the thin blue line

[8] The phrase is also documented in a 1965 pamphlet by the Massachusetts government, referring to its state police force, and in even earlier police reports of the NYPD. She won the Gerald Loeb Award for reporting on a Texas company's history of deadly natural gas explosions and is a past Pulitzer finalist for her work exposing flaws in Oklahoma's execution process. “It’s a flag to show support for law enforcement—no politics involved.” The company officially disavowed its use in Charlottesville. 2019 Ride for the Fallen, Austin TX. Social media allows for endless remixing, and the offerings now appear infinite. He said some immigrants were “not far removed from the wild tribes of Mexico” and compared black residents participating in the Watts Riots—which stemmed in part from anger over his own department’s mistreatment—to “monkeys in a zoo.”. The judge admitted to being deeply moved by the prosecutor's words, though the trial resulted in a wrongful conviction and death sentence. But how did this flag come to be so pervasive? Roman said the ban on public displays of “Thin Blue Line” imagery includes flags, pins, bracelets, notebooks, coffee mugs and other items. Dallas Police Sgt. KOKOMO, Ind. Smithtown Fire Department officials this month replaced a thin blue line flag flown on a department vehicle with an American flag, a move that follows orders by police chiefs elsewhere in the nation t [2][5], It is unknown when the term was first used to refer to police. “In a way, it's as offensive as putting a Confederate flag on a government building.”, Although the flag’s manufacturers have tried to keep politics away from the flag, the current protests over the death of George Floyd have thrust the image into larger debates. Parker used the phrase ‘thin blue line’ constantly in his speeches. And what does it really stand for? Stephen Bishopp has a doctorate and has studied police stress, use of force and officer misconduct. She has also noticed the flag's image on police and other government-owned vehicles, and she sees this as evidence that even self-described liberal officials are not doing enough to combat white supremacy. [6] Parker used the term "thin blue line" to further reinforce the role of the LAPD. [3] In the 1950s, Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Parker often used the term in speeches, and he also lent the phrase to the department-produced television show The Thin Blue Line. I am proud of what I do, the people I work with, and the ones who have died defending the rights of strangers. New York police commissioner Richard Enright used the phrase in 1922. The term is derived from the Thin Red Line, a formation of the 93rd Highland Regiment of Foot of the British Army at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, in which the Scottish Highlanders stood their ground against a Russian cavalry charge. But that usage caught on in 1922, after New York police commissioner Richard Enright, facing criticism of his leadership, mentioned it in a public relations effort. County officials in Oregon recently paid $100,000 to a black employee of a law enforcement agency there, after she said she was harassed by coworkers for complaining about her colleagues displaying the flag at work. ", "Firefighters: 'Thin red line' flag stolen off Middletown fire engine", "Nášivka "Tenká Modrá Linie" – Thin Blue Line", "Controversy surrounds a flag flying at the OPPA Barrie building", they’re wearing “thin blue line” flags now, "Sussex PC told to remove union jack police charity badge", "Three Groups of Protesters Come Face To Face in Mount Greenwood", "Courthouse Removes Flag After White Supremacists Display It", "Ore. sheriff removes 'Thin Blue Line' flag from courthouse break room", "Son of slain Maine state trooper says it's time to move on after Thin Blue Line flag removed", "San Francisco police chief nixes officers' 'Thin Blue Line' coronavirus masks", "Hamilton County Sheriff's Office Flew Blue Line Flag", "Thin Blue Line Flags Stir Controversy In Mass. After Parker’s sudden death in 1966, the city named the police headquarters after him. In the book Lawtalk, James Clapp and Elizabeth Thornburg say the term spread to other professions, e.g. A former Fulbright and H.F. Guggenheim fellow, he has reported on a range of criminal justice subjects, including jail conditions, sheriffs, wrongful convictions, and art by incarcerated people. He had seen the image of the flag on patches and stickers, he told The Marshall Project, but not an actual flag. "We've seen trucks riding around with big old versions," said Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, about the protests in recent days. WE ARE THE THIN BLUE LINE LE MC! Ambush killings of police have actually declined more than 90 percent since 1970, even with the recent spikes, according to a study by Michael White, a professor of criminology at Arizona State University. You can buy a dog tag necklace, with a Matthew 5:9 engraved on the back: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Law enforcement officers can buy a special edition Sig Sauer pistol covered with the flag and blue line. The “thin blue line” symbol existed before several of his colleagues were gunned down by a sniper in July 2016, he said. [1] The "blue" in "thin blue line" refers to the blue color of the uniforms of many police departments. In Cold Spring, New York, local leaders debated last week whether placing a decal of the flag on a police car would make some people afraid to ask officers for help. I will continue to fly that flag until my very last day.”. Nonprofit journalism about criminal justice, A nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. In 2014, a white college student named Andrew Jacob was watching protests of police killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice. “The ‘thin blue line’ phrase and associated imagery date back decades,” Roman said at the time. Cops aren't the army", "The Short, Fraught History of the 'Thin Blue Line' American Flag", "Chief Parker Molded LAPD Image--Then Came the '60s : Police: Press treated officers as heroes until social upheaval prompted skepticism and confrontation", "Crossing the Thin Blue Line: Protecting Law Enforcement Officers Who Blow the Whistle", "Chief removes Punisher emblem, 'Blue Lives Matter' from police cars after public reacts", "Punisher Creator Gerry Conway: Cops Using the Skull Logo Are Like People Using the Confederate Flag", "What do 'Thin Blue Line' and 'Thin Red Line' flags mean? [1] As Parker explained, the thin blue line, representing the LAPD, was the barrier between law and order and social and civil