The Longer The Fall by Aviva Gat (best new books to read txt) 📗

Madeline had read every news article, press release, and blog post on the Internet that quoted members of the FOP and other police organizations discussing her bill. In fact, she had a dedicated staff member whose entire job it was to comb the Internet for anything related to Madeline or her politics. This staff member started her job at midnight every night, compiling everything that had been written the previous day and catching all the new articles published in the early hours before newspapers would hit the stands. She had alerts set up on her computer for Madeline’s name, her opponents’ names, and more than 100 keywords relating to Madeline’s policies, and past political actions. After reviewing all the alerts, the staff member started reading the major newspapers, blogs, commentary sites, to see if anything was missed. By 5:00 am, she had bookmarked, printed, hole-punched and organized every article by importance, filling at least one 3-inch binder every morning. There was an entire system for organizing the articles. Many were repetitive and these took lesser priorities. Some were absent of facts, and these were organized by their likelihood of gaining traction. The highest priority articles were those that quoted Madeline, or revealed something new about a colleague, adversary, or policy that could affect Madeline’s work. The Binder, as it became known, was dropped off at Madeline’s house every morning by 5:30 am. Each morning, this staff member held the binder close to her as she left the office and drove to Madeline’s house. She had a key to the back door, where she would quietly let herself in and place The Binder on the kitchen table, ensuring it was secure from anyone who might be interested in learning about what Madeline was interested in. Then, she would let herself out, lock the door, and be relieved of her job until the following evening.

Madeline flipped through The Binder every morning, reading all the headlines and as many articles as she could. She couldn’t read everything, it would take her the entire day, but that’s what her staff was for. Every article placed in The Binder was also distributed to at least one of her staff members. Articles about Madeline’s personal life, family and looks were distributed to her image consultant. Articles about specific policies were distributed to the staff member with that expertise. Jane, of course, also received a binder the size of Madeline’s and she too read whatever she could in the early morning hours.

That morning there had been several articles quoting different police chiefs and members of the FOP about Madeline’s SAVER Bill. Nothing new had been said, but Madeline reviewed these articles closely in advance of her morning meeting with the regional leader of the FOP. She was ready to personally hear all of his arguments about the SAVER Bill and she had her own arguments in response, which she was sure would convince the police leader to at least consider changing his mind. Would it waste police officers’ valuable time? Certainly in the beginning. But this was a small sacrifice to save time and lives in the future. Madeline rehearsed her talking points in her head. Imagine, she would tell him, that each of your police officers spent two hours a week volunteering in a school largely filled with minority students. Because that’s all it would be, really, two hours. If you have 20 police officer in your department, that means each one needs to complete 5 hours a month volunteering and you easily get the 100 hours a month. In fact, that’s nothing, barely any time, if you think about it. It’s less than the amount of time officers spent in meetings every week, or writing up reports about their shifts.

In those two hours, the officers could play basketball with students. They could help them with homework, eat lunch together. In fact, it would be fun for the police officers! They could join students during physical education classes, or recess. It would be like a break for them. During this time, they’d get to joke around with the students, get to know them, talk to them about their families and friends, they could even commiserate with the students about how annoying their teachers were. Maybe give them advice about crushes they had.

Now, these students, who grew up spending a couple of hours a week shooting hoops with Officer Steve or Officer Bill—who of course is wearing his uniform while volunteering—maybe they have a different perception of police officers. Officer Steve and Officer Bill are their friends. They may suck at shooting hoops, but they are fun to beat! On the other hand, Officer Steve and Officer Bill now have relationships with these students. They know what they like to eat for lunch and what bothers them at school. Maybe they even feel affection for them, and have been able to provide them some advice that had proven helpful.

Let’s now imagine, that these students are getting older. One of them is driving late at night with a broken taillight and is pulled over. It’s not Officer Steve or Officer Bill who pulls them over—that would be too much of a coincidence—but this officer also volunteered at a different school. This officer comes up to the window and is reminded of a student he mentored earlier that day or week, or maybe years before. The man pulled over is reminded of a time Officer Steve almost made a basket. The two men speak to each other cordially and respectfully, and the traffic stop is completed according to procedure. The driver gets a warning to fix his taillight and the police officer bids him good night. The two continue on their way, and no one thinks twice about this routine event. It made no difference to the officer that the driver was African American, and the driver had no preconceptions that the