I would like to create a word to describe a type of person I saw throughout my career that still exists today in cities, towns and villages across the nation. That word is cophateist. This is a category of people who, at their best, create difficulties for law enforcement and, at their worst, pose a deadly threat to officers in this country.
Cophateist
A cophateist, for our purposes, is a person who possesses an unreasonable hatred of law enforcement officers. The cophateist has all the same traits as the hateful racist, except their hatred is directed specifically toward police officers. All cophateists practice cophateism, but not all people who practice cophateism are cophateists.
Cophateism
Cophateism arises from non-fact-based hateful beliefs expressed in words and actions directed at all law enforcement officers. Cophateism attacks are dehumanizing shotgun attacks that target the entire profession of law enforcement.
Police officers who worked during the 1960s and 1970s not only faced cophateism on a daily basis, they also were at times targeted by the bombs and bullets of cophateist radicals.
People engage in cophateism when they speak as if police officers as a group are unintelligent, racist or hungry for violence. Cophateists turn these beliefs into behaviors that negatively impact good police officers. Some of these behaviors are:
- Shouting derogatory words at a passing squad car, or at a group of police officers, working an event.
- Engaging in a hateful chant directed at police during a demonstration.
- Editing use of force videos and stories to fit their own negative narrative about police.
- Assuming arrest statistics reflect the racism of all police, while deliberately ignoring the fully adjudicated crimes of those arrested.
- Engaging in an anti-police demonstration after a police use of force before any of the facts of the case are known.
- Posting a justified use of force incident by a police officer in the social media and listing it as police brutality.
- Shouting encouragement to a resisting suspect, or even obstructing police officers in the performance of their duties.
Cophateism is similar to racism in that it causes people without any justification to condemn police officers and their actions. However, unlike racism, there will never be a public outcry against it.
The Cophateist
People who partake in cophateism are not always cophateists. The cophateist is someone who truly nurtures a dangerous hatred for the police. Cophateists are people like:
- Maurice Clemmons who killed the “Lakewood four.”
- Christopher Dorner from Los Angeles.
- Ishmaaiyl Abudullah Brinsley who deliberately crept up on NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu and executed them.
- Micah Xavier Johnson who killed five officers in Dallas.
Not all cophateists commit crimes of violence. They may just show up to spew their hatred at potentially violent scenes endangering the officers present who are attempting to restore peace. Others take to social media where they find like-minded individuals to share their rants. The ranks of anarchist organizations are filled with cophateists. Some cophateists are public speakers who stand at podiums and with the turn of a phrase can leave burning cities in their wake.
What Can Police Officers Do About Cophateists?
In-your-face-cophateism is on display these days. Sometimes it is just plain freedom of speech, which police officers are sworn to protect. In the face of such legal cophateism it is imperative that you:
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Always be on heightened alert. Crowds engaging in legal cophateism are occupied by some dangerous haters.
- Never reflect their anger. Be the professional. Professionalism is the strikingly laudable contrast to the obnoxious vulgarity of cophateism.
- Make arrests only when necessary on charges you know will stand. You definitely do not want to lose a case against a cophateist.
- Proceed with extreme caution in all environments occupied by haters. Hate is a cold-stone-red-flag-danger-sign. People who hate you may hurt you.
Police officers are at a disadvantage with the cophateists because they can strike without warning. Therefore, always be in condition yellow. Sharpen your police survival skills on a daily basis to prepare for a chance meeting with the cophateist on the day the hater decides words are not enough.
Conclusion
You can personally deflect cophateism by remembering you love what you are doing, and this is one of the unique aspects of your chosen profession. Always remember that the vast majority of people you protect (85% according to a recent poll) quietly appreciate you.
Policing in America is a truly honorable profession and it takes a person like you to do it, especially today. Follow the example of the officers in the 1970s who, when the cophateists called them pigs, just smiled knowing that “P.I.G.” stands for “pride, integrity and guts,” which officers then and now possess in abundance.
So, carry on brothers and sister, because you are all good people fighting the good fight.
