COP RAGE… 
This page is consisted of:
|
I
hear and I forget I
see and I believe I
do and I understand -CONFUCIUS
(551-479 BC) |
·
Incident
·
Self-witnessing Observations using the three step
method
It was a Saturday evening around 6:30
p.m. I was about to go to my friend's brother's wedding, with my boyfriend and
my girlfriend, Hana. The wedding reception was to be held at Sheraton Waikiki
Hotel at 6:30 p.m. and we were running a little late. My boyfriend picked me up
and we also had to pick my girlfriend, Hana and then go to bank to withdraw
money. Hana had a church event that day which ended around 6:15 and everything
got pushed back a little. And that day, the rain was pouring so hard where you
couldn't even see a foot in front of you. Anyway, we knew being a little late
wouldn't hurt because everyone usually arrives 30 minutes late on average. By
the time we got to Waikiki, it was already 6:30. It was raining but I work in
Waikiki so I thought I knew how to get to the hotel but Hana suggested that we
make the right turn right away. It was actually a block after it, Royal
Hawaiian Ave. But she insisted, it was this street. When we went all the way to
the end of the street, we found out it was not the street. By this time, I was
already getting a little irritated. A first sign of rage, I think was when I
began to roll my eyes, and in my head, I thought how stupid and stubborn she
was. But it was really mild. Then, I didn't know the real rage was about to
happen. As we were planning to go back onto the main street, Kalakaua Ave., my
boyfriend apparently didn't completely stop at the stop sign. A police car was
parked in the corner and we didn't see him. Anyway, it was a regular procedure.
We got pulled over and the police officer walked over and asked for license and
registration. At this time, my boyfriend was swearing, saying 'Shit' and
'F---'. He was getting really upset. But I tried to calm him down by saying,
‘This is only your
first time. Everybody gets pulled over at lease once in there lifetime so just
think like this is a good experience.’
Usually, I am the
one that always get mad and my boyfriend is the calm one but at that moment, I
was really calm and I really wanted to cheer him up. But it was taking really
long! When we looked back we saw four more police cars pulling over. It was a
scene! A small Honda Civic and there were 4 police cars with their lights on,
pulled up behind us, and I swear, everyone who was passing by were looking at
us like we were criminals.
About 15 minutes
passed by and the cop was still not coming back. I looked back at them, and two
of them were yakking amongst themselves, laughing and joking and the other two
were writing up the ticket. I knew right then, that he was a rookie. I was
thinking, 'what an idiot, he can't even write up a simple citation!' We were
still patient in the car though. But another 15 minutes that went by, and they
were not still not coming back with the ticket. At this point, we just wanted
the ticket so we could go to the wedding, where we were already past 30 minutes
late. I decided that I will talk to the cops so I got out of the car, and I
approached the police officers.
‘Excuse me,
officers, but we have wedding to go to so could you please hurry up? We are
late already.’
Then one of the cop
replies,
‘We can't just
print the ticket up, you know. And if you weren't in such a hurry, this
wouldn't have happened. Anyway, it's almost done so wait in the car.’
So I said,
’WHATEVER!’
And went back to
the car. I was like we know we made a mistake but that stupid cop was taking
too long writing up one ticket. He had a manual with him, which he was looking
something up and I was slowly getting hot on my face and my heart began to race
really fast. It was another five minutes when finally, he came back with a
citation. 'Blah, Blah, Blah' He was explaining the citation to my boyfriend. I
wanted to say, 'Finally!' when the cop came to our window but I held my breath.
When the cop finally left, my boyfriend tells me that he got two tickets. I was
like ‘why would you get two tickets?'
So I rolled down my
window and yelled to them, already very enraged and upset
‘Why is there two
tickets?’
My voice was
shaking already. Then one of the cop, the one that spoke to me earlier, came up
to me and said,
‘One is for running
the stop sign, and the other one is for not having license to put front bumper
guard.’
