really do not like being around guns, but I would guess that many of them are wonderful people who do genuinely want to protect the citizens of the communities where they work. I also think that some of them are thugs. I’ve met a couple of CEOs who are thugs as well.
But in this story, as is often the case, the subject of it ceased being the subject as it was eclipsed at a breathtaking speed by people rushing to forge an emotional link between the people in the story – in this case, the killed officers’ families – and themselves. It’s a deadly strain of narcissism, I think, one that repeats over and over again, every time a child turns up missing, every time a soldier comes home in a box, every time the third grade classroom’s pet hamsters are carried from the burning school house by the firefighters. There are lots of hugs, and lots of tears, and lots of people proclaiming to now understand, thank the dear lord, what’s really important. In Washington, 20,000 people showed up – many of them law enforcement types from all corners of the U.S. and Canada – to watch the vehicles carrying the bodies pass by on the procession route. People were so moved they couldn’t speak. Since they couldn’t speak, many of them cried, and many of them left – as they always do – a lot of plastic crap in front of the coffee shop where the cops were killed as a “makeshift memorial.”
Over and over again, I kept hearing the phrase “our finest.” We’ve lost four of our finest. Four of our finest selflessly gave their lives in the line of duty. This horrific crime cost us four of our finest, which makes it even more difficult. Since when are police officers automatically considered our finest? That’s just code talk, I think, kind of like we do when we’re speaking of people in the military.
As the frothy sentimentality cycloned inside of itself, I waited patiently for the marketing people to get involved, and I did not have to wait long. On Tuesday a very popular pizza business decided all its Washington stores would donate profits to the families of the fallen, which, I presume, will also receive financial support in the form of pensions and insurance settlements. The status updates on Facebook were, of course, posted at fever pitch. Isn’t this company great? My boss ordered pizza for all of us, it was touching. I got a little misty in the lunchroom, watching the procession.
Please, stop it.
The pizza company is out to make money, which is why it’s a corporation and not a non-profit food pantry. Someone at the pizza company picked up on the fake emotions buzzing around in the aftermath of the shootings and decided it would be foolish to not get in on the act. Since they’re so smart and so strategic, they even leveraged social media outlets to get the message out because, ah shucks, they care about the community. I fully expect to see something about it on the news, perhaps a clip of some executive tearing up about how this hits close to him, and it’s the least they can do, and all the rest of it. In the world of PR, that’s called resonating with your target demographic, or demonstrating good corporate citizenship. I call it selling. I believe in selling and I understand its importance. What appalls me is the fact that working the violin strings in a way that’s not even clever can infect people so quickly, so thoroughly. Because long after flag folding and gun salutes – ironic, ain’t it? – long after the plight of the families the four killed officers left behind is superseded by some story that’s even more worthy of Hallmark, lots of people in Washington will recall fondly the fact that the pizza company was right there with them during their hour of need, which, in spite of their best effort, wasn’t really theirs at all.
And with that, it began.
It’s very difficult to write about the police. I think some of them live right down to the worst stereotypes, but I feel the same way about lots of attorneys, and reverends, and politicians. I often feel the same way about myself. It’s fun to criticize the police, but when something goes wrong they cannot arrive quickly enough. I don’t know many cops, because I’m not that crazy about authority, and I really do not like being around guns, but I would guess that many of them are wonderful people who do genuinely want to protect the citizens of the communities where they work. I also think that some of them are thugs. I’ve met a couple of CEOs who are thugs as well.
But in this story, as is often the case, the subject of it ceased being the subject as it was eclipsed at a breathtaking speed by people rushing to forge an emotional link between the people in the story – in this case, the killed officers’ families – and themselves. It’s a deadly strain of narcissism, I think, one that repeats over and over again, every time a child turns up missing, every time a soldier comes home in a box, every time the third grade classroom’s pet hamsters are carried from the burning school house by the firefighters. There are lots of hugs, and lots of tears, and lots of people proclaiming to now understand, thank the dear lord, what’s really important. In Washington, 20,000 people showed up – many of them law enforcement types from all corners of the U.S. and Canada – to watch the vehicles carrying the bodies pass by on the procession route. People were so moved they couldn’t speak. Since they couldn’t speak, many of them cried, and many of them left – as they always do – a lot of plastic crap in front of the coffee shop where the cops were killed as a “makeshift memorial.”
Over and over again, I kept hearing the phrase “our finest.” We’ve lost four of our finest. Four of our finest selflessly gave their lives in the line of duty. This horrific crime cost us four of our finest, which makes it even more difficult. Since when are police officers automatically considered our finest? That’s just code talk, I think, kind of like we do when we’re speaking of people in the military.
As the frothy sentimentality cycloned inside of itself, I waited patiently for the marketing people to get involved, and I did not have to wait long. On Tuesday a very popular pizza business decided all its Washington stores would donate profits to the families of the fallen, which, I presume, will also receive financial support in the form of pensions and insurance settlements. The status updates on Facebook were, of course, posted at fever pitch. Isn’t this company great? My boss ordered pizza for all of us, it was touching. I got a little misty in the lunchroom, watching the procession.
Please, stop it.
The pizza company is out to make money, which is why it’s a corporation and not a non-profit food pantry. Someone at the pizza company picked up on the fake emotions buzzing around in the aftermath of the shootings and decided it would be foolish to not get in on the act. Since they’re so smart and so strategic, they even leveraged social media outlets to get the message out because, ah shucks, they care about the community. I fully expect to see something about it on the news, perhaps a clip of some executive tearing up about how this hits close to him, and it’s the least they can do, and all the rest of it. In the world of PR, that’s called resonating with your target demographic, or demonstrating good corporate citizenship. I call it selling. I believe in selling and I understand its importance. What appalls me is the fact that working the violin strings in a way that’s not even clever can infect people so quickly, so thoroughly. Because long after flag folding and gun salutes – ironic, ain’t it? – long after the plight of the families the four killed officers left behind is superseded by some story that’s even more worthy of Hallmark, lots of people in Washington will recall fondly the fact that the pizza company was right there with them during their hour of need, which, in spite of their best effort, wasn’t really theirs at all.
