Nervous at the Sight of Black Robes, Blue Uniforms

I come in search of assurance.

Maybe it’s needless worry on my part, but a nagging little voice inside my head is muttering as I reread recent newspaper articles from The Times’ files:

* In the latest ruling broadening the powers of police, the Supreme Court upheld the mass search of passengers and their belongings on buses and trains as long as officers receive a traveler’s consent before inspecting his bags.

* The Supreme Court gave police more leeway in questioning a crime suspect without a lawyer being present.

* The Supreme Court gave police more leeway to chase suspects on the street, even when they lack evidence that a crime has been committed.

* The Supreme Court knocked down one of the pillars of constitutional law--that a coerced confession never can be used against an accused person in court.

I fully realize that many people are probably doing cartwheels over those same stories. One person’s breath of fresh air is another’s ill wind.

It’s not me I’m worried about. I’ve never committed a crime (other than journalistic), and I don’t plan to. I don’t ever plan to be in a police interrogation room or be chased down the street by a cop or have my house, car or person be subjected to search or seizure.

I support my local police, and I love good cops.

So, what am I worried about?

I guess it’s the vision dancing in the recesses of my brain about cops clobbering confessions out of people, of police unleashing dogs and clubs against demonstrators, of police storming into homes and worrying about the warrants later. Of, dare i invoke the name, Rodney King.

The Supreme Court in the last generation or so worried about that too. The justices saw wrongs that local police departments wouldn’t correct, so they corrected them.

Now, the pendulum is turning back in favor of the cops.

I just want a little assurance that, this time around, they are deserving of their renewed power.

“Police have been made much more aware in the last 10 years that their actions can result in bad law,� said Santa Ana Police Sgt. Don Blankenship, a 19-year veteran, including 14 on the street.

“So, I don’t think you’re going see a swing back to what we had 20 or 40 years ago. By no means will that happen. The courts now just seem to me to be applying a reasonable standard. . . . I don’t think you’re going to see things going in the direction that now cops have a free hand to do whatever they see fit.�

As long as I can remember, police have been arguing that the Supreme Court was handcuffing them and tilting the balance in favor of the criminal. That’s one part of the complicated equation that has resulted in some cops feeling that it’s Us Against Them.

To stretch the point, the Rehnquist court is giving them back their badges. And with the imminent retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall, a liberal stalwart, the prospect looms of President Bush appointing another law-and-order conservative.

Assure me some more, sergeant.

“I’ve seen it tighten up, statewide and departmentwide, as to having more control over disciplinary matters and things like that,� Blankenship said. “It’s hard to get a rogue cop right now--someone who was known to go out and beat people up. In the past, maybe, where he was one of the good old boys, he was a beer-drinking buddy and whatnot. There’s no way a person like that will be kept around today, because everyone is going to get sued. The person who signed his evaluation is going to get sued, the city is going to get sued, and they’re paying out horrendous bucks on these decisions.�

Today’s training and internal control are also more effective, Blankenship said, talking about police departments in general. “They may have thought they had internal control built in (in years past), but did they? No. My guess is they didn’t.

“But they’ve drastically changed in their ways of doing it. It’s more of a business. You don’t throw a new officer a set of keys and say, ‘Here’s your badge and gun; go out and answer calls.’ �

In a separate interview, Irvine Police Department watch commander Bob Lennert, a 28-year veteran, virtually echoed Blankenship.

“I don’t think any of us, or very few of us, would want it to go too far the other way now. We’d like a happy medium,� he said.

Are you serious? I asked.

“I’m saying that seriously. I think most of us hired on and started our career wanting to do good things, wanting to help people,� Lennert said.

Besides, he said, the court is merely reflecting the public’s wishes.

“We’re not the ones who changed it. We could have yelled all day long about how far the courts had gone, but that would not make a difference. It was the public’s perception that things went too far the other way.�

On paper, it’s all very reassuring.

Let’s hope it plays out the same way on the streets.

In the meantime, what, me worry?