A pair of tragedies are on my mind that strike at the shattered perspectives of a fraught societal dynamic, rooted in history and dominant in our present national discourse.
In Minnesota, there is another young black victim of a police shooting. The circumstances around the death of Daunte Wright are heartbreaking. A gunshot instead of a taser. A traffic stop for a minor infraction. Split-second decisions that cannot be undone. We mourn a life lost, while also recognizing the larger trendlines of a massive societal problem. That this latest death takes place just miles from the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd provides another line of devastating context.
Meanwhile, in Washington, mourners gathered once again in the Capitol Rotunda (for the second time in as many months) to honor a fallen officer. William “Billy” Evans died in the line of duty after a suspect deliberately rammed his car into the north barricade of the Capitol complex, attacking the police officers and the historic landmark.
Abigail Evans, 7, the daughter of U.S. Capitol Police Officer William Billy Evans, and her mother Shannon Terranova, pay respects as his remains lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., on April 13, 2021.
The sight of Evans’ daughter wiping the tears of his widow reminds us that behind these tragedies are lives that will never be the same. We are reminded also of this fact by Wright’s distraught mother and George Floyd’s brother on the witness stand.
Katie Wright (L) is embraced by Aubrey Wright (R) during a vigil for their son Daunte Wright on April 12, 2021 in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
The killings of Daunte Wright and of Capitol Officer William “Billy” Evans are two tales of sorrow. Two human lives extinguished. Children who lost their father for being nothing less than heroic. Parents who lost their son for being nothing less than human.
The relationship between the public and the police has never been simple. It deals in overlays of race, power, history, duty, and all manner of politics (socioeconomic, political, etc.). Society does need the rule of law, and the rule of law requires enforcement, and when necessary, punishment. It also requires the police to have restraint and show respect to those they serve. We cannot dismiss how the “law” has been also an instrument of repression, and that that has fallen disproportionately on the marginalized. In our society, the marginalized is often a synonym for our racial minorities.
So I turn to all of you with a set of questions:
How do we walk this line as a society? How do we recognize the service and often heroism of police officers, whether in the spotlight of the Capitol, or on the streets of towns and cities across America? At the same time, how do we also recognize the imbalance of power and responsibility? How do we acknowledge and ameliorate the long tendrils of systemic racism?
How can we talk about bravery without falling into false equivalence? How do we protect our society in a way that doesn’t exacerbate the suffering, pain, and yes even the deaths of those who have often felt that cruel hypocrisy flaunted under the banner of “law and order?”
These are not easy questions. They require hard, honest discussions and not sloganeering or cheap political point making. They require many of us to talk less, listen more, especially to the voices who too often aren’t heard or given ample room to speak up. They require nuance over generalizations, complexity over simplicity, humility over hubris.
When we started the Steady newsletter, I hoped to build a community for just such discussions. I admit, I don’t have answers here, but I hope I can frame a basis for us to talk, not just for the sake of talking, but as a way to move forward together
As always, please engage each other with respect. I want this to be a safe place for different viewpoints. And please feel free to share this link with others outside of the Steady community to bring them into the discussion below.
Some ground rules for these Wednesday chats (and also the comments sections on other posts):
I want a space where people feel safe to express their views, as long as they are offered in good faith.
I want a space where ideas can be challenged, especially my own.
I want debate. But I want it to be civil.
I want people to come here with open minds, and open hearts.
I want this to be fun as well as serious.
We can agree to disagree without being disagreeable.
Police are human, and in this time of mis-information being spread so quickly, it puts us all in a "Crowd Mentality" where we do not have correct information to make an informed decision, then we have so many people yelling in our ear to "DO SOMETHING" we are then forced to do the wrong thing.
1. Truly the police need not to restrain anyone longer than 3-seconds.
2. Police have to check their anger--even if a partner police officer is killed, you cannot take it out on someone else.
3. Police are not legally trained court judges. Because we all have biases, we need to let those trained to do so make the decision about guilty or not, and treat the accused as not guilty until proven so by a judge, not the "Crowd" or social media, or their own biases.
4. Police should work part-time on the streets, and part-time in a non-profit. They are actually stressed out individuals who need to take time out.
I do not know why the police and elected representatives, whose salaries the public pays, ignores a harassment by illegal surveillance that an estimated 90% of the public in certain areas hears. Due to the unusual technology involved in the harassment, people have been afraid to speak up and denounce the crime. It reminds me of neighborhoods who are afraid to speak up about gang violence for fear of the repercussions. This was the situation in Nazi Germany as well. As you know I have tried to stop the harassment since it’s inception. Harassment by illegal surveillance is not the perpetrators only crime. The silence by the authorities has allowed a heinous hate crime to continue with no truth or accountability for the innocent victim.
I agree this is not an easy line to walk. Police officers have to make decisions in split seconds. The vast majority of them are honest, kind & hardworking.
I believe the first approach may be looking at retraining. I have a son on the autism spectrum & I don’t think enough officers get this disability. And it terrifies me!
I see clips of officers who don’t understand it or other mental health issues that to me seem patently obvious.
I adopted a Hispanic young man & I now worry about his contact with law enforcement, solely because of his skin color.
I saw a video clip of some Scandinavian officers take down someone in the subway while in the US. It was amazing the difference in their technique.
The efforts of law enforcement to engage in communities has been highly effective. These need to be expanded to other large urban areas.
After we have that then perhaps Black parents will not have to have the talk with their children or parents like me won’t have to worry about their children with mental health issues.
I want to thank everyone in this discussion for making it a DISCUSSION and not a competition to see who can scream the loudest to express their opinion. It is so nice to see thoughtful exchanges of ideas. I had started to fear these were no longer in existence.
Let me start by saying, I have no answer to this very complex question. I believe we are really in a very precarious position now. Certain kinds of violence - shootings, riots, vandalism - seem to be more frequent. Why? Is it that our society is in a decline; is it that some people are fed-up with how the society has functioned; is it something else that is internal or external or both? And how do the police figure into this. I have thought for a long time that the issues are not truly law and order.
My background is working with young children. When young children act out, they are usually sending a message that something in their world is not right … out of balance for them. The out of balance aspect could be external or it could be something going on internally or sometimes a combination. As a teacher I needed to observe and find ways to communicate with the child. Perhaps the police need to be less like the military in enforcing the rule of law and more like a coach that communicates and guides.
However, I do not currently believe that our society could just switch from one model to another. For myself, before I can change a behavior that is self-damaging, I need to acknowledge and accept my behavior. Once I have done that I am able to intentionally make changes. I believe our country, our society must first acknowledge our history, the horrors and the beauty, before any change, including change in policing, can happen. I believe that if change is mandated before coming to terms with all of who we are, it will not be accepted. Lack of acceptance by almost half the population would likely result in further unrest.
Hi Dan, love your comments. My opinion for what it's worth...as long as gun's are sold across the counter with no control...American's will kill American's...looking at your huge problem from the outside (1) "The NRA " and (2) "The right to bear arms " . The one answer to these two problems is Education. Educate your lower classes and raise the IQ of entry requirements to your police forces. Educated officers should not have to shoot first!
Systemic change is required. I appreciate President Obama framing it as “reimagining”. Police are often asked to deal with societal issues; things social workers and mental health professionals are trained to address and not police officers per se. Homelessness comes to mind. A police response and intervention is far different. Same when called to a mental health crisis.
I also appreciate what one person said this week about a “few bad apples”. It’s more than just a few. A tree that continues to produce rotten apples needs to be cut down. Systemic change.
Here’s a few things to start:
Invest more in social workers and mental health professionals and services.
Crisis Intervention Training for police officers.
Co-responders. Mental Health professionals that are embedded in local police jurisdictions that are on patrol with CIT police officers.
Community policing. Officers assisting with soup kitchens, food banks, mentoring programs for youths, and so on. Officers in plain clothes but still hanging a badge around their neck while working in neighborhoods is also helpful and less threatening.
Hire police officers from their community and be sure they represent the community. Meaning if your community is 50% black or brown then your police force should reflect that also.
Law enforcement representation on local committees to study Disproportionate Minority Contact and Racial and Ethnic Disparities at all levels or touch points of the criminal justice system.
Suppose we humans want a happy, productive society where everyone is respected and treated equally. In that case, we need to change how we think and how we teach our children early in their life about responsibility.
In our minds, we need to convince our mind to change how it views and handles humans we fear and are different from ourselves. The human mind is assertive, stubborn, and hard to convince to do what we want it to do. However, we can make our minds perform any challenging mission we give it.
As humans, we must remain cautious yet be courageous enough to investigate new people and ventures entering our lives. So, we must move our fear to one side to better explore and understands newly arrived challenges and people. We need to use our friendly eyes instead of fearful eyes to observe our new challenge, and then we need to start constructive conversations.
Once we know and understand our new friend, we may play, work, and socialize together without fear, lies, or misunderstandings clogging our relationship. This of knowing and fearless relationship is what we need between all races and all kinds of humans beings,
Then, those relationships can expand to include Police officers, governments and help with world peace.
