Category: Issue 14

The political climate in the United States is becoming increasingly hostile. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and response, presidential election, and movement to challenge police brutality are polarizing the country. Each of these bring their own health and economic concerns as well as a feeling of instability.

As of September 2020, in America there have been some 6.7 million COVID-19 cases and nearly 200 thousand deaths due to COVID-19 according to the WHO. The stay-at-home orders and mask mandates issued to curb the spread have faced political and public scrutiny. Some of the lockdowns prompted protests. In Michigan, hundreds of people, many openly armed, gathered at the state capitol building to call for the reopening of businesses. The Pew Research Center has reported growing division between Democrats and Republicans on many COVID-related topics including the perception of disease risk, opinions on measures used to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and the confidence in medical science.

The presidential election is also increasing political tensions. President Donald Trump has said that his main opponent, Joe Biden, wants to “take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God,” even though Biden is a practicing Catholic. On the other side of the aisle, Biden has said that Trump’s reaction to COVID-19 was “almost criminal” and caused Americans to die. With this rhetoric, it’s unsurprising that 54% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans “said the opposing party was so misguided as to be actually dangerous”. Speakers at both presidential conventions earlier this year did little to assuage those fears, arguing that their opponents represented an existential threat to the country.

The country is also facing civil unrest after George Floyd’s death while in police custody. Since his death, there have been protests in at least 140 cities around the United States, some lasting more than one day. Minneapolis, the city where Floyd was killed, has reported that at least $55 million in damages occurred over the course of the protests in that city alone. Killings by police are continuing to be caught on camera. After Jacob Blake was shot 7 times by police in August, protests increased sometimes drawing counter-protesters. Two protestors were killed by a 17-year-old in Kenosha, Wisconsin during these demonstrations. There are also political divides about whether systematic racism is a problem in America with the gap between the two sides growing.

Politics and partisan ideology have been creating a hostile environment, and the events of 2020 have solidified it. Their combination has led to increasing instability, frustration, and fear among the American people. When people believe that the other political party actively wants to do them and the country harm, it is nearly impossible to have a reasonable debate.

On August 15, 2020, David L. Cook, Sr., beloved husband, father, grandfather, and brother peacefully passed away at age 69 at his Culpeper home.

David was born on September 22, 1950 to William W. “Bill” Cook and Eva “Kate” (Perciful) Cook at Fort Carson, Colorado. Being the middle child – having an older sister, Lucy, and a younger sister, Kathy – David was blessed with a steadfast, compassionate insight for the human condition; one that would become his trademark in life.

David graduated from Wichita State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in History in 1972 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army the same year. He attended the Naval Post Graduate School and the Command and General Staff College. During his 23-year Army career, David served as an infantryman, aviator, and military intelligence analyst specializing in both North and South Korea. His last assignment was as the installation commander for Fort Indiantown Gap, PA. Upon retirement, he served as director for the Army Heritage Center Foundation in Carlisle, PA, then as the Defense Intelligence Agency’s logistics and facilities manager for Rivanna Station, VA. He retired from that position at the end of May.

In addition to his government service, David was an adjunct professor in the Masters in Public Administration program at Clemson University. He was instrumental in helping to develop the program, and is credited with building the Homeland Defense and Security Specialization area. David taught a series of online courses on national and cyber security issues for over a decade. He also was an avid musician, having earlier been a member of the Hershey (PA) Symphony Orchestra and Big Band for many years.

David is survived by his adoring wife, Charlotte Cole of Culpeper; a son, David Cook, Jr. of Colorado Springs, CO; two granddaughters, Madison Pallante of Mechanicsburg, PA, and Kylie Harris of Montgomery, AL; Charlotte’s daughter, Emilie Cole of San Francisco, CA; and Charlotte’s son, James Cole of Washington, DC.

