Thin blue line

The term is adapted from The Thin Red Line, an incident of the 1854 Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War where troops the 93rd Regiment of Foot successfully stood their ground against a Imperial Russian Army cavalry charge.

[3] In the 1950s, Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Parker often used the term in speeches, and he also lent the phrase to the department-produced television show The Thin Blue Line.

[7] As Parker explained, the thin blue line, representing the LAPD, was the barrier between law and order and social and civil anarchy.

[3] The term was used for the title of Errol Morris's 1988 documentary film The Thin Blue Line about the murder of the Dallas Police officer Robert W.

[2] Judge Don Metcalfe, who presided over the trial of Randall Adams, states in the film that prosecutor "Doug Mulder's final argument was one I'd never heard before: about the 'thin blue line' of police that separate the public from anarchy."

[23][24] Police departments in Madison, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California have banned the thin blue line US flag because of its associations with views and ideologies described as "undemocratic, racist, and bigoted.

"[13][14] Merriam, Kansas city council voted to ban thin blue line flags from an annual memorial service in remembrance of fallen officers and other first responders.

[27][4] The creator of the Punisher, Gerry Conway, has criticized this usage, saying that police who use the symbol "are embracing an outlaw mentality" and "it's as offensive as putting a Confederate flag on a government building".

[33] Critics argue that the "thin blue line" represents an "us versus them" mindset that heightens tensions between officers and citizens and negatively influences police-community interactions by setting police apart from society at large.