The challenge of protecting the freedom of expression of some while at the same time protecting the rights of others to carry out their daily lives can be quite challenging, especially when the tasks fall into the hands of persons who perceive “rights” not applicable to the rest of us, and who are often lean in the areas of leadership and decisiveness. Such persons, while academically strong are often very poor stewards of the public’s most cherished assets – our colleges and universities. Decades of experience in dealing with every imaginable form of civil disturbance, both as an undercover operative on the inside an as a police supervisor on the outside, suggest that my observations and perspectives in the area of campus activism and unrest may be of value to today’s police personnel. If scar tissue translates into wisdom, the information contained in this article may be helpful to law enforcement officers at all levels and agencies of all sizes. The vast majority of this information is timeless.
My Background
A brief description of a portion of my background is pertinent to this discussion, as I spent approximately two years deep undercover in various organizations whose primary mission was the creation of chaos and disruption, primarily on college and university campuses throughout the nation. The lessons that I learned are just as applicable today as they were during my experiences. Beyond my undercover assignment, I have a great deal of experience in the management and leadership of civil disobedience enforcement and deployment at all levels from supervisory to executive.
The police chief in Los Angeles in 1968, in response to massive anti-war demonstrations taking place not only in Los Angeles but throughout the nation created the Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID). It was his vision and decision that PDID would have deep undercover operatives who would infiltrate any organization throughout the nation whose actions were likely to have an adverse impact on the City of Los Angeles! It is most significant to recognize that the late 1960s were a much different era; with investigative procedures, legal restrictions, and social expectations. While the logical agency to conduct those types of investigations was the FBI, at that time the primary source of this type of intelligence information was generated by local law enforcement. Ultimately, I became the first of several long-haired solo police officers who with no badge, no weapon and false identification infiltrated various organizations. Some of these organizations were benign and others deadly (as in bombings and sabotage of public building and military facilities). I travelled throughout the nation in junk cars, often working “24/7” (before FSLA!), never going to a police facility. I got my pay in cash from a fast food restaurant where the owner was a retired cop. Cities where I was deeply embedded in various types of disorder (careful to never to be the person in charge) included: New York, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Austin, San Francisco, San Diego and certainly the Greater Los Angeles Area. In relation to recent events, I was a member of a radical organization of alleged students (Students for a Democratic Society) which seized and for approximately one week occupied the Student Union at UCLA in 1969! These experiences provided me with rare opportunities in seeing campus disruptions from the inside looking out. MY LAPD JOURNEY From Street Cop toCommander. Keith Bushey, pp 96-137 (Amazon).
Consequence is the Key
I find it unfathomable that grown and professional persons fail to acknowledge the human reality of consequence in just about everything we do! In the case of civil unrest; the issue of consequence is the key to behaviors and compliance; criminal behavior will typically cease only when a demand is met (or portion), or handcuffs are applied. As indecisiveness and handwringing occurs, the problems just get bigger and more difficult to address!
Limits of Freedom of Speech and Expression
When the actions of one person have a significant adverse impact on another person – the limit line has been found. Occupying the space of others, defacing property, causing the closure of facilities and related behaviors fall far outside the individual rights of any individual. Further elaboration can be provided by law-abiding citizens, legitimate students and their parents and the tax or tuition payers of the institution.
Neutrality – Police Must Not Take Side (Covert or Overt!)
Both in deed and in spirit, law enforcement personnel MUST be neural and unbiased! There will always be allegations of favoritism, and officers must avoid any comments or behaviors that would contribute to such impressions. As perceptions of bias or favoritism go up, credibility goes down, which in turn can detract from overall effectiveness.
