3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

policemen authorized to protect and serve the public, were clearly "good guy: ." Because
of the power vested in them by the state, some police officers assumed that they could do
no wrong. Implicit in this assumption was the diffused notion that a person who "stepped
out of line" deserved the worst of any encounter-if only to rye-establish a proper ~+espect
for the law . Policemen trusted this attitude baause of the latitude it granted them in
dealing with suspats~ It was a nine police department that counseled restraint when an
officer himself was under direst attack . Above all, policemen respected authority, and
expected others to do so .
Furthermore, white society generally condoned the rough tactics of the police in
the ghetto because whites felt policemen were acting in the best interest of the
community . Drug use and crime needed to be eradicated, and these activities proliferated
in the nation's slums . Many whites even carried this logic to an oversimplified and
spurious extreme : white policemen dealt with an inordinate number of criminals who
were black ; therefore, many blacks must be "bad guys."
But black residents living in these areas rejected the notion that they were more
felonious than other Americans . They saw the police presence in their neighborhoods as
selective and invasive . By 1968, policemen were no longer (if they had ever been at all) a
neutral symbol of law and order in black communities . Activists such as the Panthers had
es On June 13,1966, the Supreme Court extended Escobedo v . Illinois (1964) by
ruling that due process obliges police to tell suspects that they may remain silent, that
any statements made can thereafter be used against them in court, and that they can
consult an attorney, before any interrogation may begin . The ruling marked a new era of
consciousness with regard to the civil tights of those accused of a crime, which baame
known as "Miranda rights."
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