Do pepper spray, batons, bullet-proof vests, shields,  armored vehicles, concussion grenades, tear gas, and  rubber bullets make police feel invincible and superior?

One warm Sunday afternoon in August in the late 1970s, I sat on the sun-soaked concrete step outside the Pitstop, an old wood-frame building formerly a small barbershop but now a game room on Main Street in Lamberton, MN. I’d left the front door open, so the song playing on the jukebox — “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright — drifted outside. Flippers clicked and tinny bells rang as Wade banged away on a pinball machine. Later, someone broke the racked balls, stripes and solids clacking together and caroming off the rails. Cathy’s laughter rose from one of the two booths in the back, and when Darla pushed a quarter in the slot of Pac-Man, the synthesized video game melody played.

Main Street was changed into a one-way a few years earlier to discourage teens from cruising up and down on Friday nights. Today it was empty except for my brown Plymouth parked at an angle a few feet from where I sat and the stores all closed except for the Pitstop. I looked left: past the marquee of the old Berton Theater, Rue’s Super Value on the corner of the next block, The Lamberton News office on the other side of the street, and down the length of Main — all five blocks — to the school. Nothing moved. The leaves of elms and ash trees on the boulevards barely twitched. A Coke can lay crumpled near the gutter. On a pole in front of the Drug Store, both hands of the clock pointed at VI as they had for as long as I could remember.

Then, the Weisner kid (or maybe a Burns or a Kretch — I don’t remember who exactly) rolled around the corner by the theater on his bike, one hand on the high-rise handlebar and the other holding a red Mr. Freeze to his mouth. I watched him as he leisurely pedaled the wrong way down Main Street and coasted past the Pitstop and Phil’s Café to my right. Then, suddenly he wheeled around and stood on the pedals, the bike rocking side to side as he pumped up and down and flew back the way he came. A few seconds later, a siren wailed and the local police car driven by Ted Darkow, a part-time cop, sped around the corner by the Lamberton Lanes in pursuit of the wrong-way biker.

The kid swung right at the next corner, and a half block later shot left and disappeared into the alley behind Sanger’s Bakery. By the time Ted drove past the Pitstop with the siren blaring and red lights wheeling, Wade, Darla, Cathy, and a couple other kids had scrambled to the door and stood above me. We all watched as Ted wheeled right at the bakery and accelerated down the street, the siren fading as he passed the mouth of the alley, and continued west. We laughed and whooped and shook our heads. Then, Wade yelled after him, “Book ’em, Danno!” and we all laughed again.

At the time and for years afterward, I attributed Ted’s attempt to catch and probably ticket the kid on the bike to sheer overzealousness and a desire to teach a troublemaker a lesson. But there’s more to it than that. When off-duty, he seemed to most of us just growly and humorless; however, the uniform, badge, and patrol car at his disposal both magnified those qualities and changed him, as they might a lot of people. And at the sight of that kid blatantly flouting the law, he saw his chance to use these tools and the authority they implied to bring his sense of order back to that deserted, sleepy street in Lamberton.

In light of recent events, I’ve thought again about Ted and policing and some people’s desire for control and power over others and potential for cruelty. And it occurs to me that the words “police force” refer less to manpower and those who make up police departments than to the all-too-common methods of many officers. I’m quite sure Ted intended no physical harm to the kid on the bike, but these days people seem to get into law enforcement often not out of a sense of duty or a desire to serve their community but because their position gives them power and both permission and encouragement to use physical force. Plus, many police departments arm them with military-style equipment and weapons — pepper spray, batons, bullet-proof vests, shields, helmets with visors, armored vehicles, concussion grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets, and bean bags, etc. — that make them feel invincible and superior, that provoke conflicts that make using their gear a seeming necessity, and that escalate situations that might not end violently if handled differently.

Consider how those Scorpion Unit officers rained violence down on Tyre Nichols while he lay on the ground and cried for his mother. Former Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey, after watching the videos of the beating, said on CNN, “’[Y]ou really can’t explain it. … One officer kicked him so hard and so much that he’s limping around.’”

But I think you can explain it. Those officers believe the law doesn’t apply to them because they are the law. They believe their actions can be justified and will be defended and tolerated if not actually approved by their fellow officers and superiors. They believe that when police officers investigate the actions of other officers, they’re likely to face minimal punishment or will simply be cleared. They believe their version of events are more likely to be accepted — regardless of video evidence — than those of the suspect or the victim of police brutality. They believe that when they’re on duty, it’s us vs. them, police vs. public, and especially police vs. black or brown public. And they believe their lives trump those of civilians, both the innocent and the guilty — just consider the inaction of nearly all 376 officers at the elementary school in Uvalde, TX.

Undoubtedly, some officers bring these attitudes with them when they apply for the job. However, the culture within police departments and among officers almost certainly contributes to the more frequent and increasingly lethal violence of police against civilians. Which makes me wonder about their training. Does it concentrate significantly more time on self-defense, methods of restraining or immobilizing someone, and use of their equipment and weapons than it does on teaching officers how to develop positive, supportive relationships with citizens of the communities for which they’re responsible; how to deescalate a situation with a distraught or emotionally disturbed person; and how to perform their duties so that civilians, especially young people and children, see them as human beings capable of respect, trust, and open-mindedness rather than as armed and armored soldiers who are intimidating, aggressive, and suspicious of them? And does it emphasize how to conduct their duties so that citizens feel confident that “police force” actually refers to officers, not to their most likely method of engaging citizens, whether innocent or guilty.

These days I live in Walnut Grove, MN, which is about ten miles west of and a bit smaller than Lamberton when Ted patrolled the streets. For the past several months, we’ve been without a local police officer, and, honestly, I haven’t noticed a difference. I suppose we have our share of thieves, drug users, and speeders, but sub-zero wind chills, icy streets, and snow-drifted roads likely deter some crime this time of year.

I’m not recommending no police officers or the abolition of police departments. And I’m not suggesting that Ted should have ignored the Weisner boy. But maybe instead of threatening a young kid on a bike with lights, siren, and racing engine, he might have simply gotten out of the patrol car, waved him over, and talked to him kindly but firmly.

Then and now, maybe things could be different.