Community policing takes community trust

The girl angrily kicking her shoe off in the holding cell looks like your typical nervy teen.

In the grainy pattern of the surveillance tape, she is standing in the doorway, where she bends her knee and flips the shoe off.

Out the door it goes.

What comes back in through that door isn’t typical by any stretch of the imagination.

A male deputy storms in and grabs the diminutive 15-year-old, first shoving her against the concrete wall and then throwing her to the ground. With assistance from another officer, who appears to be holding her down, the first officer balls up his fist and begins throwing punches. You can’t see where the blows are landing, but there’s no doubt she’s getting hit.

As if that weren’t enough, he then hauls her up by her hair and her arms, which he’s holding behind her back.

At no point does she appear to be fighting him.

God knows I would have tried.

As the parent of a teenager, I find this case beyond appalling.

The deputy accused of attacking her, Paul Schene of Auburn, claims he was injured by the flying shoe. What about the flying punches?

What happened to 15-year-old Malika Calhoun on that Nov. 29 night is now under scrutiny by the feds as well as local prosecutors. Schene has been charged with misdemeanor assault, for allegedly kicking the teen in the stomach, punching her and pulling her hair. He also could face federal charges if it’s determined he violated her civil rights.

Good. Investigate and prosecute within the boundaries of the law.

I’m sure our law-enforcement community did a collective flinch when this case hit the papers and the Web sites. The video made national headlines. And I’m sure the appalling lack of self control shown on that tape has set public trust in community policing back decades.

But I also found myself thinking about this incident last week, as I was driving home from work, and sat through a tailing incident with one of our local gendarmes. I came up to the intersection of James and Washington, and made a legal right turn against a red light. The unmarked police car in the center lane immediately made the same turn and pulled up behind me. As the car rode my bumper, its unlit light bar looming in my rearview mirror, I watched it, my heart pouring adrenaline into my system.

I’d done nothing wrong. I pulled into the left turn lane and turned onto my street, again with this car tailing me. Are ugly little Hyundai sedans the new cars of Kent drug dealers? I hope not – a bicycle could outrun me.

Apparently unable to find anything on me, or waiting for a misstep that never occurred, the officer disengaged themselves from my bumper and turned off a side street. Leaving me with sweaty palms and a pounding heart.

It takes a high level of societal trust to allow one group of people – our law-enforcement community – to walk armed in our midst. The majority of these people realize their role as public servants, a humbling thing. They are good people doing a dangerous job. But it only takes a few bad encounters, or a highly publicized case of abuse of power, to tip those scales of trust.