Nature of Campus Administration Leadership
The key factor in any discussion of campus unrest is the skillset and mindset of campus administration. Time and again, I have watched great people with superb intentions fail miserably in the handling of campus unrest. Realistically, higher education administrators are not trained in the handling of civil unrest, and exist in an environment that emphasizes collaboration, philosophical discussions, theoretical approaches and conversational explorations. While terribly unfair and certainly not applicable to all high-level educational administrators, a colleague once made a comment during a campus unrest debacle that has just enough validity to merit mention: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And, those who can’t teach, teach teachers!” Time and again I’ve witnessed behaviors by educational administrators that caused me to wonder if they had ever had experience in the real world. This mindset can result in the type of insular behavior and paralysis that contributes to confusion and conflicting messages in dealing with the world outside of academia.
Nature of Demonstrator-Unrest Leadership
Things are seldom as they appear and there are most often multiple and concealed special agendas which contribute to an incident of campus unrest. Generally, the participants consist of a hard core with deep and passionate convictions regarding the key issue; a second group that is generally in sync with the key or related issue; persons with other issues or priorities who see the opportunity to use the event to further their goals; weak and superficial individuals who seize the opportunity to participate in a warped social event; and, criminals who have a passion for anarchy. The lines separating these categories are not hard and fast, and there is most often some degree of overlap.
Illusion of Legitimate Presence
In over a score of serious campus unrest situations, there were ALWAYS outside agitators and participants; I know because many were members of groups that I had infiltrated. In the late 1960s arena of subversive and un-American activities, there were often multiple subversive organizations competing with one another for the key role in the same disruption, and all with their own cadre of shallow-minded followers. The stated goal for their presence was always secondary to the underlying special interests and the desire for excitement and disruption. While I cannot say that it never occurred, I am not aware of any seriously dissident student who was also diligent student!
Role of Immaturity
An absolutely reality that is helpful and interesting to be aware of in dealing with input and demand from demonstrators (note I said demonstrators instead of students, because of the high numbers of non-student participants). Many sit-down dialog discussions are conducted with immature and disruptive marginal students (if students at all) who typically lack the knowledge to carry on a reasonable discussion about the topics of their demands, and who within a few short years will no longer even be on the campus whose destiny they are trying to influence (dis-investments, modified academic programs, etc.). As I look back on decades of campus demonstration leaders, I am hard-pressed to think of many — in my subjective evaluation — who developed into men or women of substance; many morphed into normal and productive citizens (even a few conservatives!).
Discussions with Demonstrator-Unrest Leadership
There should always be an attempt to engage in discussions intended to prevent unlawful activities, but it is important to recognize that campus unrest history makes clear the likely futility of dialog. First, in highly contentious issues there is a desire to chaos and violence; they typically want violence and publicity. Secondly, there is often no center of gravity among the participants and finally, there are sometimes unseen agitators deep in the crowd with goals and intentions that are not going to be satisfied through dialog. A common pattern is a dialog session between campus administration, law enforcement and a leader from the crowd – all while the crowd participants continue to grow in numbers. Then when the meeting fails, the group is larger and more difficult to contain. Dialog is always a necessary step in the process, but don’t waste too much time in pursuit of this impossible dream! Finally, beyond very minor issues, just what authority does a campus administrator have to broker issues of significance!
Law Enforcement Visibility
For the purposes of full disclosure, not all of my colleagues agree with me but since this is my article, I choose to share my thoughts! In my early years, I favored a strong and conspicuous show of force to keep issues from developing. I now (generally) favor a minimal and low-key initial presence by officers, but with a robust concealed force close by and ready to respond on a moment’s notice. Although never intentionally, I have witnessed a number of situations where the heavy initial presence of tactically equipped officers played a roll in the escalation of civil unrest. While each situation is different, if the circumstances appear to potentially tolerate a low-keyed strategy, my preference is the casual approach and positive dialog by a couple of friendly officers who are seeking a non-confrontational resolution. I am sure we can all think of officers who would be very good and a few not so good for this type of strategy.
ARREST ACTIVITIES
Many fine people have written extensively (me too!) on the subject of unusual occurrence management. While this article is not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of that topic, I would like to take the opportunity to throw out a few reminders of Unusual Control hints related to my scar tissue:
Have a clear understanding with the local prosecutor and the school administration as to the purpose of the arrests; hopefully to restore order, prevent further damage and unrest, and seek prosecution. Work out the necessary procedures if there is a desire for continued detention to prevent the arrestees from returning to the incident location.