Those wishing to commemorate David’s extraordinary life may consider one of the following “good works” in lieu of flowers:
The James Madison Memorial Foundation, 129 Caroline Street, Orange, VA 22960
The Free Clinic of Culpeper: 610 Laurel St., Suite 3, Culpeper, VA 22701
Clemson University MPA Student Achievement Account – Dept 5735: Clemson University Gift Management Department, P.O. Box 1889, Clemson, SC 29633
Culpeper Food Closet: c/o St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 115 North East Street, Culpeper, VA 22701
Hershey Symphony Orchestra: P.O. Box 93, Hershey, PA 17033
An online guest book and tribute wall are available at www.foundandsons.com. Found and Sons in Culpeper is serving the family.

Our American policing industry has a self-induced identity problem: it sees itself first as an enforcement business not as a crime prevention and order maintenance public service. American policing has adopted an overarching enforcement approach and a “thin blue line” perspective, both of which are unhealthy for a democracy. A culture defined by compliance, arrests, and a defensive perspective of exclusion is destined to alienate those who are policed. It also eclipses officers who run into burning buildings and dive into raging rivers. It is time for the policing industry to do a self-check.

The enforcement centerpiece of American policing has done one thing well: delegitimization of American policing in communities of color. Those communities, unlike my neighborhood, do not trust the police (though, they want to). Gated communities get police services, communities of color get law enforcement. The difference? Legitimacy. Albert Einstein and M.L. King recognized the role of justice and equity in peace—is it time for others to do so?

Both men placed responsibility for peace in government. Einstein said it with scientific economy, “Peace is the presence of government.” Sir Robert Peel recognized the essence of the values that inform this thought when he published his policing principles in 1829.

Peel, who influenced the formation of American policing, is now a footnote, replaced by zero tolerance enforcement and compliance. For brevity, I will modernize, paraphrase, and truncate Peel:

Prevent crime and disorder instead of relying on repressive enforcement; policing derives its authority from public approval and sustained public respect; policing must have the willing cooperation of the public to function; there is a negative correlation between public cooperation and the use of force and compulsion to achieve police objectives; obtain public respect through impartial and unbiased application of the law; apply physical force only after exhausting verbal persuasion and only to the minimum amount needed to achieve public order; the police are the public and the public is the police; be a dispassionate and competent fact gatherer, leave adjudication to the courts; and recognize that police proficiency is demonstrated by the lack of crime and disorder, not the presence of enforcement activities.

These nine principles were premised on three key values:

Successful policing equals a low crime rate, not a high arrest rate; crime prevention requires the participation and trust of the public; and public support is derived from ethical conduct, hiring people who accept ethical responsibility in the performance of policing, and purposeful application of persuasion and empathy before resorting to force.

Peel recognized that compliance and enforcement affronted dignity and kindled the fire of resentment (use enforcement sparingly). Peel’s principles even foreshadowed the spirit of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, 34 year later: “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” How have we strayed so far off course?

Much of the answer lies in the policing industry’s equivocation with ethics. Ethically based decisions and policies require concerted and deliberative processes that weigh procedural fairness, consideration of disparate impact, and equanimity. There is a democratic element to ethically informed policing. Instead, police executives acquiesced to, and police unions chose, the “thin blue line” of enforcement and temporized over their affirmative responsibility to forthrightly participate in transparent planning processes that solve problems. In sum, policing ethics were marginalized. Our policing industry has used 25 years of community policing to mask continued entrenchment of an enforcement and compliance culture. Are we to believe that the status quo is fine but for minor modifications?

The policing industry has been waging war on drugs since 1985 and on terrorism from 2001. The war on drugs is a complete failure but it has entrenched civil forfeiture, pretext car stops, stop and frisk, no knock warrants, 4 am raids, and prison as the normative functions of police. The war on terror has eroded civil liberties and militarized police culture. The American policing industry has adopted all the negative attributes as normative functions—said another way, as what police do. Perhaps, making policing more about ethically informed public service and less about trendy authoritarian fads that seem to arrive every 20 years is the answer.

Change will not come from slogans: it will come from transparency, empathy, forthrightness, and open loop thinking that recognizes mistakes and learns from them. The needed correction is not as simple as right from wrong—although documentary evidence on this point continues to mount—but right from the harder right.

