When choosing your home, realtors will be the first to tout, location. And this is, most likely the primary concern. We look for a home someplace we’d like to live that is convenient enough to where we will work or that serves other needs of the family. Schools, shopping, safety, quality of life, these are the concerns that dominate the decision-making process. This is how we choose.
These qualities are valuable to our sanity, sure, and that value is reflected in the pricing of a home. Rather than a home next to a factory, rail yard or an airport, these choice locations, simply put, cost more. A lot more.
An so, there are building restrictions, zoning ordinances and laws in place to protect and sustain the quality of life in our neighborhoods. After all, this is what defines the vitality and the livability of our cities, towns and counties.
But who protects these laws, ordinances and the value of our homes from the police? It is my experience that the Police seem to be exempt from operating within the law and act with impunity to ruin the quality of life in my neighborhood.
I routinely observe Police vehicles being driven at speeds over the posted limit, turning without signaling, parking wherever they please with headlights into oncoming traffic, and not in any emergency capacity that is signaled with emergency lights and or sirens. Just in the regular course of driving around. If you haven’t experienced this on a regular basis you are probably losing interest right now in what I have to say. I’m betting the majority of you are still with me.
I am a retired firefighter, the son of a career Police Officer. And as a child, I remember chiding my father for not taking full advantage of being a cop. “Dad” I would say, “You could drive fast if you wanted and run red lights because you could get away with it... You’re (as though he needed to be reminded of it) a cop!”
This would prompt the lecture that would try to impress upon me his need to be extra careful, extra courteous, and most certainly to abide by the laws. “Because” he would explain, “if I don’t respect the law and the people laws are designed to protect, how can I ever expect others to respect the laws or my authority to enforce them? No one, especially a Police Officer, is above the law.” He did impress this upon me. And not so much by that which he said as by the example he lived.
As a firefighter, all our training relative to emergency driving revolved around our primary concern, safety. This is what defines firefighting. Saving Lives and Property. It is our mantra. What else were we doing if not this? It was primary in every faucet of our service. So driving at all times, and in emergencies especially, was to be governed by this primary objective. Controlling a squad car is one thing, a 30,000 pound Fire Engine is another. Especially in urban areas, neighborhoods of homes and children, you had to drive with the ultimate consideration of being able to control the vehicle and protect lives. You had to anticipate the unexpected, the need to stop. When the lights flash and the sirens wail it is all to easy to get caught-up in the “adrenalin go” and forget about the stopping part. And when other drivers hear an approaching siren, they get agitated and often react unexpectedly. This is just a fact. But we were trained and re-trained on how to deal with it, on how to control ourselves.
When I first arrived in LA I was amazed at the speeds I witnessed Police vehicles attain through shopping areas, residential streets and main thoroughfares such as Le Brea. I literally watched, mouth open and jaw dropped ,at the reckless nature of their response. And I’ve seen a lot.
Since then, I am constantly amazed by the lack of respect for safety and the laws I’ve observed in other, non emergency situations as well. Continually.
So why should I expect any more relative to the operation of Police Helicopters? Are there no protections for those of us on the ground from these? The frequency and rate of utilization relative to which calls warrant a helicopter seems only to be increasing. At an (pun intended) alarming rate. Daily I am disturbed by several low, noisy passes of Police Helicopters. No, I am not located in the vicinity of a Police Station or Airport. Which brings us to the location perspective. I purposely did not look for a home near an airport. I did not want to be subject to the noise or threat of death raining down from above when aircraft fail. No matter. Several times each day I get the disruption anyway. My question is, why?
Why is it necessary? Why are all the laws and protections designed to preserve my safety and quality of life thrown out the window relative to the Police Department’s operation of these aircraft?
Do they operate under any minimum height flying restrictions? Have they ever heard of a muffler? Do they even care that aggressive flying maneuvers and tight turns create more noise, thunderous noise, teeth rattling noise? And do they realize that when (and it is a matter of when) one of these fail over residential areas that they tend to “land” very hard and with catastrophic results? Is there a need that justifies the way helicopters are operated by the Police Department?
Now’s the time to run the crime statistics and decry any question of Police tactics in this day and age. But the statistics do not justify police helicopters. They don’t justify the cost, the dangers and the loss of quality of life that it takes. Obviously the Police feel the trade-offs are acceptable. What should it matter what you and I think.
Case in Point. I am awakened suddenly from a deep sleep around midnight. My bedroom is awash in a bright blue-white light akin to something I’ve only seen in a science fiction movie. If it were not for the deafening BAP, BAP, BAP of the rotor noise, I might assume I was about to be visited by god. But little did I know then, I was in for a night of hell.
This helicopter circled relentlessly again and again over a home 3 blocks away and down the hill from my home which sits on the top of that hill. I don’t know what height it was that the helicopter circled above the surveillance subject home, but as it passed by and over my home, it was very, very close. This went on for an hour until my wife and I ventured to hope that it would have to run low on fuel sooner or later and then, at least, leave. Before it did, it was joined by another. Some time later we hear the ultimatum issued over the blaring loudspeaker “You have one minute to lay down your weapons and come out” Finally, this will be over. Called their bluff. An hour later, still circling.
So early the next morning I got on the computer to Google the News and see what could have been so important, so relative to law and public safety that it required two helicopters and hours of flight time and reckless endangerment and disturbing of the public peace. Search as I may, I couldn’t find any report of any story or incident in my neighborhood. What I did find was an article detailing that Los Angeles County was taking delivery of 14 new helicopters.
And so it continues. Worse than ever, more frequently than ever. News and traffic helicopters have been a part of daily life for decades. They get great close-up images of car chases and suspect arrests and they do it relatively quietly, from much higher altitudes with much less aggressive and disturbing flying tactics. I’ve never had occasion to mind their activities or the way they operate. But then again, they have laws and regulations to govern their operation. I feel some days like I am in a war zone in my own home and maybe the Police will insist that we are. I don’t see it. I don’t fear crime, I fear the Police. I fear I will be run over or crashed into from the land and or sky by vehicles paid for with my own tax dollars that are increasingly posing a threat to public safety and welfare and seem, for all intents and purpose, to be operated outside and above the law. But what should it matter what I think or feel? I am just a citizen. |