In my opinion the basic problem with the police starts with their powerful unions--politicians who crave contributions have allowed the police to water down any effective action municipalities might take to exert more control and protect us from bad applies. Effectively the police monitor themselves, and we see how that's working out for us!! Keven
Being one perspective, not a know it all, the hardest element is the punishment does not fit the crime. Police look like nut jobs or full of themselves. It’s not the media coverage but what happened, out of context reveals arriving at the mindset causing the undermining of America is all too frequent.People keep their cars tuned more finely than their minds and carry guns for a living.
The debate on this issue is really good. I do think police officers need to be involved in the communities that they serve, and that SERVE needs to be the watchword. Too often, police officers want to throw their weight around, because they think the badge gives them that right. For many years, I worked as legal counsel to a large bank, and I can’t tell you how many times officers demanded our bankers do things they couldn’t do, and threatened to arrest them if they didn’t comply. Every time, I thought, “If they do this to someone who is backed by a huge bank and its legal department, what do they do to any normal civilian they encounter who doesn’t have those advantages? And if the person is someone the officer considers ‘less than,’ such as a homeless person or a person of color, how much more abusive must they be?”
One issue is the legal framework for holding police accountable. Generally, as a trained professional, you are held to a higher standard of conduct than the average person. With police it is the exact opposite: it is damned near impossible to convict a police officer of misconduct. And officers tend to close ranks behind their “brother officers,” which makes it even harder. That really much change, or police will always consider themselves above the law.
Your questions are the ones to answer. Certainly, what we are currently doing isn’t working, instead we’ve created a horror show that we can all now witness on citizens’ cameras. Perhaps we turn to the Zulus way of managing crises in the village. Or the Babemba tribe’s forgiveness ritual. Or my favorite, Hawaiian Ho’Oponopono. Most outspoken Americans seem to crave punishment under a cruel, judge mental aggressive parental structure. Forcing people to be good and yielding to “power”. Yes, I’m just thinking out loud without real answers, just knowing we are coming at bring a community through the wrong door.
If we're going to give people life-or-death power over ordinary citizens - a badge and a gun - then they need to be far more prepared than they seem to be now. Does 13-19 weeks in the police academy (average) adequately prepare officers for de-escalation tactics, psychological training, combating racial profiling, and other skills to interact safely and effectively with a sometimes hostile public as an armed LEO? And cadet candidates should also undergo comprehensive psychological screening, d should career LEOs on an ongoing basis.
I would love to hear Charles (Chuck) Ramsey's view on this. His approach, as I recall, was to connect the police more closely to the communities by getting them out of the squad cars and back walking a beat. If memory serves, he also had at least some of them disarm, using tasers instead of firearms. This wouldn't have helped Billy Evans a jot, I know. I believe just as fervently that the communities need to have the police officers' backs, when and where their behavior warrants. And it won't always warrant. If police officers believe that the only support they have comes from their union(s), then when the bad actors need to be dismissed, chances are they won't be and down the road, there will be trouble.
I don't think this answers any of your questions, but as far as policing goes I truly believe the vast majority are good hard-working people. I feel that they need to interact in the community at a much more basic level.
For example, my son and his friends play basketball in the driveway at our home a lot, mostly during the summer. Over 6 years ago when my son was in 9th grade he made lots of new friends, all of which were black (my son is white, and we live in a predominantly white neighborhood). Over the course of the last 6 years they have played basketball hundreds of times. Our driveway is in the front of the house, not set back at all. and our street is a main road that the police use very frequently. They also take radar in the parking lot across the street.
My question, why have they not ONCE stop by to shoot a couple of hoops? They know that kids don't trust them for the most part. My sons friends have good reasons to not trust them, but I won't get into that now. Police being involved in the community, interacting with kids is absolutely essential for respect and trust. All it takes is a few minutes of "trash talk" and a couple of baskets to start earning trust on both sides.
Train police uniformly throughout the country. In the case of Daunte Wright there were THREE police officers on the scene. On the video we can see one trying to handcuff Wright who is outside his car. Wright somehow escapes the grip of the officer, gets into his car ready to drive away. At that point, the woman officer aims her gun at Wright and shoots, while shouting 'Taser, taser, taser!'
The police had all the info on Daunte. They could have arrested him at his house later, even if he had taken off. What is the point of taking out a gun or taser on him? He was not going anywhere. He was not a bank robber or terrorist on the run. If THREE officers on the scene could not handle this, what kind of training did they get? It seems to me - sheer incompetence and poor training leading to a totally unjustified killing.
Have body cameras on all the time when an encounter occurs.
My brother is a police officer and he is a decent human being, having said this though there are disturbing trends that I note.
1) With exception of occasional family visits, he socializes solely with other cops.
2) In their conversation about "civilians" there is a notable lack of respect or a paternalistic attitude about non-police citizens.
3) He has an (IMO) irrational fear/avoidance of areas, neighborhoods, people that I have encountered as a person who trades in used goods without concern and have been fairly dealt with by people living in blighted areas.
It seems that there is a very insular quality to his life that was gradual but increasingly isolates and hardens him. When you are a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail that needs to be pounded in.
As a "civilian" (mid 60s white woman, no criminal history with a federal security clearance) I have had police encounters that baffled, upset and scared me. One in particular, in western Kansas in late 2015. I was passing through a small town, minding my Ps & Qs because I was alone, driving our car with out of state plates which made me vulnerable in backwater towns. It was about 7pm and as I drove westbound over the hill leaving that town I observed a police car lights flashing cresting the hill behind me. I pulled over to let him pass but instead he pulled in behind me.
I wondered why I was being stopped and reached down to get my purse off of the passenger side floor when I saw an officer, gun drawn approaching the passenger side of the car. I froze and tried to process why this was happening, why he was on that side of the car, when I heard a metallic tap on my window. Another officer, gun also drawn was tapping on my window to get my attention. This felt very dangerous to me and I was too scared and upset to move so I said, "Stop it! You're scaring me."
He put his gun away and motioned to the other officer to stand down and I then rolled down the window. He proceeded to roll out a bunch of made up reasons, none true, as to why I was stopped, asked for my license and registration and because I was shaking so badly it took me a few minutes to get everything to him. The other officer left the passenger side and apparently was either driving another unit or more unseen officers had responded because a second police cruiser drove off as he ran my plates and info. The driver's side officer came back and proceeded to grill me intensely about where I was going, what my purpose was and who I was planning to see. (I was going to visit family members.) Because of the aggressive manner of the stop, I just told him my intentions though it was technically none of his business. I was so rattled that I was in no position to be driving but I darn well didn't want to stay there so I continued, looking behind me the entire way.
There were other stops, 4 in 2 years all in a car with out of state plates, resulting in insulting tirades but no citations. All made up reasons for traffic stops or as my brother called them, "public contacts"s phrase that infuriated me. What a completely messed up way to "contact" the public. We finally left the midwest for the east coast in 2018 and have had no incidents since.
I don't know what it will take to improve the situation but breaking up the insular nature of police officers would be a very good start. Also I see gun control as an important part of the program as well as overhauling civil asset forfeiture laws. Also perhaps police officers should NOT be making traffic stops in situations were life and safety are not specifically compromised. All of our stops smacked of purely fishing expeditions.
I have straddled both lines being an African-American woman who was also a PEACE officer. This article is beautifully written and captures the very dichotomy facing this Nation. While I cannot speak ALL African-Americans, it should go without saying that WE do not want to live in lawless communities nor do we want to live in militarized zones being disrespected and victimized by those who have taken an oath to protect and serve. But those are not the ONLY two options. In my opinion, racially motivated thuggery must become a concern for White Americans. They must decry racism because racism is a "White American" problem. Expecting US to do the healing is unfair when we do not suffer from the disease.
There are a quadri of problems with policing in America starting from the way police calls are dispatched, the lack of community service officers, depatmental diversity, and the prevalence of unprepared; or ilequipped officers who are not suited for the job to begin with. Those are not issues of racism those are systemic failures. Ironically, these systemic failures pose the greatest threat to the majority of officers who are the best of the best. I, like every PEACE officer deserves go home at the end of his/her shift. Young children should not have to console their grieving parents. That is simply heart-breaking.
In areas where there is a large black people, have patrol cars with a black officer& white , or both black. Stop allowing white only to make that decision.
These are such difficult questions, with no simple answers, so I can only talk about my particular observances about the state of our police departments. I have been absolutely horrified by the quick actions of police officers to resort to violence when other means of handling a situation could have been used. I wondered how many of our officers were former military men or women and the answer to that question was disturbing. While in the general population only 6% of people become officers, the number of officers with military experience is an astounding 19%. Correct me if I'm wrong, but military training would seem to indicate that you must quickly identify, neutralize, or eliminate your enemy or become a victim yourself. That is NOT the goal of community policing. Community policing first and foremost should be de-escalation of dangerous situations.
Something is seriously wrong if police departments actively seek these recruits and don't do an extended period of retraining with them. A report by the MarshallProject.org in 2018 indicated that police with military training are more likely to shoot suspects than other officers. No surprise there. In fact, those who were deployed were 2.9x more likely to shoot. Those not deployed were 1.9x as likely. We have militarized our police...their influence on the rest of their fellow officers has to be strong, or they wouldn't have been good soldier-leaders, would they? To make it worse, the US now has so much excess military equipment and vehicles that we give them away to police departments. Our preoccupation with war and escalating conflicts has definitely impacted how we police in this country, and it has to change. Our preoccupation with violence is destroying us in so many ways. And violence always begins with a failure to communicate.
