Stephen Schneider is a criminology professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.
STEPHEN SCHNEIDER • Guest Opinion
Recently, controversy has arisen over police officers in Canada donning the “thin blue line” patch.
In Calgary, the local police commission ordered any police officers wearing the insignia to remove it, a command the police union agreed to “reluctantly.”
The Vancouver police board heard a complaint regarding an officer sporting the patch at a rally for Indigenous people.
Charlottetown police apologized after photos were published showing an officer with the patch at the Pride festival.
In 2020, the RCMP issued a directive prohibiting members from wearing this symbol on their uniforms. Despite this order, an RCMP member in Nova Scotia was caught on camera on Oct. 8 wearing the patch while responding to a complaint of a noise disturbance in Nictaux, N.S.
The patch is innocuous enough — a blue line drawn across a black and grey Canadian flag. Yet, despite its innocent appearance, what it stands for has become highly contentious.
The term “thin blue line” has a complicated and byzantine past, symbolically; it has emerged in various iterations during different times and contexts of policing in North America in the past 50 or 60 years.
Some police officers say the patch is worn to honour colleagues who have died in the line of duty. Others claim it is a symbol of police solidarity; an expression of esprit de corps among police officers. For some in law enforcement, it represents the conviction that they constitute that fine line between social order and anarchy.
There are broader cultural implications that stem from this belief system: it is meant to promote a collective identity among police that underscores their unique role in society. In other words, police self-nurture a collective identity that is meant to distinguish them from the rest of society. The main problem with this credo is that it creates an us-versus-them mentality that is antithetical to the ideal first articulated by Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the London Metropolitan Police, who wrote “the police are the public and the public are police.”
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A complicated history
At its most pernicious, the thin blue line patch and what it represents is infused with radicalism, racism and white supremacy.
In the last few years, the symbol has been co-opted and radicalized by the far right in the United States and Canada in response to progressive movements that are seen as a threat to police, such as Black Lives Matter and Defund Police (as a counter-protest, the term “Blue Lives Matter” has been heard from those who support the police over those from racialized communities who are victimized by police brutality). The thin blue line patch is interpreted by many in the Black community as out-and-out racist and a historical continuation of institutionalized bigotry within police departments.
Some experts say the racist symbolism of this term predates the Black Lives Matter movement. Doug King, a criminologist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, claims the thin blue line adage can be traced to the Watts riots in 1965 when the chief of police ordered that the perimeter established by his officers prevent fire trucks from putting out the many fires started in the predominantly Black neighbourhood in Los Angeles (a riot started in part due to claims of violent police oppression).
The fear stemming from the recent iteration of the patch is that the (white) police officers wearing it have been radicalized by far-right groups.
This is the context for the controversy in Nova Scotia: an RCMP officer was wearing the patch on his uniform while attending a noise complaint at a supposed fundraising rally held by a group calling itself Freedom Fighter Veterans and Guardians. While not much is known about this group, their Facebook page expresses support for many of the extremist values and causes espoused by the trucker convoy that occupied Ottawa in early 2022 (which had a white supremacist element as witnessed by the presence of Nazi and confederate flags).
What has caused even more consternation is that the RCMP member wearing the patch voluntarily paid the $10 admission fee for him and his partner and even posed for a jovial photo with group members. A subsequent RCMP press release stated that these overtures were made in an attempt to “de-escalate” a tense situation in which the police officers said they feared for their safety.
The fear stemming from the recent iteration of the patch is that the (white) police officers wearing it have been radicalized by far-right groups.
To some, this rationale was rather incredulous and begs the questions: were the amicable gestures made by the patch-wearing RCMP member an attempt to de-escalate a potential standoff or was it because he expressed some affinity for this group and its causes? Why was the police officer wearing this patch? Was he aware of its negative connotations? Was it coincidental that an RCMP member wearing this patch would show up at an event sponsored by a group that shares its more radical values?
From a purely tactical perspective, another question arising is if the attending police officers felt threatened by a large group of beer-drinking men, why did they not call for backup?
Many of these questions continue to be unanswered in the wake of the RCMP press release and subsequent media inquiries. As such, this story will not go away any time soon.
With the growing threat of young white men being radicalized by far-right groups, concerns will continue about the potential radicalization of police officers in the U.S. and Canada (most of whom are white men). This would not only exacerbate racism in police departments, but may also undermine the enforcement of far-right extremist groups with which some police officers may sympathize.
