According to an article that I just found laying around on AZCentral.com the police are hitting the bricks again along my favorite haunt, Mill Avenue. The article starts out extremely well, in my vision, issuing notes about extremely useful things that having officers on foot patrol does for the population. Anyone who has watched police officers ride past on their bicycles, noses in the air.
This is not a bad thing.
The police are our civilian warders, although many place themselves and act like a sort of paramilitary and literally look down on the civilians whom they are dutybound to protect this is a sociological problem that is created by the cliques of the profession and I might mention is felt rather palpably by a great deal of people who live on the Ave. The more people lend to disconnect them from the goings-on of the street the worse this behavior can only become. Bringing them back into the fold should help build a bit more tolerance on both sides.
For the most part police officers on patrol and denizens of the street don't scrape against one another--transients, Mill rats, tourists, college students, none of these groups have any reason to tangle with the police. But, when people come together there are always those times when friction becomes fire. These times are when it is best that our warders are aware of and sensitive to all the cultural innuendo that drenches the Ave and don't end up inflicting more injury when they attempt to help out.
So, I say to people. See a police officer walking the beat on our red bricks and say, "Hello." Make sure that they know they're welcome. Get to know them. They may be in uniforms, they may have guns, but they're people just like we are.
If the Ave is going to be a worthwhile place for all of us we must embrace all comers -- especially our civil protectors.
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