Click on the images below to get your own Thin Blue Line wood flag. The Thin Blue Line is an important cultural symbol whose meaning often goes unknown. Is there even real meaning to it? Why would someone put this symbol on their vehicle? From divers congregating behind a shared symbol, the Diver Down flag , to entire countries rallying behind their national flags a source of unity, people use emblems and symbols to establish their identity as part of a group.
The Thin Blue Line is no different. At its core, the Thin Blue Line is a symbol of solidarity for police officers and their families. The British formation became known as the Thin Red Line. In , New York police Commissioner Richard Enright used the expression as part of a public relations effort. In the s, Los Angeles police Chief Bill Parker picked up the term, mentioning it in speeches and adopting it as the title of a TV show he conceived to promote a polished image of the Los Angeles Police Department, which had been plagued by a history of corruption within the force.
Parker left behind a controversial legacy. Under his leadership, the LAPD faced accusations of police brutality and racism as it transformed into more professionalized and militarized force that engaged in proactive policing — changes Parker viewed as necessary to ensure public safety.
Parker himself made a series of racist comments about Blacks and Latinos during his tenure, including in the midst of the Watts riots. In the film, the judge recounts that he was moved during closing arguments when a prosecutor spoke of the concept behind the thin blue line. The flag itself emerged around as the Blue Lives Matter movement grew in prominence. The movement was apparently intended as a response to Black Lives Matter and grew out of a series of instances across the nation in which police officers were killed in the line of duty.
Controversy followed when the flag was appropriated by White supremacists and neo-Nazis who flew it among a sea of Confederate flags during a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in The event turned deadly when a man plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing a woman.
More recently, in May of this year, San Francisco police officers responded to a housing protest wearing face masks emblazoned with the thin blue line flag — a display that drew immediate push back. Tony Montoya, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, blasted leaders who took a stand against the mask for what he said he viewed as giving in to hatred toward police.
Jack Schaeffer, president of the San Diego Police Officers Association, said he views the thin blue line as nothing more than a show of pride and support for law enforcement. He added that he views the flag as a showing of pride the same way other professionals, such as doctors, take ownership of their work. One police department in San Diego County that embraces the public display of the thin blue line flag is the La Mesa Police Department, which allows officers to wear the symbol on their uniforms and displays the flag on its fleet of police vehicles, on the rear bumpers.
Michael Jenkins, a criminal justice professor at The University of Scranton, said he believes society has generally accepted the thin blue line with little pushback in part because many members of the public have held police in high regard over the years. He said that while the thin blue line has been adopted as a form of solidarity, at its root is an idea that separates the public and police.
Bishop Cornelius Bowser, co-founder of the Community Assistance Support Team, which aims to prevent violence in the streets of San Diego, shared a similar opinion.
The Thin Blue Line emblem was established to symbolize all law enforcement personnel similar to the Red Cross symbol representing all medical personnel. The Thin Blue Line embodies the unbreakable component of law enforcement standing as a safety barrier between the law-abiding citizens of America and the criminally inclined.
Above the blue line represents the "good" spoken in Reagan's quote, while below the line represents the "evil. They risk their lives daily upon the streets of America.
The Thin Blue Line is a small token to remind us that the presence of law enforcement is to bring forth peace and diminish hostility and violence. Just as the American flag pays tribute to the American people and the country's sacrifices to gain independence; the flag containing the Thin Blue Line pays homage to our law enforcement.
Capitol on Jan. She also urged officers to carefully consider the ways in which they "engage with those who espouse ideologies antithetical" to the department's core values and the constitution they have sworn to uphold.
Some on-duty law enforcement officers were criticized — including one who posed for a selfie with the mostly white mob — by President-elect Joseph R. Biden and many others for their response to the pro-Trump rioters who breached the Capitol. Roman concluded her email by saying that she understood her decision may upset or anger some officers and that she felt "hurt and disappointed as we confront our current reality.
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