And the really sad and sick part of this all is that our people of color...anyone who can be easily identified as different than the rest of us... become the easiest targets.
I am an Irish Catholic Democrat married to a Protestant Republican for 47 years and are in our seventies. We live at the end of a housing tract surrounded by canyons and we have some crime. My husband who is a bit bow-legged used to walk early in the morning in an XL navy hoodie and pants. A county sheriff profiled his shape and stopped him and interrogated him. He had no ID and it left him stunned. Another time he was going the wrong way stopped in front of his friend's driveway and another sheriff started to yell at them to move the car. Neither was a pleasant exchange! Someone who believes the police can do no wrong dropped me and another friend who is black as friends last year. These minor incidents scare me that police have built up a culture resistance to easy conversation and that everyone is evil. They are under extreme pressure to get accomplishments by putting people in jail.
I don't have an answer. I do have a request. Those of us who survive, who watch in horror as these things unfold, have an obligation to remember that there are families, friends, loved ones and loving ones, left behind; and they are humans, and they are in need of comfort, and of care. Let us remember that, and let us treat those folks with the compassion they deserve.
Heroes earn that title/respect. Police and elected officials once set an example for others to follow. Before Law Enforcement, there was Law & Order. When police incite a riot, it provides overtime for their industry. "Police force" -- maybe the problem is in a name? The citizen police force is largely comprised of former military and the mindset has perhaps changed when it comes to patrolling a community for safety vs. looking for insurgents? The easy answer that comes to mind is glasses that make everybody appear to be Caucasian? Those holding lethal weaponry to serve and protect must be held to a higher standard. With power comes responsibility -- and consequences.
The most important thing is for people to see that the rule of law applies to the cops, too. Cops who kill citizens without clear justification need to be treated as harshly as citizens who kill cops; in states with the death penalty, being a cop needs to be just as powerful a factor in getting the death penalty as your victim being a cop. Cops who kill pet dogs need to be treated like citizens who kill police K-9s. Cops who are so much as rude -- I'm only 42, and that's old enough to remember when police called people "sir" -- need to be disciplined, and that discipline needs to be public.
And the law needs to be applied firmly on the civil side too. Qualified immunity must be abolished, and cops must be held liable for every action that goes even slightly over the constitutional line. If we really can't get cops to do their jobs without some kind of protection from liability, that protection should come in the form of indemnification by their departments; then cops won't have to worry about losing their house in a lawsuit, but those who keep running up damages bills are likely to be fired and departments will have an incentive to train their cops better.
How did this Young man who was killed due to the negligence of another end up with a bench warrant for illegal possession of a weapon And was so afraid of the police that when He was caught again He tried to get away? Which from the video I saw escalated the reaction of Officers in an even more negative way. Also putting myself in the officers shoes, You are told by dispatch or a computer that the guy You pulled over is wanted for not showing up in Court for illegal firearm possession. He gets out of the car then starts resisting arrest and tries to get back into his car! I am not sure I would not have shot Him myself because my first thought is there is another canceled weapon in the car, He is trying to get at it, He is going to shoot me and my team. I beleive George Floyd was murder. Putting myself in both Daunte and the officers shoes, Dan, I am not sure it could have come out any diffrent. He is thinking I am going to die if I don't get out of here and She's thinking I'm going to die if He gets to a weapon in the car. Sad and still no answers.
I'd like to believe that the majority of police are civic minded and want to serve their communities but things have gotten sideways in terms of policy and the militarization of law enforcement. Some people are attracted to law enforcement so they can exert power over others. And since the USA suffers from institutional racism, Black people in particular, and non-White people in general, are most often victims of police exerting this power. If a law enforcement officer kills someone, there need to be consequences, whether it is considered justified or not. For unjustified actions by law enforcement, that should include a significant prison sentence. Life is precious and should be protected at all costs, not dismissed as disposable.
A relatively simple idea to fix law enforcement policing: train and instruct all law enforcement that they are to protect everyone's lives, even criminals. Their #1 goal should be to not draw or use any weapon - gun, taser, choke hold, nightstick, etc. A weapon should only be a last resort in response to protecting other's lives - including their own. And unless absolutely necessary, firing a gun shouldn't be with the intent to kill someone. I remember a time (not that long ago) when police would not use deadly force unless there was a direct threat to someone else's life. They definitely wouldn't shoot someone who was unarmed and fleeing. We know that law enforcement can accomplish this because they are able to bring in White mass murders without killing them.
Without these fixes we can't celebrate the bravery of law enforcement without also decrying the discriminatory results of policing on non-White and particularly Black Americans.
I had one other thought - I loved that Heather Cox Richardson shared this as part of her letter a couple of days ago -
"What is on trial is the fundamental American principle of equality before the law. Our law enforcement officers are supposed to use the force of the state to deliver suspected lawbreakers to our criminal justice system. And yet, in both of these cases—and so many others in which a Black person has died at the hands of police—the officers apparently killed suspected offenders instead of delivering them to the legal system guaranteed under our Constitution. Individual police officers appear to have taken the law into their own hands and become judge, jury, and executioner."
That key phrases: "deliver suspected lawbreakers to our criminal justice system" and"delivering them to the legal system guaranteed under our Constitution" - this is the task at hand.
And, I recommend that all police officers think "what would I do if this were a white person?" before they act since systemic racism is embedded in all of us. Or as I do, I say "soul, soul, soul" as I encounter people anywhere and everywhere. We are all connected.
Such great questions Dan! And I had to start with just reading some of the responses first...lots of great ideas put forth! I have so many thoughts and yet the bottom line of it is that policing needs to culturally transform in significant ways and to do that they need to bring in expert help from OUTSIDE law enforcement. They need to co-create with their communities a vision of partnership and a plan to achieve it together. I believe they should be giving more attention to the PREVENTION part of the definition of police (Police = the civil force of a national or local government, responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the maintenance of public order.)
I also believe that many of the calls they get should go to other professionals or service providers - i.e. mental health, shelter-less issues, etc. So many things should NOT be going to 911/police. There is so much potential to serve communities better if civic leaders would make this change in communities.
And as a part of culture shift they need to look at all the ways they appear militarized, unfriendly, unapproachable etc. From the guns, to the uniforms, to the vehicles they drive, etc. Total overhaul is BRANDING necessary.
Thank you for STEADY Dan! I shifted to a subscriber today!
Years ago just after I bought a new car, I was pulled over for not having a license plate. The policeman who was white and pretty young got out of his car and approached my open window, and wanted me to show him my drivers license. I questioned why I was stopped and he told me. At which time I pointed to the temp license attached to my front window. Oh, great, I’m glad you have that. Have a good day he said and went back ro his car and drove away. I did not have to get out, was not yelled at, was not pepper-sprayed, or hand cuffed. I did have a “previous “ for parking in a red zone and hadn’t paid it yet. He would have known that when he entered my ID into his held computer.
Why the difference? I am an older white woman. What police need to learn is to stop making assumptions based on skin corner or gender. This can be taught. I am aware that some people are dangerous or simply belligerent. But if a cop has a FIRST assumption that has nothing to do with ethnicity or gender, some of the police-induced reactions might be somewhat mitigated.
And no, I am not naive. I spent my adult life working in the field of social justice. I am deeply aware of the irony of being born white.
All of these crimes have made me discover that police have qualified immunity. I never knew that, and now realize it is the reason my ex-husband quickly signed up as a "rent-a-cop" that immunity is cat-nip to shady people. My ex is that person a gun freak and liar, when he was a rent-a-cop he pulled a gun at a guy during a traffic stop.
Has anybody else noticed the reason for these attempted arrests that ended in death are so minor - buying a candy bar with a possible fake $20 Bill, stopping a car with airfreshners hanging on the rear view mirror, etc. Do these policemen really represent what policing is really about.
Police need to understand de-escalation, that they are part of a community. Drawing a weapon should be a last resort, not the first. "Defunding" the police means funding social workers and mental health professionals to handle emergency cases of people with mental disturbances. Criminalizing protesters through pointless curfews only exacerbates already tense situations. The "bad apples" among the protesters who use lawful peaceful protest as a screen for rioting and looting need to be dealt with but so do the "bad apples" of the police. Police need to be held accountable for their actions and they very rarely are. My city pays out hundreds of millions of dollars annually to settle lawsuits brought by civilians against the police. Imagine if that money were reinvested in training, in communities.
How far we've strayed from "To Protect & Serve". That's not a condemnation of all police, just an observation of a general shift in attitudes. IMHO this shift is the end result of the militarization of police. Many millions of dollars worth of military equipment have been repurposed by local police departments over the past 15 years. I'll never forget the small town P.D. of Novato, CA responding to potential shooter about 8 years ago; it looked like a full-fledged military deployment and scared the hell out of a lot of people. Point being, when you militarize police, it can't help but turn into an "us vs. them" scenario. The police begin seeing the public as the enemy, and the public tend to react in kind. These are my thoughts and I can't substantiate them with data, but I'd love it if someone out there could demonstrate a correlation between military hardware acquisition and police taking a more reactionary and aggressive stance.