I was like, ‘what
the hell is that?' thinking to myself. Well, the ticket came out to be $150
total. It was so ridiculous. I opened my window, and yelled really loud, ‘Thank
you!’ really sarcastically. It was already 7:15. Just when we were finally able
to go, this one car pulls over in front of us and stops! It was a regular road
and I guess that person was there to pick up someone, but it was such a timing
where when we were finally able to leave, this car comes and blocks our way. I
honked and honked the car. The car in front of us still didn't move. So I
opened my window again and yelled really loud,
‘MOVE YOUR F***ING
CAR!!!!’
By this time, the
cops that were standing on the side, were going towards the car in front of us,
to tell him to move. That car still didn't budge but my boyfriend backed up and
went forward. Anyway, as we were passing by that car, I gave the dirtiest look
I could ever give to them. I wanted to give him the finger but, that I
withheld.
All through the
short 1 min ride to the hotel, I was telling them that I didn't want to go to
the wedding. Hana was apologizing to us like how it was her fault for giving us
the wrong direction, and in my mind I was like, 'yeah, it's all your fault. If
we didn't pick you up, we wouldn't have been late and we wouldn't have to get
the tickets and pay $150 in fines!'
And I snapped at
her saying,
‘If you feel bad,
why don't you pay the fine?’
She remained quiet
and I was still debating whether to go to the wedding or not. The day was
ruined already and I didn't feel like I could go to a wedding and act all
happy. But I guess I had no choice and I went along with them. But I know I had
the ugliest frown in my face when I entered the reception hall. And I was
complaining about this the all night and only when we began to eat, my mood
began to improve and I was able to enjoy the rest of the night. But I think I
made everyone on my table really unhappy, because as soon as I sat down on
their table, I was complaining to them about our bad experience coming to the
wedding and how I didn't want to be there. But I didn't care at that moment,
what other people thought about me. I was in a rage. I wanted everyone to know
how upset I was and I wanted them to agree with me, how terrible it was. I
think this lasted for more than an hour. We began eating around 8:00, so I
guess my rage lasted from 6:30 all the way to 8:00. The night ended peacefully
but I still blamed Hana for making us get the ticket and she didn't even give
us any money to help us pay for the fine. And it was mostly all her fault, too
for ruining my night!
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1.
How did I decide what to report on?
I knew I wanted to
report on this because this was definitely one of the biggest rage I had in my
life. I was yelling at people, I was snappy, and this kind of feeling and
behavior lasted throughout the night. Although I started to feel better after I
ate, I knew the grudge and the blame I had for my friend, Hana did not easily
subside. It carried on even till the next day. This particular episode was
interesting because the rage that I had progressed into different rages. It
first started as a rage toward the cop, then it got directed to my friend Hana
when I blamed her for making us pick her up and getting us lost. But I also
felt like I was blaming my other friend for inviting me to the wedding that
started all these rages in the first place. So this was really a big blown rage
that really lasted a long time. It was really hard to control my own emotions,
especially these type of big rages where everything is out of control.
2.
What methods did I use?
I used the Three
step method:
Step 1 Acknowledge
Step 2 Witness
Step 3 Modify
And analyzing the
three-fold self: sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective.
3. What difficulties were there and how reliable are the
observations (what errors may there be there)?
The difficulties
were definitely due to the relaying of rages from one person to another. It
began as a cop rage but I knew it was slowly developing into different rages
towards different people. One event lead to another and it was a cycle.
Although that one situation was over, my emotional state wasn’t completely
resolved and I think such overlap of emotions and rages toward different people
started to get mixed up a little with time.
4. What were the observations: Where? When? What? Who?
Who: At HPD police
officers, my friend Hana
When: Saturday,
February 10, 2001 on the way to go to a wedding
Where: Waikiki, on
the way to go to Sheraton Waikiki hotel, where we got lost on the way
What: Raging at the
cops who were giving us two citations and holding us back for 30 minutes when
we were already late for 30 minutes. Raging at my friend, Hana for making us
pick her up and giving us the wrong direction to get lost, which resulted in
getting a ticket. All these could have been avoided if she was not around.