anarchy. Parker used the phrase ‘thin blue line’ constantly in his speeches. The "thin blue line" is a term that typically refers to the concept of the police as the line which keeps society from descending into violent chaos. is a Dallas-based staff writer for The Marshall Project. Maurice Chammah The “thin blue line” concept has been traced back to the Crimean War, when a “thin red line” of Scottish Highlanders held off a Russian cavalry charge. In his view, the police “protected Western civilization from communists, progressive politicians, minorities, anybody who agitated for something that didn’t fit his very narrow scheme,” said Alisa Kramer, who wrote a 2007 dissertation on Parker's tenure. The idea of a “thin blue line” can be traced all the way back to a 1854 British battle formation, a “thin red line” used during the Crimean War and then popularized in art, poetry and song. Still, the American Legion, which played a key role in drafting the Flag Code and is the go-to authority on proper U.S. flag etiquette, has not taken an official position yet on the black-and-white version with a blue line, a spokesman told The Marshall Project. After this, the police chief banned use of the flag by officers while on duty. With Rowan Atkinson, Mina Anwar, James Dreyfus, Serena Evans. “The police and community should work together, in order to produce safety. CID foil to Fowler, Inspector Grim is a bumbling, seething idiot. In the poem, the phrase is used to refer to the United States Army, alluding both to the Thin Red Line and to the fact that US Army soldiers wore blue uniforms from the eighteenth century through the nineteenth century. [2] Judge Don Metcalfe, who presided over the trial of Randall Adams, states in the film that prosecutor "Doug Mulder's final argument was one I'd never heard before: about the 'thin blue line' of police that separate the public from anarchy." The black space above the blue line represents society, order and peace, while the black below, crime, anarchy, and chaos. If you're looking at the community as a potential enemy, or a threat, that's certainly going to hinder any positive relationship.”, Before the flag came the phrase. According to lawyers James Clapp and Elizabeth Thornburg, who have dug up the history behind popular phrases, the idea migrated to other professions, with other colors, from a “thin white line of bishops” to a “thin blue line of public schoolboys in blazers.”. The Thin Blue Line flag is a field of black background separated by a thin blue line. Criminologists Don L. Kurtz and Alayna Colburn have analyzed the language police officers use in formal interviews, and argue that the “thin blue line” idea is an example of popular culture informing internal police culture, highlighting “the assumed differences between officers and citizens and further progresses an ‘us versus them’ mentality among officers.”. A film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas. The phrase was further popularized by the novels of Joseph Wambaugh, and it typified Parker’s philosophy: having served in the military, he wanted to end corruption and professionalize the police force.. “That’s maybe why it came to my eyes,” he said. Variations of the flag, often using various national flags rendered in black and white with a blue line through the center, are seen below. is a staff writer whose book, "Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty," won the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Book Award. Jacob said the flag was not a direct reaction to the first Black Lives Matter protests—an idea suggested by a previous origin story in Harper’s—but he allows he may have first seen the thin blue line image after those protests spurred the circulation of pro-police imagery online. Created by Ben Elton. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, as a presidential candidate, called police “the force between civilization and total chaos.” Some states began passing laws to categorize physical attacks on law enforcement officers as hate crimes. – Caught on camera, thieves stealing Thin Blue Line flags from people’s property in Kokomo. We also recognize that the thin blue line represents different things to different people, based upon an individual’s perspective and their unique experiences with law enforcement. Recently, the flag was flown from the back of a car alongside protests in South Dakota, and burned outside the Utah State Capitol. “Police should not be embracing a criminal as their symbol,” the character’s creator Gerry Conway told Syfy Wire last year. [3], The term was used for the title of Errol Morris's 1988 documentary film The Thin Blue Line about the murder of the Dallas Police officer Robert W. Officers have worn versions of the flag on face masks while clashing with protesters in Baltimore and in Washington, D.C. Those who fly the flag have said it stands for solidarity and professional pride within a dangerous, difficult profession and a solemn tribute to fallen police officers. But it has also been flown by white supremacists, appearing next to Confederate flags at the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. “It fosters this ‘us versus them’ mentality,” he said. The move by Chief Kristen Roman follows criticism on social media of a "Thin Blue Line" flag displayed at the police department's office.The flag, which resembles a U.S. flag but has a blue … The "Thin Blue Line" stands for law enforcement's separation of order from chaos, or, as Oxford Dictionaries describes, it's a reference to police, "in the context of maintaining order during unrest." The phrase started showing up in speeches by politicians and related press coverage from Chicago to Los Angeles. When deputies hoisted the flag outside government buildings in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Orange, California, the sheriffs in both communities were sharply criticized. [11], The "Thin Blue Line" flag is all black, bearing a single horizontal blue stripe across its center. They know because they are a part of the family,” Bishopp said. [15], Variations representing professions other than law enforcement exist, such as the "thin red line" flag, representing firefighters. mixes the imagery with the Disney World logo. "The supposed 'liberal' answer to Donald Trump has not been as critical of police violence as it should be," she said. To him, it symbolizes respect and understanding for the families of officers killed in the line of duty—including suicides. , James Dreyfus, Serena Evans back the thin blue line, ” Roman said at the funeral service but! 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