Walking, not driving, the beat, exposed as the cop with a face, and personality, is still the best way to communicate, and do good law enforcement. It was notable that with the advent of cops in “cruisers” started to divide the cops from the citizenry, years ago. All the hiding of the person in the uniform just made the divide worse.
Even in “riot control” or demonstrations, when the folks in the crowd can see that the “enforcer” is another human being, it’s much LESS likely to foment violence. From my day, an example was the photo of the gal putting a flower in the barrel of an M14 at a peace rally decades ago. It made BOTH sides “human”.
Walking, not driving, the beat, exposed as the cop with a face, and personality, is still the best way to communicate, and do good law enforcement. It was notable that with the advent of cops in “cruisers” started to divide the cops from the citizenry, years ago. All the hiding of the person in the uniform just made the divide worse.
Even in “riot control” or demonstrations, when the folks in the crowd can see that the “enforcer” is another human being, it’s much LESS likely to foment violence. From my day, an example was the photo of the gal putting a flower in the barrel of an M14 at a peace rally decades ago. It made BOTH sides “human”.