Recognizing that I am experiencing a
rage episode
When I first realized that we were going to get pulled over, I didn’t
have the rage just yet. I was trying to calm my boyfriend who was on the
driver’s side, about to rage. I tried to remain very calm and even attempted to
cheer him up who was getting really pissed off. Then all of a sudden, this role
got reversed, where I began to rage toward the cops and my boyfriend was trying
to calm me down. This rage began because although it’s been about 10 minutes
since the cop took the information and went back to his car to write up the
ticket, there was no sign of him returning. I mean he was taking really long.
What I actually found was that now there were now total of 4 police cars,
compared to 2 cars earlier. That was ridiculous! We just ran a stop sign and we
had 4 police cars flashing behind us like we committed a major crime or
something. I was getting so pissed off and forced me get into a real intense
rage! Imagine being pulled over for now close to 15 minutes with four police
car behind us flashing in a narrow road, with people passing by looking at us
like we were criminals! We were already so late as it was, and the cop was
taking so long writing a simple traffic violation ticket. How hard could that
be, that took over 15 minutes and required 4 police cars? I also could not help
but notice the other 2 cops that arrived late was doing nothing but talking
story on the side. All this elements contributed to my raging moment, in its
intensity and duration as well.
Becoming consciously aware of these
three elements of my rage episode:
My sensorimotor, cognitive, and
affective behaviors
I guess this witness of my behaviors of raging lasted really long time.
From the time of first sign of raging began, which was when the cop didn’t
return after he took our information. Usually the cop writes the ticket right
there but this one particular cop went back to his car and didn’t return for
close to 15-20 minutes and that was when my rage began. About 10 minutes after
he went back, I was wondering why it was taking so long. And when I turned
around to see them, I saw there were now 4 four police cars pulled over behind
us and I think that moment, something triggered in my brain that made my raging
emotions go wild. This rage of mine lasted till the end of the night. The most
intensive part of the rage lasted till I arrived to the hotel and although it
cooled down as the time went on, but I still couldn’t resolve my raging
emotions completely, until the next day.
|
SENSORIMOTOR
BEHAVIOR |
|
I realized I was having a rage
episode when I realized my sensorimotor signals were going wild. I began to
sweat, heart-beating and it was beyond my control what I will come out of my
mouth next, and I was becoming more intolerable at things that were said, and
things that were not said. I began to breathe really hard and my mouth closer
together (gritting my teeth and my lips) and my facial expression became
beyond the control of mine. I always strain my eyes and bring my eyebrows
closer together, making a really mean, ugly face. I think this description
will just fit the typical facial expression of angry face and I do this so
automatically. I also felt myself getting warmer in my face. My temperature
was definitely on the rise and I kept on looking back at the cops, staring at
them with the corner of my eyes, rolling my eyes, and shaking my head from
the disbelief of how long they were taking. I was also mumbling how stupid
the cops are, how they needed to go back to school because they didn’t even
know how to write up a simple citation. |
|
COGNITIVE
BEHAVIOR |
|
There were many things that were
going on in my brain. I was thinking, ‘All these cops should not be here!’,
‘this is so embarrassing. It’s just a harmless stop sign violation. They
shouldn’t make big deal out of this! They don’t need 4 cops here. There’s
only 2 girls and a guy who are dressed up to go to a wedding. What kind of
things would we do? We are all dressed up to go to a wedding, for god’s sake.
Like we would do something!’ When I first saw that there were 4
police cars behind us, I knew already, I was getting into a rage. I was
thinking how stupid these cops were, how they didn’t have anything better to
do but come to help out a fellow cop write up a ticket for stop sign
violation. They must be so stupid. Can’t even write up a citation alone. I
mean, it was taking really long! I’ve received a ticket before but it didn’t
take this long! I was thinking how stupid the cop was for not being able to
write up his own ticket and needed all these back up to help him with writing
a ticket. I was also thinking how screwed up
HPD was. The times when we actually need cops, they are not around. You see
crimes happening and there are no cops in sight and in this particular
situation, it was a simple case of writing up a minor traffic violation and
there were 4 cops, where 2 were not even needed. The other two that arrived a
little later, they were just talking story on the side amongst each other.
