Who is Dave Robicheaux?
He's the protagonist in 20 books written by
James Lee Burke, a New Iberia, Louisiana, writer.
Dave is a homicide detective in New Iberia, Louisiana. Cajun. Recovering
alcoholic. Vietnam war veteran. A man who marries. A father.
You can read more about Dave
here. And what he thinks about north Louisianans
here. And alcohol
here. And some music
here. On human exploitation
here. On Angola
here. On Louisiana's shadow self
here. Ack. I just realized that my selections might give the impression that Dave Robicheaux (channeling James Lee Burke) is a real downer about southern Louisiana. Of course, Dave Robicheaux is a homicide detective, so that has an effect on the topics he talks about, but even so, Dave's love of Louisiana, the people, and culture do shine through.
Dave and violence
Dave Robicheaux is a violent son of a bitch. So violent, it can
be difficult at times to rationalize that Dave is a good guy, and not one of the bad guys. It doesn't
help that Dave has tremendous admiration for sometimes-partner Clete,
who's got to be a psychopath. (Lucky for Dave, he's not Clete's enemy.)
Dave does have some insight into his violence, which he attempts to explain in
Dixie City Jam below.
Police violence - or abuse of power
From Dixie City Jam (1994)
I
always wanted to believe that those moments of rage, which affected me
almost like an alcoholic black-out, were due to a legitimate cause, that
I or someone close to me had been seriously wronged, that the object
of my anger and adrenaline had not swum coincidentally into my ken.
But
I had known too many cops who thought the same way. Somehow there was
always an available justification for the Taser dart, the jet of Mace
straight into the eyes, the steel baton whipped across the shinbones or
the backs of the thighs.
The temptation is to blame the
job, the stressed-out adversarial daily routine that can begin like a
rupturing peptic ulcer, the judges and parole boards who cycle
psychopaths back on the street faster than you can shut their files. But
sometimes in an honest moment, an unpleasant conclusion works its way
through all the rhetoric of the self-apologist, namely, that you are
drawn to this world in the same way that some people are fascinated by
the protean shape and texture of fire, to the extent that they need to
slide their hands through its caress.
A Stained White Radiance (1992)
Policemen
often have many personal problems. TV films go to great lengths to
depict cops' struggles with alcoholism, bad marriages, mistreatment at
the hands of liberals, racial minorities, and bumbling administrators.
But
my experience has been that the real enemy is the temptation to misuse
power. The weaponry we possess is awesome - leaded batons, slapjacks,
Mace, stun guns, M-16s, scoped sniper rifles, 12-gauge assault shotguns,
high-powered pistols and steel-jacketed ammunition that can blow the
cylinders out of an automobile's engine block.
But the
real rush is in the discretionary power we sometimes exercise over
individuals. I'm talking about the kind of people no one likes - the
lowlifes, the aberrant, the obscene and ugly - about whom no one will
complain if you leave them in lockdown the rest of their lives with a
good-humored wink at the Constitution, or if you're really in earnest,
you create a situation where you simply saw loose their fastenings and
throw down a toy gun for someone to find when the smoke clears.
It happens, with some regularity.
People like Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona, are real-life examples of what Dave Robicheaux is talking about above. Including how we are complicit in such activities. Since
my September 2013 post referencing Sheriff Arpaio, Maricopa County has spent even more millions of dollars to settle lawsuits that have arisen during Sheriff Arpaio's watch. .... And the people of Maricopa County keep him in office, re-electing him as recently as 2012. He won't be up for re-election until 2016. Reminds me of the perhaps-apocryphal statement made by a past president about one of our murderous allies in Central America: "
He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."
The New Orleans Police Department has a
woeful reputation for corruption and brutality.What does it signify that "everybody" knows this, and has known it for a long time, and yet ... it continues?