We don't live in a military state, but we have had an increasingly paramilitaristic law enforcement for decades. That engenders a compliance mentality for many - anyone not complying is an inherent threat - not a community policing mentality. We absolutely need to shift the focus more back to the latter, but sensibly, not with pointless, knee-jerk slogans like "Defund the police". Which is utterly obtuse, because change through retraining, etc, takes money. And it takes time.
It takes time to shift a mindset and 'untrain' decades worth of training and weed out those who refuse to change. Unfortunately, the more abuse and criticism that is heaped onto law enforcement, the more many officers are feeling attacked which simply causes them to hunker down and circle the wagons in their own LE community mindsets, solidly reinforcing the "us vs them" survival skills that take them home to their family every night. I'm not defending it; just pointing out that it's the reality of where we're at.
And yes, I absolutely DO recognize that minorities are lashing out because they have felt under attack for generations. I'm not defending the above. I'm merely pointing it out, because knee-jerks solutions and catchy phrases aren't going to solve anything. There IS widespread understanding even with law enforcement that change away from the paramilitaristic mindset is needed, but that change is going to take time and money. And consistency. It's been decades in the creation and isn't going to go away with the flip of a switch. And the void that is being formed because more and more officers are leaving the profession because of the sustained backlash is going to become increasingly problematic.
The big cities of America have forgotten that cities are really a series of towns and neighborhoods woven together with growth and need. I would suggest that redirecting ourselves to that small town outlook would localize our police force to a level where they can get to their respective neighborhoods and people. There is no greater deterrent to crime than a cop on the beat who could easily identify the perpetrators.
I am a social worker with the homeless. I was a community organizer too. I can suggest too things to help. One that will help right away, and one that will help over the long haul. !. Send social workers on domestic disputes and mental health calls with cops. One cop, one social worker. Cops will no longer be expected to deal with crisis they are not trained for. They are there only if things call for physical intervention. And the social worker decides when that is necessary. 2. Require cities to deploy Neighborhood Liaison Officers to all the neighborhoods that quality for CDBG funds. NLOs walk a beat in one neighborhood. They are the point of contact for the residents who are having problems of all kinds. People come to know them, they get to know the folks in the hood. Cities must require NLO experience to gain promotions and further the cops careers. The NLO program works. I have seen it in place making a difference.
Not only are there no “easy” answers, here are no encompassing answers at all. Improvement in the policing is really all we can expect.
To that end, I submit the following:
Until police unions and brothers/sisters on the force stop covering up for and defending each other when bad things happen, nothing will change.
Stronger laws on police use of force need to be passed and implemented and allow for somewhat easier conviction of police force miscreants.
Better training in peaceful conflict resolution must be given, although it will only go so far.
Procedures used in traffic stops need to be changed to avoid use of force at all possible times. In rare occasions, police must avoid trying to arrest resisting drivers to avoid possible injury or death. For minor offenses, it may not be worth the risk to life to attempt to restrain drivers. Confrontation can ratchet tension up to where violence will occur.
We need to try different approaches to arresting people, that is for certain. Under present conditions, the process leads to bad results too often.
When I was in High School, back in the 60's, we had informative and challenging classes such as "Political Science", "History in the making." They challenged us to think for ourselves but be open to listening to others opinions and not criticize what we don't agree with. It was to make us learn that life is not one simple answer and there are very few views alike. Do they still have such classes in this day and age? I would think they would be informative and interesting classes to help all of us to begin to learn how the other person feels, regardless of their race or ethnicity! And it should start at an early age in school! I'm 72 years old, been married to my High School Sweetheart for 51 years and we learned that to make our marriage work we had to use the tools that we learned in school and in life as we went along. We can't all just get along! It takes work.
I've been asking myself these questions for decades. Again, the tragedy took place in the city where I grew up. I have a tough time swallowing the heartbreak yet again. What we do with the police is walk a more narrow tightrope than we have been doing. Again, we need to weed out the authoritarian and the supreme, so that we can police with the people who can use compassion and reason rather than power and guns. We keep talking about it, exploring it, not becoming complacent and therefore complicit. In my humble opinion, the former Brooklyn Park police chief was one of the compassionate. He cried on camera during an interview. He loves his city and his people. He "resigned." He was sorely needed in the aftermath that is still going. He is SO not Derek Chauvin. Tightrope.
We really have to remember that authority attracts exactly the sort of people we don't want with that authority, and that the survival of a civil society is always a measure of how well it guards itself against these people.
- Politics attracts demagogues and narcissists.
- Jobs with authority over children attract abusers.
- Executive positions attract people who value wealth over people or society.
- Law Enforcement attracts authoritarians.
I mean, it's just a fact of life that if you don't spend constant time, energy and oversight into the hiring practices of law enforcement operations in your society, they will pretty quickly fill up with people who enjoy the privilege and power of wielding direct physical authority over others. Group these people together into forces and unions, and it will not take long at all before they find that they can abuse that authority for personal benefit or pleasure.
This is not a thing that *might* happen, it is a thing that *will* happen if it isn't actively prevented - and fairly quickly. In America it *has* happened, and most noticeably at the town and city level.
So do I think the problem is a 'few bad apples'? No. I think that in some of the best forces it may be only quietly endemic, while in the bulk of US police forces, it's probably openly on the verge of gang-level solidarity of abusive purpose. One look at the responses of most police unions tells you where the needle currently lies, and by all appearances its buried in the red zone of seriously hostile social behavior, verging on organized criminal activity in some areas.
I can't help but think of that experiment they did with prison guards. People put in a position of power really do come up against their own natures. I also can't help but think of my sister, who was a drug addict, and the many times she gave a blow job or had sex to avoid being arrested for all that goes with addiction. I will also never forget being pulled over in Arizona for what I believe was the horrible reason of just being too brown and suspected of being Mexican or being intimidated by the police for feeding and giving clothes and blankets to the homeless in a city park. I really believe that police take advantage of those they deem to be powerless simply because they can. We don't see charges and convictions because the people they abuse with their positions don't have the money to truly access the justice system. If all these people I have mentioned thought nothing of hiring lawyers I doubt there would be so much abuse. If all these people had people in positions of power they could call and simply tell what happened and be believed, we would not have so much abuse. This abuse happens every single day in America and as long as police and those in power suffer no consequences it will continue. So long as our justice system is about how much money you have it will continue. So long as our justice system is about who you know, it will continue. Justice in America is not blind. We all remember Brock, the very fine man who raped a woman behind a dumpster and basically got off scott free. The question is how do we empower people to even have access to justice? How so we empower the system to not cave in to the wealthy?
I have read some of the comments, and would like to add my own. I feel that, however well intentioned "Defund the Police" was, it has caused irreparable damage. I BACK the principles of this action, but the nomenclature of defunding has huge implications. And I feel that we have lost a lot of momentum that was available during the turmoil last summer. Had this movement been more aptly named, I feel that a lot of good work on repurposing and modifying police reaction in certain instances could have made a huge difference. But that opportunity has been lost. that saddens me.
I became interested in this area after a law officer shot and killed a 12 year old boy carrying a toy rifle in my community. Our county struggled to deal with this tragedy and created a task force to study this difficult issue. The task force recommended creating an independent citizens oversight of law enforcement agency which the county did establish. I would suggest to anyone interested to visit the website of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. This non-profit founded in the mid-1990's is dedicated to improving the independent oversight of law enforcement and the sight has many valuable resources and links.
Many communities have created civilian oversight bodies which can work collaboratively with police to implement community policing, demilitarize police and give citizens a forum to lodge complaints. There has been a ton of great work done in these areas although in many states including California, where I live, law enforcement officers are given special protections that present obstacles to oversight. The goal of oversight bodies is, generally, not to demonize law enforcement, but rather to create an atmosphere where the community can more directly assist law enforcement to protect and serve.
Obviously, there is a very different experience people have with the police, depending on their race. In the two incidents this week (Minnesota and Virginia) the police were panicked and clearly running on adrenalin. In the Virginia case, the man being pulled over for lack of a license plate (there was a temp taped to his rear window), there was no attempt to interact with him in a respectful manner. The police never said why they pulled him over. They were angry that he chose to pull over in a well-lighted area because he was legitimately afraid of them (they confirmed as much by their hostility and panicked reactions). In the face of out-of-control, well-armed police, the man had to be completely calm, completely polite. He was threatened by the now-fired cop with a taser, and he got maced and pulled out of his car and cuffed.
If the same police had pulled over a driver for the same issue and the driver was white, it would have been a discussion. This man was assumed to be "dangerous" immediately and was treated like an enemy combatant.
I find a really stark example to be what happened after the white murderer, Dylan Roof, was arrested in Charleston after his mass killing of Black Bible study participants in their church. The police took him through a Burger King drive-through to get food after he killed 9 human beings in cold blood. The police were unafraid and not panicked in the face of a sociopath who calculated his murder and did so with no remorse. This isn't an outlier example either. In California, perhaps the same year, there was a huge, violent brawl between two gangs of white bikers at some bar. There were deaths and injuries. The police had them sitting on the sidewalk, none were cuffed, while the police went about their work. The police brought them water. The police were clearly outnumbered by a bunch of thugs who had recently demonstrated their violence and yet the police were unafraid and unpanicked.
