163: Can You Fight City Hall…If You Are City Hall?
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Monica Child's worked her way up on the police force in Detroit from patrol to the Vice Squad to homicide. She was part of an elite team of investigators. But why'd she become a police officer? I became the police because I didn't like the police. I didn't like, well, during the time I grew up, you know, the police officers I always saw in my community were always male and white. Every six feet tall, it was rare that a police officer talked to you like you were a human being. Everything was always confrontational, and I always saw police officers as the biggest gang in town. It's just a gang. A band of hootlers with badges. And, you know, I always wondered, do they go around recruiting them like this or putting ants in the paper, that you must have a bad attitude and misuse and abuse the citizens? Where did these people come from, you know? So I thought, well, okay, all police officers aren't bad. It's got to be sound good when somewhere. And so she joined the force to try to change the system from inside. And on the job, she saw how police get to be the way they are, how police band together. When they make mistakes, they never admit it, she says. They cover up each other's mistakes. Almost from the time they come onto the force. These people would come on with their own ideas and opinions, and then they would adapt these other people's attitudes. Everybody became one like a marriage, because police organizations reward people for what? They reward everybody for being the same. If you're different, you're ostracized, or you have problems. Banding together's nothing wrong with banding together. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's not the problem. The problem is when you band together and you are acting concert to lie, perpetuate a scenario that didn't happen. That's where the problem lies. And you got that one little meek person that don't want to go along, but goes along because, you know, we all put together, we got to stick together, it's us against them. We also hear that. Gives us against them, and that them that you refer to us against them. I like those people out there. I like the public at large. So, whenever Monica Childs started on a new job at The Force, she would get everybody know how she felt about things. And it was always interesting because I tell them it's history. I don't lie and cover up for anybody. Whatever you do, if it's wrong and I'm asking about it, I will tell. I'm not covering for you. I'm never going to lie for you. I won't even say I didn't see it or I didn't hear. But I don't want you to lie for me and I don't want you to cover up for me either. And that approach worked for Monica Childs for years. Until finally, in 1996, it stopped working, and her life as a cop became very difficult. Today on our program, Can You Fight City Hall? If you are City Hall? We bring you two stories. Each about somebody trying to change the system from within, trying to be principled while working in government. This is, of course, the July 4th holiday weekend. And it's a holiday about a moment of idealism that created the American government. Our show today is about what happens to people trying to sustain that kind of idealism today. In each story, public-minded public servants end up fighting their colleagues. It takes a toll on their lives. They get harassed. They lose their jobs. Fact one, take that copper, which an honest cop tries to do the right thing. And a suspected murderer walks free as a result.
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