'Policedemic' Unabated As the Nation Awaits Verdict in Floyd Trial
The fact is we’ve been “reforming” for more than a decade and still have to watch videos of people being killed or brutalized by police.
Sometime over the coming days, a jury in Minneapolis will render a verdict on the guilt or innocence of Derek Chauvin, charged with second-degree murder, third degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the kneeling on the neck death of George Floyd.
Police are rarely charged when they kill someone on duty. And even when they are, winning convictions is often difficult.
Since the “I thought the victim had a gun” defense doesn’t apply here, the officer’s fear of the growing crowd surrounding the area of arrest is being used. This defense speaks to the Supreme Court’s 1989 Graham v. Connor decision, which found that an officer’s actions must be judged against what a reasonable officer would do in the same situation.
The other tack taken by Chauvin’s lawyers has been to suggest that the cause of death wasn’t the officer’s knee on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. A variety of other causes have been offered up, the sum of which were to put the victim on trial.
The defense is aiming to “pick off one or two of those jurors and possibly hang the case” by having the jury deadlock by breaking the chain of causation and arguing Chauvin didn’t actually kill Floyd.
Regardless of the jury’s finding, people are going to be angry. The vast majority will express their outrage by legal means. This business with Floyd’s death has segments of the population ready to do battle.
A guilty verdict won’t address the persistent racial disparities highlighted by Floyd’s death.
Being Black won’t get any more legal. Driving, walking, shopping, talking and just being cool won’t be any safer. Parents will still have to give their children “the talk” about the futility of being anything more than subservient.
Smug white dudes at Faux Spews won’t be satisfied; they make their money creating problems and The Ending doesn’t matter. It’s the fear ginned up over what’s coming next that butters their bread.
The problem here is that the already reported and anticipated violence is only being attributed to one side.
The police, the other perpetrators of violence, are not “caught” in the “middle” against their will; the cycle of fear and resentment is a prized part of the dominant culture in their world.
Consider this teaser-head from the New York Times website on Sunday: “Three people a day have died in U.S. police encounters during Chavin trial.”
The trial has forced a traumatized country to relive the gruesome death of Mr. Floyd beneath Mr. Chauvin’s knee. But even as Americans continue to process that case — and anxiously wait for a verdict — new cases of people killed by the police mount unabated.
Since testimony began on March 29, at least 64 people have died at the hands of law enforcement nationwide, with Black and Latino people representing more than half of the dead. As of Saturday, the average was more than three killings a day.
The deaths, culled by The New York Times from gun violence databases, news media accounts and law enforcement releases, offer a snapshot of policing in America in this moment. They testify not only to the danger and desperation that police officers confront daily, but also to the split-second choices and missteps by members of law enforcement that can escalate workaday arrests into fatalities.
In Brooklyn Center, MN, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was fatally shot during a traffic stop. Investigators say now-former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter, who shot Wright, mistook her gun for her taser.
A week long series of demonstrations, clashes with police, curfews, and acts of violence against property have added to the tensions surrounding the Chavin trial.
In Minneapolis and surrounding areas, some communities are living through what residents are calling a military occupation.
There is effectively no civilian oversight of this pack of police forces and they’re acting like they know consequences are unlikely as they fire chemical weapons and less-lethal munitions on protesters, even when kneeling or prone.
Under the guise of a multi-justictional apparatus known as “Operation Safety Net,” journalists were rounded up, catalogued, arrested, and driven away from protests to prevent them from documenting illegal actions by law enforcement.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reports there were nine assaults and six arrests/detainments of journalists covering protests in Brooklyn Center, MN, following the killing of Daunte Wright, plus multiple accounts of equipment damage.
From USA Today:
Journalists covering a protest in a Minneapolis suburb Friday night were forced on their stomachs by law enforcement, rounded up and were only released after having their face and press credentials photographed.
I have a hard time understanding how so many well-meaning defenders of Freedom of the Press have not accepted the reality that much of law enforcement has decided journalists are guilty of supporting the “other.”
Over the past decade, regardless of the circumstances or location, when cops can get away with venting anger at reporters they have done so. In the egregious cases, an apology or even (as happened in Minnesota) a court order doesn’t change the underlying emotions leading up to the acts triggering them.
