Back in the day, there was a band called The Osmonds (currently considered royalty in Branson, MO), who seemed to exist specifically to be the white counterpart to the Jackson 5. Their big hit was “One Bad Apple”; Donnie Osmond, the Green Goblin to Michael Jackson’s Batman, sang impossibly high and I can still remember the chorus: “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl…”
I was reminded of that chorus this week, as the intensity of protests burned across the nation, nee the world, over the murder of George Floyd, as well as the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Amuad Arbery. As protests took place in approximately 350 cities worldwide, the police were on the main stage. There were a few displays of actual human pathos: a sheriff in Flint, MI, took off his helmet and put down his baton and turned their protest “into a parade”; a Shreveport LA officer consoled an emotional and overwhelmed producer; police in Atlanta walked with protestors in a confrontation that started with tear gas and ended in a show of unity. These were, and are, heartwarming and powerful images.
Unfortunately, there were only a few of these, and those images were overwhelmed with ones like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuZZ7aJ07Eg
And this: https://twitter.com/JasminaAlstonTV/status/1267161054095839234
And this: https://twitter.com/outerspacemar/status/1268586934533832709
Or, you can just go to the Twitter feed of T. Greg “Credulous Propagandist” Doucette, who has collected well over 200 tweets from people who have taken video on their phones of police violence subjected upon protestors, bystanders, commuters and the media: https://twitter.com/greg_doucette
In Robert Balch’s seminal study, The Police Personaility: Fact or Fiction, among the topics he seeks to identify is the concept of authoritarianism related to being a police officer. In his studies of various other works of systemic police personailites, Balch states that although the authors “vary in emphasis, there is remarkable agreement on the characteristics believed to make up the police mentaility… including suspicion, coventionality, cynicism, prejudice, and distrust of the universal.” He also lists a number of parallels between police mentality and what is referred to the F-scale (“F” stands for “fascist”) personality test. It reads like a Hollywood script version of the Angry Cop:
a. Conventionalism: rigid adherence to conventional, middle-class values.
b. Authoritarian Submission: submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealized moral authorities of the in group.
c. Authoritarian Aggression: tendency to be on the lookout for, and to condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional values.
d. Anti-intraception: opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded.
e. Superstition and Stereotypy: the belief in mystical determinants of the individual’s fate; the disposition to think in rigid categories.
f. Power and “toughness”: preoccupation with the dominance-submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identification with power figures; overemphasis upon the conventionalized attributes of the ego; exaggerated assertion of
strength and toughness.
g. Destructiveness and Cynicism: generalized hostility, vilification of the human.
h. Projectivity: The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outwards of unconscious emotional impulses.
i. Sex: Exaggerated concern with sexual “goings on.”
We’ve seen SO MANY IMAGES of police in riot gear, dispensing some brutal form of justice (!?!) on protestors… so many images. This makes it appear like it’s not one bad apple, girl, it’s the whole tree. Yes, we see glimpses of good cops. But there’s this prevailing falacy, supported by a history of American jingoistic do-good sentiment, that “good” will ultimately prevail. The good cops will eradicate the bad ones. But what we are seeing on many of these videos is that whatever little good there is is washed downstream by a raging undercurrent of bad. Another thing to remember is, and one of the reasons we are having these protests in the first place is, it’s hard to effect any change when you are in the minority, and the majority has more power, more heft, more money, more resourses, more everything. The story of the good cop triumphing over the bad cops is a solitary tale. Like most gangs, cops move in packs, and if the bad cops are in the majority, there is little a good cop can do to affect that. When is the last story you remember of a good cop attempting to disinfect the rotten entrails of a crooked ring of cops? Remember Frank Serpico, the cop Al Pacino played in the movie back in the 70’s? That was a half century ago. There aren’t many stories like that, and that’s because it’s HARD to rat out your co-workers even if you know that they are doing wrong, especially in a pseudo-military operation that even in supposed good times is largely patricarchial, largely white, and operates in a locker-room hierarchy. A good cop who rats on his co-workers may very well pay with his life. See how long it takes for backup when Good Cop calls in a 1035 Code 2. So, Good Cop plays along, keeps his mouth shut. And so you have images like this one, when a cop pushes an old man down and he cracks his skull, and a riot gear-clad policeman actually is momentarily compelled by human impulse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlmAfv-mrXA
One trait not mentioned in the previous mentioned study was the concept of Fear. Fear is a strong motivatation for all of us, exceptional and ordinary, powerful and weak, black and white. Watching the videos and reading the accounts on social media and in articles, I see alot of things. Mostly I see fear. On both sides. One side fears that things are never going to change. The other side fears that things might finally be changing. Fear in the White House that maybe this mostly successful rein of authoritarianism and division and oppression might finally be starting to fray a little. In this very broke version of America that we are living in right now, riddled by a worldwide virus, sickened by generational racism, and polarized as if the earth were cleaved in two, we seriously need things to change, now.
