There it is in news photos and a YouTube video -- police on the streets of Fairbanks in a very military looking armored vehicle dealing with a suicidal citizen holed up in a car. Lt. Eric Jewkes, who led the tactical response team, was quoted as saying, "He wanted us to shoot him. That was part of his goal for an extended period of time. I think maybe we finally convinced him that that's not where we wanted to go, and he wasn't going to get us there."
The profession knows this as "suicide by cop." It's where a person forces the police to use deadly force as the means to end their own life. Instead, the Fairbanks armored vehicle -- the likes of which have come under so much scrutiny and criticism as icons of a run-away militarized police state -- is what enabled police to respond and not have to use deadly force.
These armored vehicles are designed to withstand gun fire -- even from AK 47 assault rifles. The Stockton (California) Police Department's armored vehicle withstood a hail of AK-47 gunfire from three armed bank robbers during an intense gun battle.
In the Fairbanks incident, if the suicidal citizen (who did get out of his car during the episode) had exited and waved a firearm at police, they wouldn't have to shoot him -- assuming there were no innocent bystanders in the line of the citizen's fire. Short of a weapon that could penetrate the armored vehicle, there was nothing the suicidal citizen could do to force the police to end his life.
Moreover, the armored vehicle enabled police to approach the car and break out windows which opened up the possibility of a non-deadly tear gas alternative response.
It's constructive and even dutiful for police and the public to question the militarization of civilian law enforcement. In the words of Sir Robert Peele, considered the father of modern policing:
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions. But criticizing police equipment as being too military is like blaming gun manufacturers for how criminals use them.
It's the mindset of the police we should be concerned about. There may be a debatable issue about whether segments of the police profession have ventured from Peele's principles to a more militarized mindset.
From everything I've seen and read we should all be grateful and proud of the mindset of the responding officers in Fairbanks. They used equipment that significantly reduced the possibility they would have to use deadly force against a suicidal citizen. They exercised patient restraint and negotiated for 10 hours to bring the incident to a safe resolution.
This citizen wants police with the mindset shown in Fairbanks to have every available tool and equipment to keep themselves and others safe when they willingly go in harm's way to protect and serve.
Val Van Brocklin is a former state and federal prosecutor in Alaska who now trains and writes for law enforcement nationwide. She lives in Anchorage.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com