I’m disgusted by the George Floyd situation. Absolutely disgusted by a culture that protects and polices its own. You see, we are awful at seeing the truth when it comes to our friends or people we know. It doesn’t align with what we know of the person, and so our brain looks for ways to make the information make sense. Hence, we don’t believe it could happen, and our brain convinces us it did not happen. I don’t know all the deets of the officer that held his knee to a man’s throat for 8 minutes for writing a bad check. I do know he had other complaints against him. I don’t know the particulars but in other contexts, we might call that a pattern. But, internal justice systems are dysfunctional and so it doesn’t surprise me none of the complaints were found to be valid. Not one bit.
It triggers the shit out of me because of my time in the military. Now that I’m officially retired I can write with a bit more freedom. I’ll tell you that the last two years of my career were spent fighting against such a culture. You see, at least in male dominated professions, this internal policing is done by men, for men and benefits men. I can’t count how many times, when dealing with an allegation of sexual assault, I heard some male say, “ He wouldn’t do that, he is a nice guy.” I would spout off some research or use the example that being a nice guy was exactly what enabled them to take advantage of a person and it would fall on deaf ears or I’d be written off as crazy and emotional. Most of the time, there wasn’t enough “evidence” to do anything to the perpetrator so the victim simply left the Army. And the man would still be in and get promoted. But hey, he was a good guy so I’m sure he wouldn’t do it again ( sarcasm here). So, what recourse does one have against such systemic failure?Well, in the Army you can file an Inspector General (IG) complaint. For police there is Internal Affairs. Yet these sub-organizations are designed to give the member of the organization the benefit of the doubt. In the Army, unless something violates a black and white rule, an IG complaint won’t be founded. It doesn’t matter how unethical or immoral an act is. Most people don’t know this about these internal justice systems. But I lived it and gave up my career because of it. You see, I filed an IG complaint regarding the handling of sexual assault cases in the Iowa Army National Guard. There. Now everyone knows or can have it confirmed. I filed it in May of 2017. I also filed a Congressional Inquiry with Senator Ernst’s office. And then I waited. It took two years for the investigation to even begin. Apparently, no one knew who was supposed to investigate it so it went untouched. Finally, when someone picked it up off the desk it had been gathering dust on, they sent it back to Iowa-the very organization that the allegation was against- to investigate. So the Iowa National Guard leadership and Command knew a complaint had been filed and they were bound and determined to find out who did it. During those two years and beyond, I lived in absolute fear of being found out. I stopped sleeping. I had panic attacks whenever it was brought up. During those two years, more women were assaulted only to have their complaints be lost on someone’s desk or deemed unfounded. And during those two years, I slowly felt parts of myself die. I called and tried to retract my complaint because I just needed it to be over. That was not allowed apparently. Then, I got calls from 5 different people over the course of six months, as the turd of a complaint that was filed by a real asshole was being passed around because no one knew what to do with it. I had to tell the story 5 different times, and each time, it became harder and harder to have any hope or faith. Honestly, it revictimized me every time I had to re-tell what was happening. Eventually, even though my complaint was supposed to be anonymous, someone in the IG office fucked up and emailed the Command’s attorney using the term the “Finken Complaint.” And just like that I was outed. I was threatened. I was treated poorly. I was shunned. But it didn’t rise to actionable retaliation. And after over two years, I could not take it anymore. I retired to save the little pieces of me I had left. I still don’t know what happened with the complaint or if it was founded. I know Iowa changed how they investigated sexual assaults after that but it didn’t help me, nor did it help anyone who made an allegation prior to 2019. Countless women, including me, are no longer in the military. Countless men, with allegations of harassment and assault, remain in the ranks. So did I win? No, I don’t think I did.
The police force is much like the military. I haven’t worked as a police officer but I do believe they have similar, parallel issues. I have seen calls for an independent review board to review police brutality allegations. Senator Gillebrand tried something similar for the military since we were botching so many sexual assault cases but big surprise, the military opposed it and the bill did not pass. I fear the same thing will happen with a police independent review board.
Basically, after experiencing all of this, it doesn’t surprise me bad cops are protected. I’m sure they are “good guys.” Here is what we need to remember though. Good guys can still do bad things. No one is all good or all bad. Who you see at work can be different than who you see at home. Sometimes, the scariest person isn’t the devil you don’t know-it’s the one you do know and trust. I’m sure the cops in the Floyd case did many good things. It doesn’t mean, however, that they are incapable of doing bad things on occasion. Binary thinking is easy for us-good and bad, right and wrong. But it’s a mental shortcut that I don’t think we can continue to take in a complex world with very wicked problems.
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