Why are police so jumpy and violent around Black people? Why WOULDN'T black people be afraid and act on that legitimate fear in the face of those so willing to use their weapons on them?
Philando Castillo, also in Minneapolis, a few years back, got pulled over for a broken tail light (favorite trumped-up reason police seem to use to pull over Black drivers). He had a concealed firearm permit and did everything he was supposed to in that instance and informed the police that he had the permit and there was a weapon in the car. He was shot and killed. Being calm, doing everything exactly right did not protect his life in the face of police who routinely see Black American men as enemy combatants and not citizens.
I've seen lots of comments about the most recent young man, Dante Wright, being criticized for not being compliant, cooperative, resisting, and refusing. Remember he was pulled over for having an air freshener on this mirror. It was no reason to pull him over. When the police learned he had a warrant for a failure to appear in court, they decided they had an enemy combatant, not a citizen worthy of respect and calm, and professionalism. The police were allowed to panic. The police are given a break for losing their professional demeanor, losing their cool, reacting in a dangerous and unprofessional way (there are apparently several big mistakes the police made that escalated the situation). And the young man became very frightened. He, a citizen, a 20-year-old, was given no margin to panic or make a mistake. Plenty of people are willing to give the officer a break for her mistake that killed that young man.
Police are human, and in this time of mis-information being spread so quickly, it puts us all in a "Crowd Mentality" where we do not have correct information to make an informed decision, then we have so many people yelling in our ear to "DO SOMETHING" we are then forced to do the wrong thing.
1. Truly the police need not to restrain anyone longer than 3-seconds.
2. Police have to check their anger--even if a partner police officer is killed, you cannot take it out on someone else.
3. Police are not legally trained court judges. Because we all have biases, we need to let those trained to do so make the decision about guilty or not, and treat the accused as not guilty until proven so by a judge, not the "Crowd" or social media, or their own biases.
4. Police should work part-time on the streets, and part-time in a non-profit. They are actually stressed out individuals who need to take time out.
I do not know why the police and elected representatives, whose salaries the public pays, ignores a harassment by illegal surveillance that an estimated 90% of the public in certain areas hears. Due to the unusual technology involved in the harassment, people have been afraid to speak up and denounce the crime. It reminds me of neighborhoods who are afraid to speak up about gang violence for fear of the repercussions. This was the situation in Nazi Germany as well. As you know I have tried to stop the harassment since it’s inception. Harassment by illegal surveillance is not the perpetrators only crime. The silence by the authorities has allowed a heinous hate crime to continue with no truth or accountability for the innocent victim.
I agree this is not an easy line to walk. Police officers have to make decisions in split seconds. The vast majority of them are honest, kind & hardworking.
I believe the first approach may be looking at retraining. I have a son on the autism spectrum & I don’t think enough officers get this disability. And it terrifies me!
I see clips of officers who don’t understand it or other mental health issues that to me seem patently obvious.
I adopted a Hispanic young man & I now worry about his contact with law enforcement, solely because of his skin color.
I saw a video clip of some Scandinavian officers take down someone in the subway while in the US. It was amazing the difference in their technique.
The efforts of law enforcement to engage in communities has been highly effective. These need to be expanded to other large urban areas.
After we have that then perhaps Black parents will not have to have the talk with their children or parents like me won’t have to worry about their children with mental health issues.
I want to thank everyone in this discussion for making it a DISCUSSION and not a competition to see who can scream the loudest to express their opinion. It is so nice to see thoughtful exchanges of ideas. I had started to fear these were no longer in existence.
Let me start by saying, I have no answer to this very complex question. I believe we are really in a very precarious position now. Certain kinds of violence - shootings, riots, vandalism - seem to be more frequent. Why? Is it that our society is in a decline; is it that some people are fed-up with how the society has functioned; is it something else that is internal or external or both? And how do the police figure into this. I have thought for a long time that the issues are not truly law and order.
My background is working with young children. When young children act out, they are usually sending a message that something in their world is not right … out of balance for them. The out of balance aspect could be external or it could be something going on internally or sometimes a combination. As a teacher I needed to observe and find ways to communicate with the child. Perhaps the police need to be less like the military in enforcing the rule of law and more like a coach that communicates and guides.
However, I do not currently believe that our society could just switch from one model to another. For myself, before I can change a behavior that is self-damaging, I need to acknowledge and accept my behavior. Once I have done that I am able to intentionally make changes. I believe our country, our society must first acknowledge our history, the horrors and the beauty, before any change, including change in policing, can happen. I believe that if change is mandated before coming to terms with all of who we are, it will not be accepted. Lack of acceptance by almost half the population would likely result in further unrest.
Hi Dan, love your comments. My opinion for what it's worth...as long as gun's are sold across the counter with no control...American's will kill American's...looking at your huge problem from the outside (1) "The NRA " and (2) "The right to bear arms " . The one answer to these two problems is Education. Educate your lower classes and raise the IQ of entry requirements to your police forces. Educated officers should not have to shoot first!
Systemic change is required. I appreciate President Obama framing it as “reimagining”. Police are often asked to deal with societal issues; things social workers and mental health professionals are trained to address and not police officers per se. Homelessness comes to mind. A police response and intervention is far different. Same when called to a mental health crisis.
I also appreciate what one person said this week about a “few bad apples”. It’s more than just a few. A tree that continues to produce rotten apples needs to be cut down. Systemic change.
Here’s a few things to start:
Invest more in social workers and mental health professionals and services.
Crisis Intervention Training for police officers.
Co-responders. Mental Health professionals that are embedded in local police jurisdictions that are on patrol with CIT police officers.
Community policing. Officers assisting with soup kitchens, food banks, mentoring programs for youths, and so on. Officers in plain clothes but still hanging a badge around their neck while working in neighborhoods is also helpful and less threatening.
Hire police officers from their community and be sure they represent the community. Meaning if your community is 50% black or brown then your police force should reflect that also.
Law enforcement representation on local committees to study Disproportionate Minority Contact and Racial and Ethnic Disparities at all levels or touch points of the criminal justice system.
Just a few suggestions to start with.
Dan, I salute your article about policing. Thank you!!
Suppose we humans want a happy, productive society where everyone is respected and treated equally. In that case, we need to change how we think and how we teach our children early in their life about responsibility.
In our minds, we need to convince our mind to change how it views and handles humans we fear and are different from ourselves. The human mind is assertive, stubborn, and hard to convince to do what we want it to do. However, we can make our minds perform any challenging mission we give it.
As humans, we must remain cautious yet be courageous enough to investigate new people and ventures entering our lives. So, we must move our fear to one side to better explore and understands newly arrived challenges and people. We need to use our friendly eyes instead of fearful eyes to observe our new challenge, and then we need to start constructive conversations.
Once we know and understand our new friend, we may play, work, and socialize together without fear, lies, or misunderstandings clogging our relationship. This of knowing and fearless relationship is what we need between all races and all kinds of humans beings,
Then, those relationships can expand to include Police officers, governments and help with world peace.
In my opinion the basic problem with the police starts with their powerful unions--politicians who crave contributions have allowed the police to water down any effective action municipalities might take to exert more control and protect us from bad applies. Effectively the police monitor themselves, and we see how that's working out for us!! Keven
Being one perspective, not a know it all, the hardest element is the punishment does not fit the crime. Police look like nut jobs or full of themselves. It’s not the media coverage but what happened, out of context reveals arriving at the mindset causing the undermining of America is all too frequent.People keep their cars tuned more finely than their minds and carry guns for a living.
The debate on this issue is really good. I do think police officers need to be involved in the communities that they serve, and that SERVE needs to be the watchword. Too often, police officers want to throw their weight around, because they think the badge gives them that right. For many years, I worked as legal counsel to a large bank, and I can’t tell you how many times officers demanded our bankers do things they couldn’t do, and threatened to arrest them if they didn’t comply. Every time, I thought, “If they do this to someone who is backed by a huge bank and its legal department, what do they do to any normal civilian they encounter who doesn’t have those advantages? And if the person is someone the officer considers ‘less than,’ such as a homeless person or a person of color, how much more abusive must they be?”
One issue is the legal framework for holding police accountable. Generally, as a trained professional, you are held to a higher standard of conduct than the average person. With police it is the exact opposite: it is damned near impossible to convict a police officer of misconduct. And officers tend to close ranks behind their “brother officers,” which makes it even harder. That really much change, or police will always consider themselves above the law.
Your questions are the ones to answer. Certainly, what we are currently doing isn’t working, instead we’ve created a horror show that we can all now witness on citizens’ cameras. Perhaps we turn to the Zulus way of managing crises in the village. Or the Babemba tribe’s forgiveness ritual. Or my favorite, Hawaiian Ho’Oponopono. Most outspoken Americans seem to crave punishment under a cruel, judge mental aggressive parental structure. Forcing people to be good and yielding to “power”. Yes, I’m just thinking out loud without real answers, just knowing we are coming at bring a community through the wrong door.
