Police vs. the National Guard: Can You Protect and Serve <i> and </i> Kill the Enemy? : Violence: In the fight against crime, cities are turning to the National Guard for help. But can this sort of creeping totalitarianism be the answer?

Let’s get real. Calling out the National Guard to police cities will not stop crime and violence any more than chiding Hollywood about violent programming will. We need to talk about race and inner-city culture and stop chasing diversions. Even in the United States, we have to be constantly vigilant against creeping totalitarianism.

Sharon Pratt Kelly, the shrewd mayor of Washington, is in a tough fight for reelection--so she called for the National Guard to stop the killings in the nation’s capitol. President Bill Clinton, an equally shrewd politician, passed the buck to Congress, saying he would support Kelly’s efforts to get Congress to permit her to use the Guard.

While the Guard has recently been used in Puerto Rico and Sumter, S.C., for policing, my own experiences as a police officer in Harlem during the riots in the 1960s, and as police chief of two major cities, is that the National Guard isn’t even that efficient performing its traditional role of quelling disorders.

In 1970, Guardsmen panicked at Kent State University and fired into a crowd of demonstrating students, killing four. During the urban riots of the 1960s, the Guard’s record was even worse. In Detroit, nervous Guardsmen fired at imaginary snipers; 40 people died while the disorders continued for days. More recently, in Los Angeles after the verdicts in the first Rodney G. King beating trial, the Guard, after being alerted well in advance, took the field only after the game was over and smoke from the burning city created delays at the Los Angeles airport for several days.

This is not to fault individual Guardsmen--who get only a few weeks training a year in military combat. Policing simply isn’t their job. We should remember what Gen. Colin L. Powell said: “A soldier’s duty is to kill the enemy.” But the duty of a police officer is something far different: to protect life and property and to arrest criminals within due process of law.

Under our democratic system, military personnel have no legal or traditional basis for doing routine policing. For so many years, that was the image of Iron Curtain nations, which needed to clamp down on their people.

Just as it is unrealistic to expect the police to stop violence flowing from the decay of inner-city neighborhoods, it is silly to think that rifle-toting Guardsmen, riding around in jeeps with no idea of what they are expected to do, will make people safer. After the initial shock, the presence of troops wears off. Street criminals quickly realize the Guard can’t use their military weaponry any more than cops are allowed to shoot without cause. In addition, soldiers are too inexperienced to make arrests with the same savvy that cops exercise.

The truth America shirks from is that the national rate of violence is high, but it is about the same as it was 20 years ago. However, violence is much worse in poor, minority neighborhoods. The No. 1 cause of death for young, black men is homicide. While a few racists may think that African-Americans are predisposed to violence, the overwhelming majority of people know this is a foolish idea. It is clear that the curse of slavery and subsequent discrimination, along with unwise government policies on welfare, housing and education, encouraged the development of an urban underclass that commits much--but certainly not all--of today’s troubling violence.

This is not to excuse such conduct. For everyone’s safety, violent criminals need to be quickly and firmly punished and separated from society. However, it is far better to avoid having innocent people victimized in the first place. That means we must do a better job in understanding the culture that produces so many young people with no respect for the life and property of others.

Declarations of wars against crime and drugs by politicians will not be any more effective than former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates’ threats against gang leaders. The sweep arrests accompanying such rhetoric typically get thrown out of court, and petty arrests take scarce police officers off the streets. Worse still, such police tactics undermine what does work--partnerships between residents and the police to clean up the neighborhoods.

In the long run, it will be neighborhood people who change the values that lead kids to destructive behavior. The government should cheer such local leadership and empower neighborhoods to change things. We tried the law-and-order model for the past decade--quadrupling the number of people behind bars--but the crime rate is about the same.

A couple of immediate suggestions that would help are to let neighborhoods ban guns. Not only would this help prevent senseless violence, it would rebuke the macho mentality that causes so many assaults. In addition, we should stop continually asking for more police than we can afford and pay more attention to police operations that take cops off the street. Many departments still have too many cops doing clerical tasks. In addition, the police should stop arresting drug users. It doesn’t affect drug use but it does take the cops off the street where their presence can deter drive-by shootings, muggings, rapes and gang fights.

Of course, such simple solutions do not satisfy the political craving to show voters you are “tougher” on crime than your opponents. On the other hand, if elected officials really want to do something about crime, they have to replace the hot air with cold logic.