(That work, one imagines, presents its own set of ethical issues when it comes to blending through clothes.) For covert work done outside of those kinds of assignments, officers wore coats and ties. Initially, undercover work was concentrated in narcotics and vice assignments, Birzer says, where departments have guidelines on grooming and wardrobes to help officers blend in. There’s no prescribed policy that you wear jeans or this or that-it’s just the situation.” In other words, this is, indeed, officers’ best impression of what a “normal” protester looks like.Īs policing has become more militarized over the past two decades, with an emphasis on terrorism prevention, covert work has proliferated-and its message has become more tangled. “If you’re working in a covert assignment, you want to wear clothes that kind of ‘fit in’ better. So departments tell officers to wear their own clothes? “That’s pretty much it,” Birzer says. “In one sense, it’s pretty easy to recognize who they are.” “You can see the outline of their weapon, and they’re dressing with their hats backwards and things of that nature,” says Michael Birzer, Ph.D., a professor of criminal justice at Wichita State University and a former police officer, who has done research on the behavioral effects of police uniforms. The guys dressing like police officers on a gnarly off day are.if you can believe it.try not to gasp. Over the past few weeks, the presence of men in suspiciously casual outfits-boot-cut jeans over steel-toed boots, often with the visible outline of a bulletproof vest or handcuffs in the back pants pocket-has led to messages of caution on social media. As The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan wrote earlier this month, this is not a movement with a uniform-it’s a broad and expansive revolution, where every individual expression that respects its demands fits inside.īut one group in attendance sticks out. What are activists in cities across the United States wearing to the protests? Inspiringly enough, anything they want.
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