If we're going to give people life-or-death power over ordinary citizens - a badge and a gun - then they need to be far more prepared than they seem to be now. Does 13-19 weeks in the police academy (average) adequately prepare officers for de-escalation tactics, psychological training, combating racial profiling, and other skills to interact safely and effectively with a sometimes hostile public as an armed LEO? And cadet candidates should also undergo comprehensive psychological screening, d should career LEOs on an ongoing basis.
I would love to hear Charles (Chuck) Ramsey's view on this. His approach, as I recall, was to connect the police more closely to the communities by getting them out of the squad cars and back walking a beat. If memory serves, he also had at least some of them disarm, using tasers instead of firearms. This wouldn't have helped Billy Evans a jot, I know. I believe just as fervently that the communities need to have the police officers' backs, when and where their behavior warrants. And it won't always warrant. If police officers believe that the only support they have comes from their union(s), then when the bad actors need to be dismissed, chances are they won't be and down the road, there will be trouble.
I don't think this answers any of your questions, but as far as policing goes I truly believe the vast majority are good hard-working people. I feel that they need to interact in the community at a much more basic level.
For example, my son and his friends play basketball in the driveway at our home a lot, mostly during the summer. Over 6 years ago when my son was in 9th grade he made lots of new friends, all of which were black (my son is white, and we live in a predominantly white neighborhood). Over the course of the last 6 years they have played basketball hundreds of times. Our driveway is in the front of the house, not set back at all. and our street is a main road that the police use very frequently. They also take radar in the parking lot across the street.
My question, why have they not ONCE stop by to shoot a couple of hoops? They know that kids don't trust them for the most part. My sons friends have good reasons to not trust them, but I won't get into that now. Police being involved in the community, interacting with kids is absolutely essential for respect and trust. All it takes is a few minutes of "trash talk" and a couple of baskets to start earning trust on both sides.
We must see ourselves in their pain.
Train police uniformly throughout the country. In the case of Daunte Wright there were THREE police officers on the scene. On the video we can see one trying to handcuff Wright who is outside his car. Wright somehow escapes the grip of the officer, gets into his car ready to drive away. At that point, the woman officer aims her gun at Wright and shoots, while shouting 'Taser, taser, taser!'
The police had all the info on Daunte. They could have arrested him at his house later, even if he had taken off. What is the point of taking out a gun or taser on him? He was not going anywhere. He was not a bank robber or terrorist on the run. If THREE officers on the scene could not handle this, what kind of training did they get? It seems to me - sheer incompetence and poor training leading to a totally unjustified killing.
Have body cameras on all the time when an encounter occurs.
Listen more, talk less is wonderful advice.
My brother is a police officer and he is a decent human being, having said this though there are disturbing trends that I note.
1) With exception of occasional family visits, he socializes solely with other cops.
2) In their conversation about "civilians" there is a notable lack of respect or a paternalistic attitude about non-police citizens.
3) He has an (IMO) irrational fear/avoidance of areas, neighborhoods, people that I have encountered as a person who trades in used goods without concern and have been fairly dealt with by people living in blighted areas.
It seems that there is a very insular quality to his life that was gradual but increasingly isolates and hardens him. When you are a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail that needs to be pounded in.
As a "civilian" (mid 60s white woman, no criminal history with a federal security clearance) I have had police encounters that baffled, upset and scared me. One in particular, in western Kansas in late 2015. I was passing through a small town, minding my Ps & Qs because I was alone, driving our car with out of state plates which made me vulnerable in backwater towns. It was about 7pm and as I drove westbound over the hill leaving that town I observed a police car lights flashing cresting the hill behind me. I pulled over to let him pass but instead he pulled in behind me.
I wondered why I was being stopped and reached down to get my purse off of the passenger side floor when I saw an officer, gun drawn approaching the passenger side of the car. I froze and tried to process why this was happening, why he was on that side of the car, when I heard a metallic tap on my window. Another officer, gun also drawn was tapping on my window to get my attention. This felt very dangerous to me and I was too scared and upset to move so I said, "Stop it! You're scaring me."
He put his gun away and motioned to the other officer to stand down and I then rolled down the window. He proceeded to roll out a bunch of made up reasons, none true, as to why I was stopped, asked for my license and registration and because I was shaking so badly it took me a few minutes to get everything to him. The other officer left the passenger side and apparently was either driving another unit or more unseen officers had responded because a second police cruiser drove off as he ran my plates and info. The driver's side officer came back and proceeded to grill me intensely about where I was going, what my purpose was and who I was planning to see. (I was going to visit family members.) Because of the aggressive manner of the stop, I just told him my intentions though it was technically none of his business. I was so rattled that I was in no position to be driving but I darn well didn't want to stay there so I continued, looking behind me the entire way.
There were other stops, 4 in 2 years all in a car with out of state plates, resulting in insulting tirades but no citations. All made up reasons for traffic stops or as my brother called them, "public contacts"s phrase that infuriated me. What a completely messed up way to "contact" the public. We finally left the midwest for the east coast in 2018 and have had no incidents since.
I don't know what it will take to improve the situation but breaking up the insular nature of police officers would be a very good start. Also I see gun control as an important part of the program as well as overhauling civil asset forfeiture laws. Also perhaps police officers should NOT be making traffic stops in situations were life and safety are not specifically compromised. All of our stops smacked of purely fishing expeditions.
I have straddled both lines being an African-American woman who was also a PEACE officer. This article is beautifully written and captures the very dichotomy facing this Nation. While I cannot speak ALL African-Americans, it should go without saying that WE do not want to live in lawless communities nor do we want to live in militarized zones being disrespected and victimized by those who have taken an oath to protect and serve. But those are not the ONLY two options. In my opinion, racially motivated thuggery must become a concern for White Americans. They must decry racism because racism is a "White American" problem. Expecting US to do the healing is unfair when we do not suffer from the disease.
There are a quadri of problems with policing in America starting from the way police calls are dispatched, the lack of community service officers, depatmental diversity, and the prevalence of unprepared; or ilequipped officers who are not suited for the job to begin with. Those are not issues of racism those are systemic failures. Ironically, these systemic failures pose the greatest threat to the majority of officers who are the best of the best. I, like every PEACE officer deserves go home at the end of his/her shift. Young children should not have to console their grieving parents. That is simply heart-breaking.
In areas where there is a large black people, have patrol cars with a black officer& white , or both black. Stop allowing white only to make that decision.
These are such difficult questions, with no simple answers, so I can only talk about my particular observances about the state of our police departments. I have been absolutely horrified by the quick actions of police officers to resort to violence when other means of handling a situation could have been used. I wondered how many of our officers were former military men or women and the answer to that question was disturbing. While in the general population only 6% of people become officers, the number of officers with military experience is an astounding 19%. Correct me if I'm wrong, but military training would seem to indicate that you must quickly identify, neutralize, or eliminate your enemy or become a victim yourself. That is NOT the goal of community policing. Community policing first and foremost should be de-escalation of dangerous situations.
Something is seriously wrong if police departments actively seek these recruits and don't do an extended period of retraining with them. A report by the MarshallProject.org in 2018 indicated that police with military training are more likely to shoot suspects than other officers. No surprise there. In fact, those who were deployed were 2.9x more likely to shoot. Those not deployed were 1.9x as likely. We have militarized our police...their influence on the rest of their fellow officers has to be strong, or they wouldn't have been good soldier-leaders, would they? To make it worse, the US now has so much excess military equipment and vehicles that we give them away to police departments. Our preoccupation with war and escalating conflicts has definitely impacted how we police in this country, and it has to change. Our preoccupation with violence is destroying us in so many ways. And violence always begins with a failure to communicate.
And the really sad and sick part of this all is that our people of color...anyone who can be easily identified as different than the rest of us... become the easiest targets.
I am an Irish Catholic Democrat married to a Protestant Republican for 47 years and are in our seventies. We live at the end of a housing tract surrounded by canyons and we have some crime. My husband who is a bit bow-legged used to walk early in the morning in an XL navy hoodie and pants. A county sheriff profiled his shape and stopped him and interrogated him. He had no ID and it left him stunned. Another time he was going the wrong way stopped in front of his friend's driveway and another sheriff started to yell at them to move the car. Neither was a pleasant exchange! Someone who believes the police can do no wrong dropped me and another friend who is black as friends last year. These minor incidents scare me that police have built up a culture resistance to easy conversation and that everyone is evil. They are under extreme pressure to get accomplishments by putting people in jail.
I don't have an answer. I do have a request. Those of us who survive, who watch in horror as these things unfold, have an obligation to remember that there are families, friends, loved ones and loving ones, left behind; and they are humans, and they are in need of comfort, and of care. Let us remember that, and let us treat those folks with the compassion they deserve.
Heroes earn that title/respect. Police and elected officials once set an example for others to follow. Before Law Enforcement, there was Law & Order. When police incite a riot, it provides overtime for their industry. "Police force" -- maybe the problem is in a name? The citizen police force is largely comprised of former military and the mindset has perhaps changed when it comes to patrolling a community for safety vs. looking for insurgents? The easy answer that comes to mind is glasses that make everybody appear to be Caucasian? Those holding lethal weaponry to serve and protect must be held to a higher standard. With power comes responsibility -- and consequences.
