Cops Making Dumb Decisions: How to Solve the Problem of Law Enforcement Killing People Needlessly
If you’ve been living under a rock, you might not be aware that a Minneapolis Minnesota police officer by the name of Derek Chauvin used his knee as a restraint on a man named George Floyd that was *barely* resisting arrest in a non-violent crime of spending a fake twenty-dollar bill. Chauvin — with three other officers — had Floyd pinned to the ground with his face pressed against the street curb in the south side of Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020. Floyd pleaded insistently that he could not breathe and consistently asked the officer to give him the ability to get some relief. A crowd surrounded, phones recording the scene — begging the officer to let the man up. When the ambulance arrived to attend to Floyd, he was limp and lifeless. The paramedics didn’t find a pulse. He was declared dead upon arrival at the hospital. The video is horrifying and gut wrenching to watch. I am not going to post it here. After this inexcusable act, there have been daily protests — sometimes turning violent and destructive — in dozens of cities around the country.
Fair warning: I am going to make a couple of controversial statements in this article. The intention is not to inflame or dispute other valid opinions but rather to add my own perspective. Also, I want to be up front and say that I recognize the often dangerous environment Police encounter during their work. I write this article with that in mind. I appreciate the police, in general, but deeply feel that something must change.
The first controversial statement is this: I genuinely believe that this incident — and many like it — have less to do with race than with a ‘good ol’ boys’ macho-man culture mixed in with class warfare. Don’t get me wrong — I absolutely believe race is the majority component but I think this goes way deeper than “just” race. I will write another article that focuses on these other elements, but for now, I want to pay attention to the systemic macho culture officers are steeped in and the deep political cover Police enjoy. They think they are immune from suffering a penalty if they do something stupid. They aren’t wrong in most cases.
The police seem to have a similar culture to war bound soldiers who see themselves as warriors but in this case, warriors with a badge. I once had an acquaintance — a small town cop — who told me “ You see this badge? I am the law.” In that moment I realized that in the mix of “good cops” there are some real loose cannons out there as well. Also, when you think about it, the brotherhood nature of these environments and strong peer pressure prevents officers from disciplining or calling out their brethren in tense situations. After all — you are trusting these guys / gals with your life out on patrol — who are you to tell him/her how to do their job? Don’t think this macho a**hole culture really exists? Read this article, written back in 2019 by a former police dispatcher with extensive law enforcement experience. This macho, tough guy persona — and I focus on the men here because I have yet to see a woman involved in one of these scenarios — is deeply prevalent.
Police also exist in an environment that protects them from legal scrutiny. The laws are written in favor of the officer. An officer has to basically say they ‘felt threatened’ and there will be no conviction. With lots of prior case law in place to back up their opinion and very little to protect people on the business send of poor decision making, it is hard to see the possibility of change. There has been a slow but steady drumbeat of people pushing to amend laws in the police / African American public exchange for decades now. In recent years, people like Eric Garner and Tamir Rice have become household names. While arrests of police officers has risen due to mounting visibility of these situations, the lack of convictions from incidents leading to the death of an unarmed, non-violent African American is startling. This has left a growing number of people asking: what will it take? Does it take a tragic situation like George Floyd where there is nowhere for the officer to turn for excuses to finally be a catalyst for real change? Perhaps this time there will be real jail time for a white officer. Perhaps this time there will be an example. Perhaps this time.
There are a lot of hurdles to overcome though.
I believe what will change the game is a series of stiff financial and social penalties against officers and police unions who treat or enable treatment of suspects the way Chauvin treated George Floyd.
Our society can’t take a whole lot more of this before there is a true moral uprising that the state and federal politicians are simply not prepared to deal with outside of brute force. Where we go from there? Who knows. Frankly, I don’t want to think about it.
Second controversial comment: Before we get to the tipping point of outright mass rebellion it’s time to take this seriously and stop protecting officers who make bad decisions. It doesn’t matter if it’s a split second decision. It doesn’t matter if they have a temper or are having a bad day. It doesn’t matter if they feel like they want to antagonize the person they are attempting to arrest so they have an excuse to use force to vent some energy — a horrible abuse of power, mind you, but all too real. None of these things matter. These officers are highly trained — they can be trained to slow down and assess the situation more carefully or they can be removed from the force. In cases where this kind of slow-down-and-pay-attention-to-the-details is not possible, there can be some grace of course, although the cost sometimes will be terrible and regrettable. Police officers regularly put their lives in danger to protect the public but they are human and sometimes they make inadvertent mistakes — seeing a gun when it is a toy, thinking the person is a threat when they are merely reaching for a license or carry permit. Sometimes these situations are avoidable, sometimes they aren’t. In the avoidable situations, sometimes cops do dumb things. When you and I do dumb things, it’s usually no big deal.
When cops do dumb things, people die.
How to force the change of deeply entrenched culture? I’ve got a few solutions. These are aimed directly at amending the political machinery protecting police culture and creating a risk/reward element surrounding poor behavior. Other ideas will hit people where it hurts. Their wallet.