When you watch most of those videos, you can’t help but get angered, outraged, scared and saddened. So, yeah, Fuck Tha Police.
The call for police reform is certainly nothing new, as the concept of a police force (note the word “force”, the mere definition of it, using strength or coersion especially with the threat of violence, and understand why we are here at this moment in time) was secular and flawed almost from the beginning. Policing in this country was initially a private and for-profit enterprise. Although the first publicly-funded police force was established in Boston in 1838, they also grew out of what were called “Slave Patrols”, which were pretty much what you would expect them to be, an organized gang created to chase down runaway slaves and restrict uprisings. It’s severly eye-opening to see that in the span of approximately 180 years the role of the police has advanced so little up to now. It wasn’t until the 1920’s, when President Hoover commissioned a group to investigate the ineffectiveness of law enforcement nationally, that police reform was even a thought. Historically, and we see this now as we did then, the concept of police reform was usually swept under the carpet by whatever particular ruling class was (and is) in power in this country at the moment. Not surprisingly, the Trump years have shown a slavish support and mass allocation of resources to the police. With the recent events (the murders of Aubrey, Taylor and now Floyd), police reform is once again brought forward blinking into the bright light of scrutiny.
So let’s take a look at some of the ideas we could consider regarding police reform:
De-funding: This has always loudly and justly suggested as the first place to start. Poiice forces have a ridiculous amount of financial resources allocated to them. Los Angeles, which has long held a deserved reputation as one of the most overtly racist police forces in America since the 1950’s, currently carries about 10,000 officers on a swollen $1.8-billion budget. The mission of LA’s city government and three different mayors was to increase the numbers of officers from approximately 3,000 in the post-Rodney King/riot days to the present number. In light of the recent incidents, Mayor Garcetti has proposed a $250 million reallocation of funds earmarked for the police to be spread among youth jobs, health initiatives and healing centers, and damages paid to those that have suffered discrimination. It’s a start, and other cities and mayors will and should feel pressure to defund their own police forces. However, it’s going to prove to be a hard climb. They will of course get no support from the federal government; funding has increased since Trump took office in 2016, and his response to the murders and protests is pledging to crack down on protestors by “dominating” the streets. In addition, defunding in Los Angeles and other cities already received pushback from the police unions, which brings me to….
The AFL-CIO needs to disaffiliate from police unions: In 2016, after the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two African-American men shot to death by police within a 24 hour span, Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO released a statement which included the following: “Labor cannot and will not sit on the sidelines when it comes to racial justice”. The International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) represents over 100,000 law enforcement employees and is currently affiliated with the AFL-CIO, granted a charter in 1979. Since the Floyd murder last week, a number of publications have written articles decrying the proclivity of police unions to protect their own in regards to the way they police, their use of force including military tactics, and ultimately the insulation of bad cops with a multitude of rules, loopholes and protections upheld by the language of their labor contracts. It’s no small matter that Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police offer charged with 2nd degree murder in George Floyd’s death, was still on the force despite 18 prior complaints, including his involvement in shootings involving a black man in 2008, and an indigenous man in 2011. Supported by union protections, he was verbally reprimanded but not discliplined, and continued to serve active duty. The language of those protections makes it incredibly difficult to charge, much less prosecute, a police officer. It took over 5 years to finally take away the badge of Daniel Pantaleo, the cop involved in the 2014 murder of Eric Garner. When Pantaleo was first fired, his union immediately appealed for his reinstatement and threatened a police labor slowdown. Trumka has appeared active regarding progressive causes within the ranks of labor; this week he tweeted, “We must continue to fight for reforms in policing and to address issues of racial and economic inequality.” The AFL-CIO has previously disaffiliated with some of it’s former unions, inlcuding the Teamsters. Disaffiliating with the IUPA would be a strong statement against the brutality and militant abuses of the police.
Require police officers carry their own liability insurance: Police departments i.e. taxpayers pick up the tab for police officers who have been convicted of crimes during service and against citizens. In a 2014 study by Chapman University regarding police indemnification, it was found that taxplayers ultimately footed the bill for 99.98% of judgments and settlements against police officers. Think about this: you are a protestor and you suffer some injury against the police (shot in the eye with a rubber bullet, pepper spray affecting your respiratory system, etc). You attempt to sue the officer who perpetrated the crime against you. Provided that your case even reaches the court system, let’s say you win, which is of course great. But because you are also a tax payer, you could conceiveably end up sharing in the payment to yourself on behalf of the cop who was convicted on those charges against you. Do you think police offers would act so brutally and maliciously if they knew that they were responsible for the consequences of those actions? And although I understand that the requirement of wearing body cameras is supposed to be a way to “police” the police, it’s already been proven during this past week that the cops don’t always turn on those cameras. And, before you say something like, “well, wouldn’t the threat of knowing they could be liable to pay for the settlements, wouldn’t that limit them in the performance of their duties?”, consider that doctors also operate in high-stress, and in many cases, life-and-death situations, the lives of so many citizens their direct responsibility. Doctors have to carry their own malpractice insurance; they bear the burden of responsibility for their actions. It should be required that cops bear responsibility for their actions as well.