The most important thing is for people to see that the rule of law applies to the cops, too. Cops who kill citizens without clear justification need to be treated as harshly as citizens who kill cops; in states with the death penalty, being a cop needs to be just as powerful a factor in getting the death penalty as your victim being a cop. Cops who kill pet dogs need to be treated like citizens who kill police K-9s. Cops who are so much as rude -- I'm only 42, and that's old enough to remember when police called people "sir" -- need to be disciplined, and that discipline needs to be public.
And the law needs to be applied firmly on the civil side too. Qualified immunity must be abolished, and cops must be held liable for every action that goes even slightly over the constitutional line. If we really can't get cops to do their jobs without some kind of protection from liability, that protection should come in the form of indemnification by their departments; then cops won't have to worry about losing their house in a lawsuit, but those who keep running up damages bills are likely to be fired and departments will have an incentive to train their cops better.
I don't have answers only more questions?
How did this Young man who was killed due to the negligence of another end up with a bench warrant for illegal possession of a weapon And was so afraid of the police that when He was caught again He tried to get away? Which from the video I saw escalated the reaction of Officers in an even more negative way. Also putting myself in the officers shoes, You are told by dispatch or a computer that the guy You pulled over is wanted for not showing up in Court for illegal firearm possession. He gets out of the car then starts resisting arrest and tries to get back into his car! I am not sure I would not have shot Him myself because my first thought is there is another canceled weapon in the car, He is trying to get at it, He is going to shoot me and my team. I beleive George Floyd was murder. Putting myself in both Daunte and the officers shoes, Dan, I am not sure it could have come out any diffrent. He is thinking I am going to die if I don't get out of here and She's thinking I'm going to die if He gets to a weapon in the car. Sad and still no answers.
I'd like to believe that the majority of police are civic minded and want to serve their communities but things have gotten sideways in terms of policy and the militarization of law enforcement. Some people are attracted to law enforcement so they can exert power over others. And since the USA suffers from institutional racism, Black people in particular, and non-White people in general, are most often victims of police exerting this power. If a law enforcement officer kills someone, there need to be consequences, whether it is considered justified or not. For unjustified actions by law enforcement, that should include a significant prison sentence. Life is precious and should be protected at all costs, not dismissed as disposable.
A relatively simple idea to fix law enforcement policing: train and instruct all law enforcement that they are to protect everyone's lives, even criminals. Their #1 goal should be to not draw or use any weapon - gun, taser, choke hold, nightstick, etc. A weapon should only be a last resort in response to protecting other's lives - including their own. And unless absolutely necessary, firing a gun shouldn't be with the intent to kill someone. I remember a time (not that long ago) when police would not use deadly force unless there was a direct threat to someone else's life. They definitely wouldn't shoot someone who was unarmed and fleeing. We know that law enforcement can accomplish this because they are able to bring in White mass murders without killing them.
Without these fixes we can't celebrate the bravery of law enforcement without also decrying the discriminatory results of policing on non-White and particularly Black Americans.
I had one other thought - I loved that Heather Cox Richardson shared this as part of her letter a couple of days ago -
"What is on trial is the fundamental American principle of equality before the law. Our law enforcement officers are supposed to use the force of the state to deliver suspected lawbreakers to our criminal justice system. And yet, in both of these cases—and so many others in which a Black person has died at the hands of police—the officers apparently killed suspected offenders instead of delivering them to the legal system guaranteed under our Constitution. Individual police officers appear to have taken the law into their own hands and become judge, jury, and executioner."
That key phrases: "deliver suspected lawbreakers to our criminal justice system" and"delivering them to the legal system guaranteed under our Constitution" - this is the task at hand.
And, I recommend that all police officers think "what would I do if this were a white person?" before they act since systemic racism is embedded in all of us. Or as I do, I say "soul, soul, soul" as I encounter people anywhere and everywhere. We are all connected.
Such great questions Dan! And I had to start with just reading some of the responses first...lots of great ideas put forth! I have so many thoughts and yet the bottom line of it is that policing needs to culturally transform in significant ways and to do that they need to bring in expert help from OUTSIDE law enforcement. They need to co-create with their communities a vision of partnership and a plan to achieve it together. I believe they should be giving more attention to the PREVENTION part of the definition of police (Police = the civil force of a national or local government, responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the maintenance of public order.)
I also believe that many of the calls they get should go to other professionals or service providers - i.e. mental health, shelter-less issues, etc. So many things should NOT be going to 911/police. There is so much potential to serve communities better if civic leaders would make this change in communities.
And as a part of culture shift they need to look at all the ways they appear militarized, unfriendly, unapproachable etc. From the guns, to the uniforms, to the vehicles they drive, etc. Total overhaul is BRANDING necessary.
Thank you for STEADY Dan! I shifted to a subscriber today!
Years ago just after I bought a new car, I was pulled over for not having a license plate. The policeman who was white and pretty young got out of his car and approached my open window, and wanted me to show him my drivers license. I questioned why I was stopped and he told me. At which time I pointed to the temp license attached to my front window. Oh, great, I’m glad you have that. Have a good day he said and went back ro his car and drove away. I did not have to get out, was not yelled at, was not pepper-sprayed, or hand cuffed. I did have a “previous “ for parking in a red zone and hadn’t paid it yet. He would have known that when he entered my ID into his held computer.
Why the difference? I am an older white woman. What police need to learn is to stop making assumptions based on skin corner or gender. This can be taught. I am aware that some people are dangerous or simply belligerent. But if a cop has a FIRST assumption that has nothing to do with ethnicity or gender, some of the police-induced reactions might be somewhat mitigated.
And no, I am not naive. I spent my adult life working in the field of social justice. I am deeply aware of the irony of being born white.
All of these crimes have made me discover that police have qualified immunity. I never knew that, and now realize it is the reason my ex-husband quickly signed up as a "rent-a-cop" that immunity is cat-nip to shady people. My ex is that person a gun freak and liar, when he was a rent-a-cop he pulled a gun at a guy during a traffic stop.
Has anybody else noticed the reason for these attempted arrests that ended in death are so minor - buying a candy bar with a possible fake $20 Bill, stopping a car with airfreshners hanging on the rear view mirror, etc. Do these policemen really represent what policing is really about.
Police need to understand de-escalation, that they are part of a community. Drawing a weapon should be a last resort, not the first. "Defunding" the police means funding social workers and mental health professionals to handle emergency cases of people with mental disturbances. Criminalizing protesters through pointless curfews only exacerbates already tense situations. The "bad apples" among the protesters who use lawful peaceful protest as a screen for rioting and looting need to be dealt with but so do the "bad apples" of the police. Police need to be held accountable for their actions and they very rarely are. My city pays out hundreds of millions of dollars annually to settle lawsuits brought by civilians against the police. Imagine if that money were reinvested in training, in communities.
How far we've strayed from "To Protect & Serve". That's not a condemnation of all police, just an observation of a general shift in attitudes. IMHO this shift is the end result of the militarization of police. Many millions of dollars worth of military equipment have been repurposed by local police departments over the past 15 years. I'll never forget the small town P.D. of Novato, CA responding to potential shooter about 8 years ago; it looked like a full-fledged military deployment and scared the hell out of a lot of people. Point being, when you militarize police, it can't help but turn into an "us vs. them" scenario. The police begin seeing the public as the enemy, and the public tend to react in kind. These are my thoughts and I can't substantiate them with data, but I'd love it if someone out there could demonstrate a correlation between military hardware acquisition and police taking a more reactionary and aggressive stance.
We don't live in a military state, but we have had an increasingly paramilitaristic law enforcement for decades. That engenders a compliance mentality for many - anyone not complying is an inherent threat - not a community policing mentality. We absolutely need to shift the focus more back to the latter, but sensibly, not with pointless, knee-jerk slogans like "Defund the police". Which is utterly obtuse, because change through retraining, etc, takes money. And it takes time.
It takes time to shift a mindset and 'untrain' decades worth of training and weed out those who refuse to change. Unfortunately, the more abuse and criticism that is heaped onto law enforcement, the more many officers are feeling attacked which simply causes them to hunker down and circle the wagons in their own LE community mindsets, solidly reinforcing the "us vs them" survival skills that take them home to their family every night. I'm not defending it; just pointing out that it's the reality of where we're at.
And yes, I absolutely DO recognize that minorities are lashing out because they have felt under attack for generations. I'm not defending the above. I'm merely pointing it out, because knee-jerks solutions and catchy phrases aren't going to solve anything. There IS widespread understanding even with law enforcement that change away from the paramilitaristic mindset is needed, but that change is going to take time and money. And consistency. It's been decades in the creation and isn't going to go away with the flip of a switch. And the void that is being formed because more and more officers are leaving the profession because of the sustained backlash is going to become increasingly problematic.
The big cities of America have forgotten that cities are really a series of towns and neighborhoods woven together with growth and need. I would suggest that redirecting ourselves to that small town outlook would localize our police force to a level where they can get to their respective neighborhoods and people. There is no greater deterrent to crime than a cop on the beat who could easily identify the perpetrators.
