I attended Constable Eric Czapnik’s funeral procession today. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, since I’d never witnessed a cop’s funeral procession before. But it was a pretty impressive sight, and a remarkable display of solidarity.
Lately I haven’t known what to think of cops anymore. I’ve met some who don’t deserve my respect, and I’ve met others who very much do. I’ve heard some disturbing stories both in the media and from individuals. But I know there are some very good cops in this city too. I guess I just don’t know anymore whether most cops are good or bad. I don’t know how to think of them collectively.
So when I saw thousands of them today, marching solemnly in honour of a slain fellow officer, it was against this backdrop of conflicting thoughts and feelings.
Police officers certainly do respect their profession, and their so-called ‘brotherhood.’ (I wonder if female police officers resent that term?) I heard the number on the radio beforehand, but it didn’t prepare me for the visual and emotional impact of seeing four thousand cops, in full dress uniform, marching down Sunnyside Avenue on a cold winter day, in honour of a fallen brother most of them had never met.
Here in Canada, we don’t lose a lot of police officers in the line of duty. Eric Czapnik was the first one in Ottawa in 26 years, so I think it’s safe to say that being a Canadian cop is not a particularly hazardous profession. More construction workers die on the job in Ottawa than cops. But cops are a lot more devoted to their professional identity than construction workers. And they honour their dead in style.
Eric Czapnik was slain by a police officer from another police force, which makes things a little odder than usual. Usually it’s the ‘bad guys’ killing cops, and I imagine it’s more than a little weird for them to reconcile the fact that this time the ‘bad guy’ was one of their own.
The funeral procession was a moving sight. I was surprised by the lump in my throat.
That is a lot of cops in one place…wonder where all the bad guys were. But no, it is sad to see anyone hurt in the line of duty and the comradary is moving.
The man responsible for killing him was mentally ill.All in all a very sad situation.The whole procession and services touched my heart.
“Lately I haven’t known what to think of cops anymore. I’ve met some who don’t deserve my respect, and I’ve met others who very much do. I’ve heard some disturbing stories both in the media and from individuals. But I know there are some very good cops in this city too. I guess I just don’t know anymore whether most cops are good or bad. I don’t know how to think of them collectively.”
Much like my thoughts.
I do believe there are good cops, and I once raised this notion in a conversation with a friend of mine who has spent her career within the world of law as an attorney. She said, yes there are, but even they get infected with the us-versus-them, cops-good-“them”-bad mentality.
To put it another way, a different friend of mine (who is rather conservative, keeps guns, hunts) refers to cops-at-large as, “the blue gang.”
Aside from informing my thoughts on this, these two perspectives also shed a certain light on a four thousand-strong street funeral procession.
It can be a shitty job, law enforcement. No one’s going to call the cops to tell them they’re having a good day. People call when they’re having a bad day.
Right?
And the lump in your throat? That’s the place for it. Because, despite the bad apples in every bushel, most cops are hard-working, dedicated, good people. I know that. And so do you, Zoom.
For the most part, police and journalists are expected to remain objective to the communities they serve, so when they’re involved with the community, it’s often within a very narrow scope, like at Neighbourhood Watch meetings (were residents bitch about the presence of benches where homeless people might try to sleep). Since they are discouraged from participating in the community in ‘traditional’ ways, their community becomes other cops. This is the source of the us-vs-them attitude (plus the fact that some people choose to be cops for the power and not so much for the people). There are some exceptions to the rule, and there are some progressive police officers. There are others who are friendly in meetings with neighbourhood-watch types, but who are not friendly when out walking the beat meeting someone they don’t know.
While Czapnik wasn’t doing anything particularly heroic when he got killed (he was sitting in his cruiser filling out paperwork and was stabbed through the open window by a madman–realistically this type of incident could have happened to anybody and they wouldn’t have gotten a procession), it is true that every situation a police officer faces is unknown and is potentially life-threatening. Someone could pull a gun in a routine traffic stop. We’re lucky in Ottawa that the risk of this is very very very low, but they’re not zero.
Thanks for the procession video. It’s quite surreal.