Last week, a data breach at a Christian crowdfunding website revealed by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, highlighted police officers donating money to fundraisers for accused vigilante murderers, far-right activists, and fellow officers accused of shooting black Americans.
https://twitter.com/GlennF/status/1383951500217503744?s=20
Typically well-publicized incidents of extreme policing lead to calls for reform. The fact is we’ve been “reforming” for more than a decade and still have to watch videos of people being killed or brutalized by police.
From the New York Times:
In recent months, state and city lawmakers across the country have seized on a push for reform prompted by outrage at the killing of George Floyd last May, passing legislation that has stripped the police of some hard-fought protections won over the past half-century.
“Police unions in the United States are pretty much playing defense at the moment,” said Brian Marvel, a San Diego officer and the president of California’s largest law enforcement labor organization. “You have groups of people that are looking for change — and some groups are looking for radical change.”
Over 30 states have passed more than 140 new police oversight and reform laws, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
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Locally, both the County and City governments have made moves toward reform.
Last summer, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to create an Office of Equity and Racial Justice and launch Mobile Crisis Response Teams using clinicians instead of law enforcement for mental health and homeless services.
The county’s situation is different from the city’s in that the California Constitution mandates the election of a Sheriff. And ain’t much gonna change as long as incumbent Bill Gore is in charge. Regardless of whether he runs for re-election in 2022, attempts to elect a more reform-oriented candidate will be met with an onslaught of propaganda funded by deputies suggesting that any change from the status quo will endanger the lives of San Diegans.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has recently announced public safety reforms aimed at addressing disparities in policing and increasing transparency and accountability for the San Diego Police Department. He did not offer specifics, however, on how or when the proposed policies and reforms would be implemented. Granted, some of these ideas have to go through an approval process. But, still, I am suspicious about how much will get done beyond some good political publicity.
Activists with San Diegans for Justice issued a memo praising the Mayor for taking a first step along with offering up additional actions including establishing a rigorous, formal system of accountability, whistleblower protections for SDPD officers and staff, a commitment to honor the recommendations of the Commission on Police Practices, removing armed officers from non-crime related matters, and support for the support the enactment of PrOTECT.
Training and policies aren’t enough. They are important, but without formalized accountability and a commitment from our city leaders to ensure that the Department and its officers implement the policies and standards set by this administration, the SDPD will not become the effective law enforcement agency that San Diegans want and deserve. The police reforms advocated for by Mayor Gloria simply cannot be achieved without the accountability and commitment requested in this memorandum.
And then there’s this bit of deja vu all over again at City Hall, via Voice of San Diego:
Mayor Todd Gloria unveiled his new spending plan for the city last week, including a $19 million increase in SDPD’s budget. It’s the 11th consecutive year police spending has increased in the city.
To community activists and criminal justice reformers, it’s deja vu all over again, after the proposal to spend more on cops last year, even as the city had to cut spending elsewhere, drove hundreds of community members to demand the Council instead cut $100 million from SDPD’s budget, in a marathon hearing that dominated city politics amid Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd.
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Some reforms speak to the supersized role we taxpayers ask police to play. Strip away the moral judgements and the legalese from law enforcement’s agenda and you end up with decades of dumping difficult decisions on the backs of people not empowered or able to do the right thing.
The list of these things society has kicked the can down the road on is endless: poverty wages, lack of healthcare, destruction of low income housing through redevelopment and gentrification, consequences of an auto-centric infrastructure, and the centuries-long cultural/political process of otherizing minorities to name a few.
But beyond the reforms in procedures, transparency, and accountability lies a bigger problem that threatens to make these changes irrelevant: the culture of law enforcement.
Call it the Blue Line, call it Tough on Crime, call it whatever; an omnipresent sense of fear and loathing by law enforcement officers underlies much of their behavior.
It’s Us vs Them, with “Us” including an ever-decreasing segment of the population. It’s a (slightly) different version of “You Will Not Replace Us.”
Cops stop/search/arrest/kill minorities in large part because they’re trained to be afraid of the Other. What makes this unique to other forms of majoritism/racism is they have guns, badges, and the understanding that their role makes them on the front line in “purifying” society.
So re-imagining the police needs to be looked at in a larger context than treating them as a separate entity with fixable problems. The concept of a vision of governance is at issue.
The ever growing pressures on humanity and the planet brought on by the sheer size of civilization increase the necessity of collective action. Figuring that part out in the face of our cultural norm of individualism and a half century of attempts to move services into the private sector will be critical to a safer and saner future for all of us.
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