I am a social worker with the homeless. I was a community organizer too. I can suggest too things to help. One that will help right away, and one that will help over the long haul. !. Send social workers on domestic disputes and mental health calls with cops. One cop, one social worker. Cops will no longer be expected to deal with crisis they are not trained for. They are there only if things call for physical intervention. And the social worker decides when that is necessary. 2. Require cities to deploy Neighborhood Liaison Officers to all the neighborhoods that quality for CDBG funds. NLOs walk a beat in one neighborhood. They are the point of contact for the residents who are having problems of all kinds. People come to know them, they get to know the folks in the hood. Cities must require NLO experience to gain promotions and further the cops careers. The NLO program works. I have seen it in place making a difference.
We have to address discrimination/racism.
We don't have many, if any programs left in communities that need support. We no longer support the neighborhoods that have the most social issues.
The real problem is seeing these communities as a "lost investment" and of "no value".
The only way to lift these communities up, is with a helping hand. Invest in them.
Not only are there no “easy” answers, here are no encompassing answers at all. Improvement in the policing is really all we can expect.
To that end, I submit the following:
Until police unions and brothers/sisters on the force stop covering up for and defending each other when bad things happen, nothing will change.
Stronger laws on police use of force need to be passed and implemented and allow for somewhat easier conviction of police force miscreants.
Better training in peaceful conflict resolution must be given, although it will only go so far.
Procedures used in traffic stops need to be changed to avoid use of force at all possible times. In rare occasions, police must avoid trying to arrest resisting drivers to avoid possible injury or death. For minor offenses, it may not be worth the risk to life to attempt to restrain drivers. Confrontation can ratchet tension up to where violence will occur.
We need to try different approaches to arresting people, that is for certain. Under present conditions, the process leads to bad results too often.
When I was in High School, back in the 60's, we had informative and challenging classes such as "Political Science", "History in the making." They challenged us to think for ourselves but be open to listening to others opinions and not criticize what we don't agree with. It was to make us learn that life is not one simple answer and there are very few views alike. Do they still have such classes in this day and age? I would think they would be informative and interesting classes to help all of us to begin to learn how the other person feels, regardless of their race or ethnicity! And it should start at an early age in school! I'm 72 years old, been married to my High School Sweetheart for 51 years and we learned that to make our marriage work we had to use the tools that we learned in school and in life as we went along. We can't all just get along! It takes work.
I've been asking myself these questions for decades. Again, the tragedy took place in the city where I grew up. I have a tough time swallowing the heartbreak yet again. What we do with the police is walk a more narrow tightrope than we have been doing. Again, we need to weed out the authoritarian and the supreme, so that we can police with the people who can use compassion and reason rather than power and guns. We keep talking about it, exploring it, not becoming complacent and therefore complicit. In my humble opinion, the former Brooklyn Park police chief was one of the compassionate. He cried on camera during an interview. He loves his city and his people. He "resigned." He was sorely needed in the aftermath that is still going. He is SO not Derek Chauvin. Tightrope.
We really have to remember that authority attracts exactly the sort of people we don't want with that authority, and that the survival of a civil society is always a measure of how well it guards itself against these people.
- Politics attracts demagogues and narcissists.
- Jobs with authority over children attract abusers.
- Executive positions attract people who value wealth over people or society.
- Law Enforcement attracts authoritarians.
I mean, it's just a fact of life that if you don't spend constant time, energy and oversight into the hiring practices of law enforcement operations in your society, they will pretty quickly fill up with people who enjoy the privilege and power of wielding direct physical authority over others. Group these people together into forces and unions, and it will not take long at all before they find that they can abuse that authority for personal benefit or pleasure.
This is not a thing that *might* happen, it is a thing that *will* happen if it isn't actively prevented - and fairly quickly. In America it *has* happened, and most noticeably at the town and city level.
So do I think the problem is a 'few bad apples'? No. I think that in some of the best forces it may be only quietly endemic, while in the bulk of US police forces, it's probably openly on the verge of gang-level solidarity of abusive purpose. One look at the responses of most police unions tells you where the needle currently lies, and by all appearances its buried in the red zone of seriously hostile social behavior, verging on organized criminal activity in some areas.
Another Black person killed by police. I'm just so tired of hearing it. I'm 70 years old, and I've heard it my entire life!
I can't help but think of that experiment they did with prison guards. People put in a position of power really do come up against their own natures. I also can't help but think of my sister, who was a drug addict, and the many times she gave a blow job or had sex to avoid being arrested for all that goes with addiction. I will also never forget being pulled over in Arizona for what I believe was the horrible reason of just being too brown and suspected of being Mexican or being intimidated by the police for feeding and giving clothes and blankets to the homeless in a city park. I really believe that police take advantage of those they deem to be powerless simply because they can. We don't see charges and convictions because the people they abuse with their positions don't have the money to truly access the justice system. If all these people I have mentioned thought nothing of hiring lawyers I doubt there would be so much abuse. If all these people had people in positions of power they could call and simply tell what happened and be believed, we would not have so much abuse. This abuse happens every single day in America and as long as police and those in power suffer no consequences it will continue. So long as our justice system is about how much money you have it will continue. So long as our justice system is about who you know, it will continue. Justice in America is not blind. We all remember Brock, the very fine man who raped a woman behind a dumpster and basically got off scott free. The question is how do we empower people to even have access to justice? How so we empower the system to not cave in to the wealthy?
Dan, for some reason, your substack today will not give me the various "share" options that it usually does.
I have read some of the comments, and would like to add my own. I feel that, however well intentioned "Defund the Police" was, it has caused irreparable damage. I BACK the principles of this action, but the nomenclature of defunding has huge implications. And I feel that we have lost a lot of momentum that was available during the turmoil last summer. Had this movement been more aptly named, I feel that a lot of good work on repurposing and modifying police reaction in certain instances could have made a huge difference. But that opportunity has been lost. that saddens me.
I became interested in this area after a law officer shot and killed a 12 year old boy carrying a toy rifle in my community. Our county struggled to deal with this tragedy and created a task force to study this difficult issue. The task force recommended creating an independent citizens oversight of law enforcement agency which the county did establish. I would suggest to anyone interested to visit the website of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. This non-profit founded in the mid-1990's is dedicated to improving the independent oversight of law enforcement and the sight has many valuable resources and links.
Many communities have created civilian oversight bodies which can work collaboratively with police to implement community policing, demilitarize police and give citizens a forum to lodge complaints. There has been a ton of great work done in these areas although in many states including California, where I live, law enforcement officers are given special protections that present obstacles to oversight. The goal of oversight bodies is, generally, not to demonize law enforcement, but rather to create an atmosphere where the community can more directly assist law enforcement to protect and serve.
Obviously, there is a very different experience people have with the police, depending on their race. In the two incidents this week (Minnesota and Virginia) the police were panicked and clearly running on adrenalin. In the Virginia case, the man being pulled over for lack of a license plate (there was a temp taped to his rear window), there was no attempt to interact with him in a respectful manner. The police never said why they pulled him over. They were angry that he chose to pull over in a well-lighted area because he was legitimately afraid of them (they confirmed as much by their hostility and panicked reactions). In the face of out-of-control, well-armed police, the man had to be completely calm, completely polite. He was threatened by the now-fired cop with a taser, and he got maced and pulled out of his car and cuffed.
If the same police had pulled over a driver for the same issue and the driver was white, it would have been a discussion. This man was assumed to be "dangerous" immediately and was treated like an enemy combatant.
I find a really stark example to be what happened after the white murderer, Dylan Roof, was arrested in Charleston after his mass killing of Black Bible study participants in their church. The police took him through a Burger King drive-through to get food after he killed 9 human beings in cold blood. The police were unafraid and not panicked in the face of a sociopath who calculated his murder and did so with no remorse. This isn't an outlier example either. In California, perhaps the same year, there was a huge, violent brawl between two gangs of white bikers at some bar. There were deaths and injuries. The police had them sitting on the sidewalk, none were cuffed, while the police went about their work. The police brought them water. The police were clearly outnumbered by a bunch of thugs who had recently demonstrated their violence and yet the police were unafraid and unpanicked.
Why are police so jumpy and violent around Black people? Why WOULDN'T black people be afraid and act on that legitimate fear in the face of those so willing to use their weapons on them?
Philando Castillo, also in Minneapolis, a few years back, got pulled over for a broken tail light (favorite trumped-up reason police seem to use to pull over Black drivers). He had a concealed firearm permit and did everything he was supposed to in that instance and informed the police that he had the permit and there was a weapon in the car. He was shot and killed. Being calm, doing everything exactly right did not protect his life in the face of police who routinely see Black American men as enemy combatants and not citizens.
I've seen lots of comments about the most recent young man, Dante Wright, being criticized for not being compliant, cooperative, resisting, and refusing. Remember he was pulled over for having an air freshener on this mirror. It was no reason to pull him over. When the police learned he had a warrant for a failure to appear in court, they decided they had an enemy combatant, not a citizen worthy of respect and calm, and professionalism. The police were allowed to panic. The police are given a break for losing their professional demeanor, losing their cool, reacting in a dangerous and unprofessional way (there are apparently several big mistakes the police made that escalated the situation). And the young man became very frightened. He, a citizen, a 20-year-old, was given no margin to panic or make a mistake. Plenty of people are willing to give the officer a break for her mistake that killed that young man.