Responding to the Scene: Rendering Police Aggression and Invasion as Legitimate

• In Event: 30662 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Policing Issues 2

Abstract

Police transpositioning (Maynard 2019; Maynard and Turowetz 2020; Wiscons Forthcoming) is a practice law enforcement officers use to justify their aggressive and invasive actions by claiming that they are responsive to civilian provocations. This paper uses body-worn camera (BWC) footage and written records to present a detailed ethnomethodological (EM) and conversation analytic (CA) examination of an incident involving Alex Carter, a young black man who sought police assistance after a traffic accident, and the Greenwood Hills Police Department. I demonstrate how police transpositioning, beyond an in-situ phenomenon, is also a pervasive practice involved in the assembly of the written police narratives that memorialize encounters with civilians. This investigation provides insight into the interactional practices through which officials manage accountability and craft narratives. This analysis emphasizes the importance of—and provides tools for—critically assessing these narratives in the broader discourse on policing and accountability.

Author

• Lucas Zachariah Wiscons, Northern State University