Suspension/Forfeiture of Pensions: Many states have provisions that establish, if you are a public or state employee and you are convicted of a crime related to your job, you can lose your pension. However, there have been a multitude of cases where police accused or convicted of misconduct or criminality are allowed to keep their pensions. This is achieved in any number of ways– tenure (years of service), plea bargaining, legal loopholes. In 2012, a Chicago city detective named Dante Servin shot and killed Rekia Boyd, a 22-year old black woman, in what was ruled an “unjustified” killing. Despite activists, including Boyd’s family, fighting to have Servin fired and stripped of his pension, he managed to keep his job until he quit the police force in 2016. The Boyd family ultimately received a $4.5 million settlement from the city of Chicago, but without Servin admitting any wrong doing. But, because he voluntarily left on his own rather than being forced out, he managed to retain his pension: “(Servin) ducks under the wire and protects his pension rights, and protects his record in the sense that he’s not fired from the Chicago Police Department– he’s resigned,” said the People’s Law Office civil rights lawyer Flint Taylor. Paying a cop who has been prosecuted amounts to little more than a sentence of retirement. It should be mandatory that any offer who is suspended or is under investigation should not only be on unpaid leave, but should also have their pensions suspended as well. If there is any admissable guilt (including within plea bargaining) they should lose their pensions completely. And when 57 Buffalo police officers walk off the job after two of their co-workers are charged with assult against a 75-year old peaceful protester, they too should have their pay and pensions suspended.
A percentage of a police force in a given community should be part of that community: A 2017 article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune noted that the percentage of Minneapolis police officers living within the city limits was only 8%, while other officers lived in suburbs outside the city, some outside the state of Minnesota (in Wisconsin) and one officer communted 60 miles each way to work. I have no way of knowing this, but if I had to guess, I would assume that most cops who do not live in the areas or neighborhoods they patrol have little to no affinity for those places. It’s probably more likely that they are in opposition with the people they are supposed to be protecting and serving. It goes to figure that, as a police officer, if you have a vested interest in the area where you work, you would be more interested in protecting it, keeping it safe, and investing spiritually in the overall civic health of the community. Living in the area in which you patrol establishes a certain accountability to that area and its citizens. City police forces should be required to employ a decent percentage of residents as employees for the police department in their municipality– preferably officers, but also staff. I list this as more of an ideal, than realistic, solution, as I do recognize the real world implications of this.
A degree in Public Service studies of some sort: In a 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics study, 83% of all U.S. police departments required a high school diploma; only 8% required a 4-year college degree. There is also a perception that the military is a conduit to the police force. In an analysis of U.S. Census data performed by Gregory B. Lewis and Rahul Pathak of Georgia State University for The Marshall Project, they found that only 6% of the population served in the military; but of that percetage, 19% became police officers (the third most common occupation for veterans behind truck driving and management). The optics of current policing, especially in lieu of what we have seen the past week or so during the protests, seem to indicate an overall militarising of the police force. The armour, firepower and resourse of a large metropolitan area probably dwarfs that of most small countries. Consequently, it also appears that there is a lack of ability to relate to its citizens on a humanistic level (we’ve seen this in so many samples of video over the past week). A suggestion would be to require police officers, upon their ascension to the force, to complete at least an undergraduate degree over the span of a specific number of years in some form of Public Service studies. These could include studies in Public Aministration and Policy Analysis, Political Science and Government, Criminal Justice, Education Administration, Public Health, and Social Sciences, to name a few. There have been a number of studies on the benefits of higher education for police officers, including a 2014 Michigan State University study which concluded that higher education would positively impact the perfomances of police officers in a number of ways, including better skills in independent decision-making and problem-solving, less likely to be involved in unethical behavior, and less likely to use force as the first response. Police departments could dip into those massive budgets to further incentivize officers by subsidising a portion of those studies. Education is an investment unto itself.
These are just a few suggestions, and of course there are probably many more. Committies (the body of which is made up from elected private citizens of that particular community) that exist to review questionable behavior of police offciers and grievences by communities toward officers have been one such option, but usually lack the teeth necessary to make actual judgments and levie legal decisions. These commities could be created with more actual power than that of an advisory capacity.
Campaign Zero, a campaign launched around the time of the Ferguson, MO protests in 2015, proposed the “8 Can’t Wait” project, which is quickly gaining more momentum this past week. Ideas like emphasis on de-escalation techniques, banning chokeholds and other choking tactics, and requiring officers to intervene when excessive force is being used have been slow to gain traction, but the protests following the Lloyd murder are putting pressure on police forces nationally.
But the question remains, has remained, and undoubtedly will remain. How in the bloody hell can you fix something that is so thoroughly and institutionally broken? To paraphrase Fanon, Sarte, and Malcom X:
By any means. Obviously. Essentially. Absolutely.