Connecting The Dots

Whether it’s on social media, a bumper sticker or adorning the gymnasium wall at a police academy the phrase “Thin Blue Line” is one of the most meaningful, most coveted and simultaneously most misunderstood combination of words in the modern vernacular.? The criminals and cop watchers will tell you that it represents a wall of silence intended to protect the misconduct of corrupt storm troopers.? Some with good intentions but an incomplete understanding will tell you that it represents a wall of protection provided by the “boys in blue”.? The former is definitely not the case, but the latter is almost equally untrue simply because of the incompleteness of that explanation.? The Thin Blue Line is so much more than most people understand.

The term “The Thin Blue Line” originated in England according to the all-knowing source that’s not a source: Wikipedia.? According to more scholarly sources, The Thin Blue Line was also the second of three documentaries William Friedkin made for producer David Wolper. Produced in 1965, it focused on the police force.? The experience making it also influenced Friedkin to make The French Connection.[1] ?The term came into more broad use in the United States after the release of Errol Morris' 1988 documentary film The Thin Blue Line, about the murder of a Dallas Police officer Robert W Wood. 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."[2]

Over the last fifty years of slinging the term around, both in the legitimate as well as derogatory forms, the phrase has come to mean that the person bearing the words or the symbol (appropriately enough, a thin, blue line), or the owner of the vehicle, building, billboard or blimp bearing the words or the symbol support the police.? Which means what, exactly?? Because “Support the Police” is another phrase that has become very loosely and very commonly used in addition to being misrepresented.? If one supports the police, do they still support the rights of the public?? Can that happen? Of course it can.? It’s not stepping out onto a huge limb to assume that the majority of police supporters would agree that supporting the police simply means not hating the police for being the police.? Supporting the police means that, not unlike dentists; mechanics and judges, sometimes doing their job correctly is not pleasant for the customer.? Supporting the police DOES NOT mean holding police lives as more important than citizen’s lives.? It doesn’t mean prioritizing the convenience of a detective over the Constitutional rights of a suspect.? It doesn’t mean excusing or justifying illegal or unnecessarily violent acts.? It just means that the police are people who should not be hated for choosing a particularly noble profession.?

While the “blue” part obviously represents the most common color of police uniforms, it is the “line” part that leads to the most confusion.? After all, what do lines do?? Some will say that lines divide, surround or protect.? Much like the Siegfried Line[3] protected the retreating Germans from the advancing Americans in the World War II Ardennes Forest.? It was a barrier that protected the bad guys from the good guys.? Or how about the final protective line or FPL? This is a term used by the infantry to designate the last point of enemy advance toward a friendly position before claymore mines and crew serve machine guns start chopping up everything in their paths.? The FPL represents a barrier that protects the good guys from the bad guys.? But limiting our focus to lines that are used as barriers will lead us to a limited understanding of our topic.? So what else do lines do?

Lines are used by architects to draw the designs for towering sky scrapers.? Lines are used by musicians to give meaning to the notes that will ultimately manifest in beautiful music.? Lines lead to things.? Things that are favorable and desirable, like the line for a roller coaster or a busy restaurant or a sold out concert.? Lines give us direction and lead us to the places we need to go, or to places where we can find help.? But more often than anything else, lines connect things.? Just as the final pen stroke in a game of tic-tac-toe where the line is connecting the dots, the Thin Blue Line connects people.? Because when folks support the police, they humanize the badge.? They put a heart, a soul, a personality and a family into the seat of that patrol car.? They realize that mistakes are sometimes just mistakes and not grand conspiracies to imprison the populace or disarm the masses.? They realize that the police are people living in houses, taking their kids to school and acting as members of the very communities that they have sworn to serve and protect.?

The Thin Blue Line connects the people in the community.? The police are a common thread in the lives of all community members.? In the purest examples of these men and women is the heart of a servant that wants to bring people together.? If we all expand our understanding of what the Thin Blue Line means, we can not only dispel the misunderstandings that imply a negative definition; we can become a part of the fabric that the line creates when it connects the dots.? We can become part of what empowers the public and the police to once again focus on what unites us.? The Thin Blue Line does a lot of things.? It serves as a bond for those who wear the badge.? It provides a means of support to members of the profession and their families in times of need.? It also protects the innocent from evil and provides an always eager force of sheepdogs to keep the wolf at bay.??So?don't look at?this line as one that divides people but rather as one that?connects people.? Protecting, providing and connecting the dots one and all.? That's the Thin Blue Line.

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[1][1] Friedkin, William, (2013) The French Connection, Harper Collins (p 78-81)

[2][2] https://www.errolmorris.com/film/tbl_transcript.html

[3][3] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Siegfried-Line

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