By Ben Brafman, Esq.
As someone who has spent almost 40 years as a criminal-defense lawyer cross-examining police officers, I can tell you that not all of them always do their jobs perfectly. As in all professions, there are a handful of men and women in uniform who should not be. On balance, however, the overwhelming majority of police officers are honest, hardworking men and women who perform their increasingly dangerous jobs very well under difficult conditions; they deserve our very strong support. As a scholar for whom I have great respect once observed, those who are so quick to criticize the police cannot possibly imagine life without a police force.
In recent weeks, more and more heroic officers have been brutally murdered while doing their jobs. It has become almost commonplace to read about targeted “assassinations” of police officers in cities throughout the country. These officers are not being killed in the heat of battle while coming to the aid of a crime victim or in a struggle with a suspect being taken into custody, but rather in orchestrated and well-planned executions. Being injured or killed in the line of duty, while tragic, is a risk inherent in normal policing. What is happening today, however, is not normal and should be as terrifying to private citizens as it must be to the officers themselves and the families they kiss goodbye each day when they leave the safety of their homes to serve and protect our community.
Unfortunately, we do not always pay attention to the daily heroism of our police or the risks inherent in their jobs—unless their workday ends in tragedy.
Several weeks ago, as the murders of police officers mounted, I began giving police officers navy blue T‑shirts emblazoned in bold white capital letters with the words “Blue Lives Matter.” I ordered hundreds, and I am left with only a handful, mostly in smaller sizes. Even the trim and fit officers need larger sizes, as they promised to wear the shirts over their bulletproof body armor even when off duty; I could not live with myself if my shirts attracted the same savages drawn to the uniformed officers they target.
The Blue Lives Matter shirts are not a response to the Black Lives Matter shirts worn by those who protest the death of too many unarmed people of color at the hands of police officers who may not have been legally justified in the use of lethal force in certain of these tragedies that have gained so much public attention. It is not and never was my intention to start a “war of shirts.” I simply wanted to remind all of us that the uniformed men and women murdered in Dallas recently were on duty protecting protesters, many of whom were wearing Black Lives Matter shirts.
That fact cannot be lost on a nation that has in recent weeks seen so much violence specifically directed at our police officers in cities across the country.
To be honest, I thought about printing shirts that read “All Lives Matter,” as they obviously do. But not all “lives” are sworn to protect the lives of others. In our city and town, only the blue lives take that oath.