Early today, while trying to serve a warrant, a Boone County Deputy Sheriff was shot by a wanted suspect. The immediate response to this was a call out to local and nearby police agencies as a chase ensued for three suspects. The warrant was being served on the suspect in the city of Lebanon and the chase took place within the confines of the city. There was also a secondary response; a lock-down throughout the city.
Police advised that people stay off the streets and go to a safe place while the search for suspects continued. Public buildings such as the US Post Office, library, Boone County Courthouse, and Lebanon Community School Corporation schools were also barricaded. Additionally some banks and other commercial buildings were also closed. A person caught on the street in downtown Lebanon could have found it difficult to get off the streets and into a building thus being left to fend for himself or herself.
The police response included officers from at least five agencies which included two helicopters and scores of ground officers. This elicits the thought that it is reassuring to live in a community that, were I shot, would provide a significant police response to attempt to apprehend any suspects. The media would also step in and interrupt their broadcasts to show photos of the suspects to the community to assist in the effort. But I digress from what I say in jest to the common feeling that I and many people have when seeing the overwhelming police response to apprehend suspects who are not a threat to the general population but have harmed a law enforcement officer - “They wouldn’t all be out here like that if I had been shot.”
There is a rational reason for both locking people out of buildings to fend for themselves and the police response to officers being harmed. It is the ego. It is the biological drive for self-preservation.
People on the inside of buildings lock others out because of all the people on the outside who want to come in to seek shelter it could include a suspect. A suspect who may harm those already in the building if the suspect feels that his or her flight may be jeopardized by those in the building.
Likewise police officers will always respond in overwhelming support for other officers for the same reason. Contrary to a possible perception, it is not because they don’t also want to catch suspects who harm members of the general population or because the police have a penchant to only serve members of their exclusive club.
It may seem disingenuous to speak of protecting and serving the community and then diverting attention from the community to serve the interests of another officer but it is not. Not, at least, from a psychological perspective.
Members of the general population typically do not aid or assist in protecting members of law enforcement. Yet, law enforcement is expected to show unilateral altruism toward the public. However, from a survival perspective, reciprocal altruism has proven to provide a survival advantage. This is similar to kinship selection which favours nepotism.
We have recently been able to see this biological preference in action during a school shooting incident in Florida where a law enforcement officer did not place himself in jeopardy while the shooting was occurring. There was no biological incentive for him to do so. The response would have been different had the shooting been taking place within a police station against other officers. This is the result of a top down attitude. That officer learned it from his sheriff. Law enforcement officers may rely upon other officers from within their own agency as well as others whom they may have never met to protect them during the course of their duties yet they have no expectation to similar protection from the general population. This is implicitly or subconsciously expressed. It is not a conscious, purposeful attitude.
The overwhelming police response to an ‘officer being harmed call’ serves the biological interest of those responding. It demonstrates to all other officers that I will always be here when you need my assistance. I will put my life on the line for you. Implicit in this is the expectation of reciprocal action. An officer will put his or her life on the line to protect another because he or she expects that same protection. This affords all officers a greater opportunity to pass on their genes or to stay alive and employed so they may assist in supporting their existing offspring or providing personal protection for them.
Lock-downs and police responses to police harmed incidents serve the biological interest of those served by them. They are selfish actions which serve to protect the genetic material of those benefiting from these actions. It is no different than dying to protect two siblings or eight cousins; they each pass on the same amount of your shared genetic material. Passing on genetic material is what got you here. From an evolutionary biology perspective it is those who were selfish enough to protect their offspring and kin which got their genes or those genes they share passed along.
So, whatever way the socially acceptable breezes may blow there is one thing that is not going to change - selfishness. Cops will protect cops, people will lock others out leaving them in harm’s way, brothers will hire brothers and brains will continue to rapidly influence actions which precede rational thought but serve to protect the biological unit; the host of the genetic material.
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