– RG>
I can see my house!
I wish I had known you’d be in the area! We could have gone for coffee…
I am always moved by marches like this, but I can’t ever forget the times that my rights have been violated by these people, just because they wear a uniform. I appreciate the fact that they are there to protect us but in my lifetime they have harmed me WAY more than they’ve protected me. As a matter of fact, the only time I ever felt comfortable around a cop was when I got punched in the face by a huge angry guy after I told him off for stalking this group of girls at 4am on bank street. It was this super cool female cop who I’ve met many times since, and she let me warm up in her car and even drove me home (the only time I’ve been in a cop car not in handcuffs, lol) so I do appreciate the people who are there to improve the community.
I don’t, however, appreciate those who choose to protect and improve selective communities and who only selectively enforce rights.
-JM
It’s really rather moving, I guess the kids watched the procession during recess. He wondered why there were so many police officers there. (Are the guys in yellow Paramedics or Fire Fighters?)
It’s a community, just like bloggers, they’ve lost one of their own. I think we just share in their grief, and keep them in check.
We here in the US lose a lot of cops each year. They get funerals with officers in uniform and it’s always an impressive sight.
I’ve had good experiences and some not so good ones with policemen and women. I think generally they’re people who feel an urge to serve, kinda like nurses and social workers. Of course there are some who get off on the power but they’d gravitate to that no matter what they chose to do.
That very long line of red coats gave me a lump, too.
This is an incredibly tragic story for everyone in Ottawa, and all of my sympathies are with Constable Czapnik’s family.
One thing strikes me is that I just can’t get over how lucky we are to live in a city where this hasn’t happened in 26 years. I wonder if this is typical of Canadian cities, and how would it compare to a similarly sized city in the US?
Do we need to have a “collective” opinion on cops or anyone else? Just because you’ve encountered a few bad apples is no reason to approach every cop with suspicion. Just because you have a generally left-leaning philosophy on most things and “Authority” leans the other way, doesn’t necessarily make them the enemy. To use an analogy close to your heart, that’s very much what some people do regarding welfare recipients. Just because they know of a few who are scammers, they look at all other people living in poverty through that lens. I find the public outpouring of sentimentality over this event a little confusing in light of how quickly this same public is ready to condemn the entire police force when one of them is alleged to have committed some offense.
Excellent bit of footage, Zoom. I, too, find processions like that very impressive. I’m glad there was a good turnout. I also found tanks rumbling down a street, simply driving from Pt A to Pt B, impressive. (They were Canadian)
I know that there are bad police officers. Unfortunately those few take away the attention from the thousands of us that go to work everyday and do our job professionally and courteously. Personally those few sicken me and they do not deserve the job.
I just happen to be a Chicago Police Officer and I to work in the department that plans officers funerals. Which unfortunately happens way to often in our large city. It is at times like these when I truly believe the best in us comes out. We band together to give respect to one of our own and to help in any way comfort the family of the fallen officer.
JM’s comment reminds me of the (only?) time I was in a police cruiser. I found my stolen bike, so he put it into the trunk and drove me back to the place from which it had been stolen (a break and enter). But like so many police cruisers, the front passenger seats were full of paperwork and stuff, so I had to sit in the back seat.
Was kind of annoying when I had to wait, sitting in the back seat, while he spent a couple more minutes interviewing the clerk at the store (outside of which I found my stolen bike). 😉
Nat – according to the comments on the video, they’re paramedics (I had the same question)
– RG>
Deb, funny you should ask where all the bad guys were, since there were 4,000 cops in Ottawa South. It crossed our minds that it might be a good day to rob a bank in the east end.
Di, I know…I don’t think of the perpetrator as a ‘bad guy’ in this case, since it sounds quite likely that he was not responsible for his actions.
Anne, thank you for your thoughtful comment.