Train your people in UO and mass arrest procedures. If that has not occurred, give them a crash course in an empty parking lot a short distance away from the location to which you are responding. Every moment of preparation is time well spent.
Create and maintain squad and platoon discipline, with a clear understanding of supervisors and their subordinates. Recognize the likelihood of a deafening noise level and the possible need for hand and arm signals among people. Hopefully everyone will have an earphone-microphone.
Recognize the value of the conspicuous approach of jail buses. While this alone may not resolve the unrest, be assured that some participants who don’t want to be arrested will leave. Conspicuously setting up booking processing tables will also motivate an additional percentage to leave.
Place the Incident Commander on an elevated location where all that is occurring can be seen real time, and immediate tactical guidance can be communicated to the tactical leadership. Be sensitive to a location where people can get into and out of the command-observation post without having to interact with troublesome participants If command is to be effective, the tactical commander must have eyes on the situation and continuous communications with the tactical leadership.
In addition, to body-worn cameras, deploy and give specific instruction to video teams. Link video teams to specific arrest teams to ensure that the unrest leadership and most problematic participants are targeted for coordinated
videotaped arrests. There is no such thing as too much video. Work hard to capture quality images that depict detailed facial features and illegal behaviors. There are ALWAYS post-event difficulties in matching and identifying specific suspects with specific behaviors. If manpower permits, put a video team on likely exit routes in an attempt to get facial shots and license plate number from those who wore disguises and link suspects with vehicles. Don’t leave video decisions to the videographer; leadership needs to be involved in selecting photo targets.
Recognize the likelihood that you will not likely be able to arrest all of the lawbreakers but do a solid job of those you are able to arrest.
With the hopeful assistance of an intelligence officer(s) in the crowd, target the key lawbreaker, snatch them out of the crowd and remove them from the scene. Handcuffed law breakers are often portrayed as martyrs; get them out of the area ASAP.
Keep all personnel on a short leash and in constant communications at the staging and assembly areas. There may be need for an immediate response, and having to go in search of personnel, especially a supervisor, is very problematic.
Use a rapid arrest process that includes a photo of each arrestee with the arresting officer, facilitate the prompt return of the officers to the incident site.
This phase of unusual occurrence operations can often be a chokepoint.
In the arrest of faculty members, be particularly diligent to accurately record all actions and behaviors, to hopefully include video footage. In the unlikely case of faculty termination or if tenure may be jeopardized, this information will be critical. The removal of tenure is a big battle, and seldom waged by university administrators. They grew up under a tenure system and would experience brutal faculty strife should they attempt to remove it from a professor who participated in any troublesome unrest, short of murder (maybe)! Still, don’t be the excuse people may use for not attempting legal or administrative action against faculty.
Ensure that a real-time log is kept of all actions and decisions. Its existence and accuracy will be essential for all reporting; it will be an invaluable document in just about all reports. In cases of litigation, you will see it often in both direct and cross examination. A sure-fire method to get a high-quality log is to tell the reporter that he or she will be writing the after-action report!
Summary
There is no topic for me that is more applicable than my often-used expression: “It is always good to learn from our mistakes, but it is even better to learn from the mistakes of others!” I have made a number of mistakes and learned some pretty painful lessons in the management of unusual occurrences, including many on college and university campuses. I hope that those who follow me in the leadership trenches will read and take seriously the information contained in this article. If so, my scar tissue will not have been gained in vein.SI
Keith Bushey retired from the Los Angeles Police Department as a commander, from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department as a deputy chief, and from the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a colonel. Other law enforcement experience includes having served as a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, a State of California deputy game warden, and as the Marshal of San Bernardino County. He is an instructor emeritus for the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association and has lectured and written extensively in the areas of leadership, management and ethics. His entire eight booklet Leadership Series is in the public domain and may be downloaded without cost from KeithBushey.com.
June 2024