They clearly didn’t have anything useful to do. I was also thinking, how our
tax money was being wasted on people like this. They were just earning really
easy money not doing anything standing on the side doing nothing. They should
be patrolling Waikiki, or do something useful! I was thinking at that moment,
how someone could be in the need of their help, or some other person had
committed even more bigger of a crime that was worse than minor traffic
violation that they failed to take notice of. |
|
AFFECTIVE
BEHAVIOR |
|
I was really disturbed by them (cops).
I felt like doing a lot of things. I felt like complaining that you guys are
taking too long of a time to write up a simple ticket and wanted to ask them
if all 4 cops were really necessary to be there with writing up a minor
traffic violation. So I decided to ask them. I got out of my car and asked
them. They looked really shocked when I got out of the car and talked to them
like that. I guess you are not suppose to come out of car unless told to so
it was shocking to them especially from a girl like me, all dressed up nicely
but talking to them with a really pissed off face. But I can’t stand things
like this. When I see things that look like it is not right, I want to
express my feelings so they know what I’m thinking and I want them to realize
what they were doing. I wanted them to realize what kind of fools they were,
and how I thought they were really fools. They were definitely not doing
their jobs right and I really wanted them to know how I felt about them. I
also wanted them to know that I wasn’t intimidated by their uniform and I
wanted to show them how I am not scared of them, and how I think they are
actually really ignorant, useless people. |
Consciously modify all three
elements
(sensorimotor, cognitive, affective behaviors)
of my rage
|
SENSORIMOTOR BEHAVIOR |
|
I modified by behavior by first
relaxing my facial muscles. I loosened my lips and my lips, just tried to
relax my body overall. This naturally brought the body temperature down. My
facial temperature remained high because of all the excitement, but
eventually the temperature came down as well. I also took control over the
breathing, taking deeper and slower breaths, and just tried to make my body
just steady and minimize moving my body including my head. |
|
COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR |
|
I need to stop the thinking that all
the cops were there for no reason. I think it is possible that it is part of
their responsibility to help other police officers when they are in need. I
think this one particular cop that pulled us over, was in training, or a
rookie cop so I guess it is understandable that others come and try to help
him out. It is also in Waikiki, so I guess they were trying to be careful
when dealing with people on this side of the town because many unexpected things
happen from just routine traffic violation. Also, my thinking that cops are dumb
also needs to be modified because everyone is slower and hesitant when
learning a new task, or about a new job. This rookie cop was probably started
not too long ago so he was taking time doing things. He had to refer back to
his manual and ask questions when he didn’t know how to do certain sections.
Even the smartest people can have hard time when learning the new things for
the first time. So I guess assuming all the cops are dumb needs to be stopped
and modified into thoughts like this: ‘Everyone needs practice when
learning something new and without these practice, they’ll never become
better at what they do.’ ‘And everyone is a rookie in the beginning.’ ‘Policemen have a job. They are just
trying to do their job when they pull you over, so don’t try to disturb their
job.’ They have policies and rules to follow and there might be rules that I
am not familiar of. Some things like staying in big groups like that could be
their rule or policies in handling a group of people like us, although there
was only 3 of us in the car.’ I needed to organize all these stenotypes that
I had of police officers. Having stereotype is just really bad thing to do. I
needed to rethink many things over and try to get rid of these stereotypes. I
need to acknowledge and think that not all the police officers are the same.
They are people, too and the one thing that they did like taking long time to
write up a ticket is not enough to assume and categorize all the police
officer to be stupid, and useless. In actuality, they are all very different
individuals like many of us and was mainly doing their job. |
|
AFFECTIVE BEHAVIOR |
|
Start by thinking and accepting that
what the cops were trying to do was just their job. Taking long or not, big
group or small group, it is just their job. Although this one particular cop
was taking really long time, maybe the cops that I’ve encountered in the past
were really fast but were not as thorough as this one. I needed to see things
from both sides. Just thinking and listening to my own beliefs are not
enough. If I think from his point of view, he was just learning how to write
up a ticket and wanted to do a good job. Although new, he must have wanted to
do it right because he was referring to the manual when he wasn’t sure, and
was asking help to the other cops when there were things that needed to be
asked. If I was learning a new job, I will also need time and patience from
the people around me. Either customers, boss, clients, or whomever I’m
dealing with, I think I will want their cooperation as well. I wouldn’t want
someone like me, making things harder for me, when it is not really going to
make any difference in the process by getting angry and impatient. Need to
realize that everyone has a job to do, and regardless of if it is causing me
problem, it was my fault in the first place in getting into a situation like
that. Try to deal with the problem in a positive way because it happened already
and nothing I say, or think will change the situation. The whole situation
could have been a little bit more pleasant if I accepted that cops are just
doing their job and it wasn’t their fault but ours in the first place for
running the stop sign. |
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The
discussion
There are many
theories that which we can account for. But the greatest for our concern for
the cop theory is that we live in a society that does not appreciate the police
officers, or at least some of us. There were many incidents where we see cops
abusing their power for the benefit of helping fellow cop, or themselves,
either hurting the civilians physically or mentally. We came to believe that
they are more corrupted people and this could have lead us to believe that they
are less trustworthy and do not deserve the respect that they once had.