Communities must study and understand the policing trends that now inform policing and then challenge police executives and police unions to defend them in forthright debate. There is little science behind many police practices and policies, therefore, undoing them is best achieved not from violence, but from informed, thoughtfully constructed, and undaunted questions that go to the heart of the issue: does policing make us better people?

The author, a former New Jersey police officer and retired special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is a graduate of Clemson University’s Master in Public Administration program.

The first act of Federal disaster relief in American history was through the Congressional Act of 1803 following a devastating fire through a seaport town in New Hampshire in 1802. The assistance was in the form of suspended bond payments for the merchants affected by the fire, as the areas of the seaport that was destroyed threatened commerce throughout the northeast. Devastating fires remained a significant hazard for cities in the 19th century in which more ad hoc legislation addressed incidents on a case-by-case basis; most often in the form of an authorized suspension of financial obligations for disaster survivors.

Public opinion began shifting with the rise of the Progressive Era demanding reform and regulations in the early 1900s. Demands rose for greater government action out of response to the lack of federal assistance provided to the relief efforts related to the Galveston Hurricane in 1900 and the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906. Several significant floods between 1849 and 1936 moved Congress to enact federal flood control measures. Federal resources were sent to integrate into the efforts of the American Red Cross and private sector groups during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, making it the first time the Federal Government directly assisted in disaster response and recovery efforts.

Hoover later became President in 1929 and was able to push flood control work as a legitimate federal activity and used it as an unemployment relief measure. The Hoover administration provided a bridge between the Republican Era of the 1920s and the New Deal concerning flood control legislation. The New Deal initiatives involved the federal government in areas of American life that previously belonged to local and state governments. In doing so, it constructed a social safety net to support a long period of growth and prosperity. The New Deal was incremental, as well as experimental, as seen by the quick implementation of the National Labor Relations Act as an alternative solution to address the inadequacies and failures of the National Industrial Recovery Act.

Congress enacted to Federal Disaster Assistance Program in 1950, which authorized the federal government to respond to major disasters. The New Deal era lasted until the onset of the Cold War. By the late 1970s, several areas of the federal government were involved in disaster relief resulting in federal agencies shuffling tasks around as responsibilities were shared. Parallel programs and policies at the state and local levels further fragmented emergency and disaster efforts within an already confusing system facing internal and external political power struggles. The implications of a decentralized concept were not immediately apparent since the system seemed to work relatively well for small to moderate disasters.

The desired objective of consolidating agencies to form a singular overall coordinator of federal disaster relief and preparedness efforts was achieved through the establishment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as the lead federal disaster preparedness and relief agency in 1979. The unanticipated consequences because of federal resources remaining dispersed amongst agencies suggest the coordination effort did nothing to overhaul how disasters are handled in the United States. Policymakers expect this in the process and therefore are poised for the next incremental step, which in this case was through several reforms in 1993, where the reduction of Cold War era resource allocation could be shifted over to disaster relief, recovery, and mitigation programs. Through FEMA, the federal government continues to redefine and reconsider the strategy and tactics needed to carry out the mission and vision of the agency as it relates to preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation.

The events of the past weeks are manifestations of generations of systemic racism and structural inequities.  As the Minneapolis Mayor, Jacob Frey said these feelings of anger and sadness are “not only understandable, it’s right — it’s a reflection of the truth that our black community has lived.”  This may have left some of us wondering what is our part, how do we help inform and change structural and systemic racism in all its forms?

Our program is focused on educating and supporting the development of professionals who value good governance, transparent institutions, diversity and inclusion in all forms, and social and economic justice such that we enhance the strength and sustainability of all of our communities and the individuals in them. We have much work to do but as MPA Program Director, please know we are committed to all of our students and we are with our black and brown students now and always.

While we cannot walk in your shoes, we will walk with you, we will listen and we will work alongside you and others for real change in all of our communities. As a part of this, over the next few weeks, we will be considering some ideas for special topics courses, lunch and learns and other opportunities to learn together about these important issues and public administration. We will be soliciting your feedback and ideas and we welcome them all.  

I send peace to all! Lori