Tom, the problem with “bad apples” is that they contaminate the apples around them. I don’t think we can keep writing off police brutality and other serious misconduct as being the actions of a few bad apples. Cop culture is quite insular, and there’s tremendous pressure to conform to it. In order for me to believe that it’s a few bad apples, I’d need to see more cops demanding that the ‘bad apples’ be identified and ousted from their ranks. Instead, I see silence, which implies some complicity in protecting the bad apples…or at least a cultural climate that doesn’t allow cops to take such an ethical stand against their own. (Kind of like “My country, right or wrong.”)
RealGrouchy, interesting insight about cops not being able to participate in our community the same way we can, and therefore deriving their sense of community from the community of cops. I’d never quite thought of it that way before, but it makes a lot of sense.
Junkie_Monkey, if I’d known you lived there I would have dropped in and warmed up my feet. I was FREEZING!
Nat, all the Hopewell school kids were watching the procession. I’m sure it was a moving experience for them.
Donna Lee, that’s an interesting analogy, cops choosing their profession for the same reasons nurses and social workers do. I hope you’re right…
Finola, I think it’s much more common in the US. I think Ottawa has only had six police officers killed in the line of duty EVER. And it seems to be a fairly rare event everywhere in Canada, since it makes national news whenever it does happen. Hopefully it stays that way.
XUP, as I said to Tom, I don’t really subscribe to the notion that it’s just “a few bad apples.” I think police corruption and brutality tend to be infectious within a police force. I honestly have no idea how widespread it is in Ottawa, but every time I hear another account of it, or see a video of it (anywhere) I feel ill. I take your point about collective opinions of any group, but the fact is we all have collective opinions of many groups in society. It’s a useful thing we automatically do. We know they are stereotypes and we know there are exceptions. The question in this case is whether cops are basically good and the bad ones are exceptions, or vice versa. (For the record, I sincerely hope that they’re still basically good.)
Gillian, I think I saw the rumbling tanks during the ice storm, and it made my blood run cold!
Amy, thank you for taking the time to read and comment. If you’re still around, would you mind estimating for me what percentage of cops you think are basically good? You have a unique vantage point, and I’d love to know your thoughts on this. Thank you.
RG, yes, you’re right, it was the paramedics. It was such a grey day and the paramedics and Mounties added some much needed colour.
My best friend’s dad was a cop in the small town I grew up in (as a member of that town’s police force and not an OPP or RCMP). He’s retired now but I will always respect cops because of that. To the one, everyone of the constables on that force at that time (a total of 8 at the time, I believe they are up to 12 officers now) were hard working and dedicated, though I fully admit the power tripping one can do in a small town is both lesser but at the same time can be greater than a city like Ottawa. There is less anonymity in a small town, so in the time before the internet and digital cameras and youtube, you very much had to be on your best behaviour as a cop as you could very quickly lose the respect (and your authority) of the community through word of mouth alone. On the other hand, as only one of a few, you had that much more possible authority over the town as a whole. In the end, I think the town was better off because it attracted mostly older officers with families of their own, vs. the younger officers, who (through no statistical evidence mind you) I think are more apt to abuse their power (chalk it up to youthful zest, inexperience, whatever). That’s why the death of Officer Czapnik is all the more heartbreaking. Police work was a second career for him, plus he was a family man, just given those facts alone I can almost guarantee he was not the type of person who would abuse their position. Ottawa definitely lost one of their better cops. RIP Officer Eric Czapnik.
Zoom – Fourteen
– RG>
Thanks Grouchy. I was only counting the six who died as a result of violence. (The other eight died of things like car accidents and motorcycle accidents.)
That makes sense. I originally read it as “in all of Canada” and thought you were a bit bonkers, until I read it again. 😉
– RG>
Boing Boing: Orson Welles on privacy, prescient remarks from 1955
“I’m willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job, but it’s the essence of our society that the policeman’s job should be hard. He’s there to protect, protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals, that’s an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman that the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal …”
4000 cops. Hotels, food, travel. Let’s say 1.2 million at least.
What a criminal waste of resources.
“Larry King” – most of those officers paid their own way.
I’m not into hero worship or cop worship either, but at least base your criticisms on fact. Don’t just blindly criticize everything every public servant does–on and off duty–simply because their wages are paid from tax dollars.
– RG>