How to Change Police Culture Really Really Fast
For the sake of simplicity, I am going to list my suggestions for dealing with situations where an officer has a potentially serious breach of public trust and someone dies as a result. I see all of these things as a piece of (name your state) law — not internal police programs that are destined to fail because of politics and nepotism. I freely admit that I do not completely understand the particular “ins and outs” of many of these suggestions and I could be completely wrong on some of it— meaning there are laws, rules and institutions at play here and there is a lot I don’t know. There may, in fact, be some of this already in force and I’m not aware of it. However, from a layperson’s viewpoint, these are things that come to my mind, in no particular order:
1. No Police Union should, by law, be able to do PR, legally represent, or in any way be involved in, influence or comment on any investigation or trial of officers in capital court cases involving the death of a civilian where there is evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the officer. The officer is on their own when these situations occur. This prevents the obvious conflict of interest the police unions have.
2. Financial Penalty to Union: Beyond that (and this is useless without #1) a stiff legislative penalty to the police union in the form of a loss of pension benefits for all law enforcement members in the union equal to the amount of the lawsuit payouts the city or state has to make in these cases. Either that, or the Union must pay for any settlements. Either way, all officers pay for it — financially — when someone does something dumb. This would change culture in a heartbeat. The next time a cop sees another cop about to do something really stupid, they are going to say something.
3. Loss of Pension: a strongly worded law that states that if you are A. a police officer personally involved in a situation where another officer is doing something dumb that costs a person their life and B. you have the ability to stop or change the situation but you don’t you will forfeit your pension and have to start over in rebuilding it. That is, if you are not charged as an accessory to the death of the person in question and are able to keep your job. Clearly if you are charged and prosecuted, you lose your pension (this is already a part of existing law in many states but not in MN from what I can see).
4. If there are more than five such prosecutable incidents in a two year stretch involving officers in your city? Then the head of the offending Police Federation and The Police Union President Should be automatically removed with no pension. If they cannot control their people from doing these things, they do not deserve their job. (this one will never happen, I only put it in here because this is how I feel)
5. Officers must exhaust all other options before resorting to violent force. Change the federal laws to state that an officer has to prove that there was an actual threat to their physical safety or the physical safety of others. They cannot merely state they had fear. The perceived threat has to meet a legal standard of “no reasonable alternative” and go beyond the officers “objectively reasonable” standard, which could mean anything. This means that if a 15 year old kid steals a purse and runs, they can’t shoot the kid in the back to prevent them from getting away anymore. (yes this actually happened — it was a landmark court case on the use of force by the police) Unless it is a violent felony in progress, there is no excuse for shooting an unarmed person.
6. If you are an officer caught up in a situation you should no longer be able to use any kind of serious bodily force when the crime is non-violent and/or the subject is unarmed, complying or — even mildly resisting — if it doesn’t present a significant bodily risk to you or the public. An example? (in the instance of George Floyd) The subject is generally compliant, outnumbered by well trained officers, and is not brandishing a weapon — even if the subject is threatening a weapon but does not appear to actually have one. How can such a subject be a harm to officers or those around them? They can’t. It is obvious. Officers are then called to practice common sense. They must answer the question: Am I genuinely at-risk in this situation? (in Floyd’s circumstance, clearly not) Then there is no reason to use bodily force. Who cares if the person is verbally belligerent or cocky? Grow up and get over it. This comes with the territory. If a person has committed a crime then arrest them, cuff them and put them in the squad peacefully. If they have committed a non violent offense and have managed to squirrel away? Then chase them if you must but don’t use that gun or life threatening weapons. There is zero reason to escalate. Let it go. Remember, they can outrun you but they can’t outrun the radio. There is almost always a non-violent way to deal with things. You are well trained and smart. Get creative.
7. If there is substantial video, audio or physical evidence that a wrong has been done, a third party governing body like the FBI or DOJ must be called in to conduct a swift and overwhelming investigation. After a few of these, the incentive will be high to keep these incidents from happening.
8. Along with #7, internal or local medical examiners with connections to local law enforcement should never be used in a case involving an officer being charged with a capital offense. A third party, non-involved medical examiner from another state should be asked to do the autopsy. This prevents politics and nepotism from intervening.
9. Make laws and rules that say officers must live or be involved in community work in the areas they police. This has been proven to make a real difference and it makes sense.
10. Cycle officers in and out of high risk areas on a schedule, giving them a break from the constant drum-beat of crime and indifference.
11. have regular town halls with communities and police so the public can share grievances and police can share their side too. Lot of effort, tremendous payback.
You want to see changed behavior? These things would change behavior in a hot second. Up and down the ranks, from the top of the police union to the new recruit — an emphasis on not doing stupid things would take hold very quickly. I have thought about this mostly from a political and financial angle because in all honesty, that is how things work in the real world. I know a lot of common people would like to believe there is one person in a city (the Mayor or the Governor) that has absolute power to simply mete out justice but the way our government works — and this protects us from tyranny — is through a myriad of representations of power that must compete against each other in a series of checks and balances. We don’t want one person to be in charge unless we can all trust that one person to be good and just. Humanity, I’m afraid, does not often measure up. So in lieu of a ‘just dictator’ handing down a sentence we have to attack things thinking like a politician or a lawyer. Let’s face it, in many ways, these are the people running things.
It’s an uphill battle to address systemic failures although there are good people in the system who can affect great change given the ability to do so. We just need to give them the tools to do so.
I’m not saying the things I’ve outlined here are impossible. I can promise you this though — any one of these would be a bit of a miracle to happen because of the deep political structures that currently exist. Getting two or three of them done? Very unlikely.
Unless we all demand it.