Is this society at
fault or could it be just me? It is difficult to say.
THEORY:
I think the reason
why I had such rage towards the cops could have arose from my previous
stereotype I had of the cops. It could have been the previous encounters I had
with cops that created my negative stereotype of cops. These negative
stereotype prevented me from seeing them in the individual basis and judge them
as a group of people who were all lazy and dumb.
And from these
stereotypes and negative emotions I had of them, I was very prejudiced when I
was dealing with the police. I perceived every little actions to be negative
and blamed many of my own faults to them as a result.
STEREOTYPES
Stereotypes refer to beliefs
about a group of people that give insufficient attention to individual
differences among the group’s members. Much recent research on stereotypes has
dealt with how people use their normal thinking skills on a daily basis.
Stereotypes should not be viewed as a sigh of abnormality. Rather, they reflect
people’s need to organize, remember, and retrieve information that might be
useful as they attempt to achieve their goals and to meet life’s demands. This
emphasis on normal thought processes has led researcher to borrow heavily from
studies by psychologist, and educators who investigate cognition and cognitive
processes.
One important
cognitive process, part of normal human thinking, is categorizing. People cannot
respond to every piece of information they are exposed to. Categories also
exist for people we know. As much as people might like to they cannot respond
individually to everyone they see on an average day. People place others into
one of approximately four categories:
- those
not all well known and who need no sign of recognition,
- those
known slightly for whom a nod of the head and hello will do,
- those
who are better known and for whom a few more words are customary, such as
how’s it going, or have you finished your term paper,
- those
who are very well know and for stopping and chatting rather extensively
are expected.
These four
categories summarize information about others encountered and they also five
guidance to people for making decision about their behaviors.
Because stereotypes are
categories about people, they have all the features of categories, especially
the organization of specific bits of information and subsequent reaction to the
category as a whole. If people hold a well-formed stereotype about some ethnic
or cultural group, then they may use that stereotype when they interact with
any individual belonging to that group.
Categories in general land
stereotypes in particular are shortcuts to thinking. People have to make so
many decisions about their behavior during a given day that they need guidance,
hints, helpful rules, and so forth. Stereotypes serve this purpose. The key
point is that attaching a stereotype to a person allows all the information ion
that stereotype to be brought to prominence in people’s thinking on demand.
Stereotypes are found whenever people can attach a label to a certain group.
Using labels can place limits on the behavior of individuals assigned the
labels. This stereotype can affect hearings decisions about funding priorities
during the next budget
PREJUDICE
The difficulty with stereotypes
is that very few people put the amount of care into thinking about other groups
required to move from automatic to controlled processing. Rather, people are
much more likely to use oversimplified stenotypes that deny individuality and
uniqueness to a person just because he or she can be conveniently labeled as a
member of some group.
Prejudice refers to the emotional
component of people’s reactions to other groups. It involves not only a set of
beliefs about others, which are captured in stereotypes, but it is also a
deeply felt set of feelings about what is good and bad, right and wrong, moral
and immoral, and so forth. Although prejudice can be positive, they more often
refer to very negative feelings about others. The word’s components specify
that prejudices also involve a prejudging of others based on limited knowledge
and limited contact. A close relationship between negative stereotypes and
prejudice exist because people have feelings or prejudices about various traits
and beliefs they believe others possess. W. Jordan also makes a link between
the two when he argues that negative :stereotypes may be defined as the bundles
of belief carried by the energy of people’s attitudes about other groups, or
their prejudices.
EGO DEFENSE FUNCTION
People hold certain prejudices
because they do not want to acknowledge various deficiencies in themselves. If
they hold prejudices that blame out-groups for these deficiencies, people do
not have to examine their own inadequacies. Certain prejudices, then, protect
people’s sense of self-worth. In everyday language, one person sometimes says
of another, he has a healthy ego. One way to protect or to defend one’s ego is
to blame difficulties on other people. Prejudices against cops often have had a
ego defensive component. Rather than examine their own faults as they relate to
receiving tickets, people find it is easier to blame police for being to hard
on us and abusing their power.
Another ego
defensive prejudice stems from people’s socialization into their culture.
People put large amounts of time and effort into learning behaviors acceptable
in their culture. They come to believe they behave in a correct and proper
manner. This is another cultural universal.
People hold certain
prejudices because they want to express values they believe are correct, moral,
and ethical. By viewing themselves as right, they put forward various
prejudices that communicate their positive view of themselves. The ego
defensive and value defensive functions are related in an important ways. When
people hold ego defensive prejudices, they are protecting themselves from
admissions that aspects of themselves or their culture may be inadequate. Ego
defensive prejudices allow people to hid certain features about themselves from
the rest of the world. In sharp contrast to hiding their attitudes and values,
people who hold value expressive prejudices attempt to make them as clear as
possible. For example, people who hold negative attitudes about members of a
certain religious group may view themselves as standing up for the :one true
religion of god.: People who view people with a different skin color as
inferior may view themselves as belonging to a superior race. When expressing
these attitudes about religion and skin dolor, people are not hiding their
beliefs about themselves-they are attempting to communicate that they and their
beliefs are better than others.
SYMBOLIC RACISM AND
REALISTIC GROUP CONFLICT
Certain people hold
negative views about out-groups, not because they believe in their inferiority
but because they feel the out-group is interfering with important aspects of
their cultures. The people do not dislike members of the group as individuals,
and their views are quite dissimilar from those that mark intense racism.
Rather, these people believe the out-groups are interfering with the symbols of
their culture, and these symbols can be abstract or concrete.
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Many of my previous rages that I have
suffered from were mainly derived from work. Either it be my coworkers like the
story above, or to my manager, or even to customers. I have always thought the
problems was them, and not me. But through self-witnessing process I have
gained a special understanding to become conscious of my feelings. When I
attuned to my feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, I was able to better
understand what my rages was all about. It is hard to see at first but by going
through my experiences in consciously, I was able to witness my raging episodes
and bring some modifications into these areas.
The
conclusion that I can close this rage episode is that my rage towards the cops
were very prejudiced. When I carefully examined the situation, they did not do
anything wrong. It was all my fault for being overly sensitive and blaming my
problems to the cops for pulling us over and giving us the ticket. I have
forgotten that, that was their job. I’ve forgotten to become empathetic and
became really insensitive to the world around me when I begin to rage. It is
just me, me, me. But that way, my rage becomes more out of control and I think
it is really meaningless when I keep repeating these rages.
Clearly the solution is having self
control and empathy and sympathy towards the people. Regardless of what job, or
how intimate the relationship I have with them, it is really crucial for me to
have empathy and sympathy towards the people I deal with because through this
effort, I myself will become more aware of the people around me and understand
why they do certain things. I would become more smarter in evaluating my
feelings and even if the negative feelings do come back under uncontrollable
conditions, I will be more empathetic
towards the person’s mistake and become more forgiving.
I also had really unreasonable
expectations from other people. Although I wasn’t sympathetic, I expected
everyone to be sympathetic towards me. When this didn’t happen, I think I began
to rage. I also expected certain things to happen and when it did not happen, I
began to rage. The real solution is careful evaluation of my feelings and the
situation at that time and do not have a set expectation because many times, it
will not meet our expectations.
Truly emotionally intelligent person will
be more tuned into their feelings and not so much on expectations.
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