It’s no secret that police brutality has had a heavy presence in the news over the last several years. In the age of instant information and cell phones with high definition cameras, anyone can be a reporter of sorts at any given moment. Guerilla “journalists” are everywhere and they use the weapons they have at hand to show what is really happening in the world instead of everyone just getting second hand accounts of whatever madness is happening in the world. Before anyone makes any inferences, I want to declare that this post has nothing specifically to do with race, as there are numerous examples of police brutality and excessive force used on people of all races and nationalities. Likely there is a disproportionate number of African American victims of police brutality as compared to those who are of other races and nationalities, but it has been shown time and time again that black people tend to face more police scrutiny, as well as scrutiny from civilian “neighborhood watch” individuals as well. However, that is a discussion for another day. Today is all about the epidemic at hand and how we can try to change the situation for the better.
The biggest problem I can see with what’s happening is that there is no accountability for when something like this happens, or at the very least, it is extremely rare. Police officers may get suspended, and sometimes even arrested, but very rarely are they ever held accountable with convictions for whatever they may have done. This unfortunate circumstance has led to a quasi-invincibility among police officers that they are somewhat untouchable no matter how they act. Is that entirely true? Not at all. In an article from July 18th, 2019 ( https://time.com/5628206/police-shooting-trial-knowlton-garner/ ), Time magazine states that, out of 104 police officers who faced trial for killing civilians since 2005, only 36 were convicted of the crime. That seems like a decent percentage, right? That’s roughly 30% of trials ending with a conviction. Doesn’t seem too shabby. However, in the same article, it states that “According to Mapping Police Violence—one of the few groups that tracks deadly police encounters in the absence of a comprehensive national database—law enforcement officers in the U.S. intentionally or accidentally killed more than 6,800 civilians between 2013 and 2018.” Among those shootings, a police officer was only charged with a crime 1.7% of the time. So if you take a correlation (may not be exact, but is being used as a reference point) of roughly 30% of police officers who face trial for and are convicted for the killing, only about 0.6% of police killings end in a conviction.
Now this is not to say that a majority of police killings aren’t justified for the most part, but there are certainly instanced where excessive force was used that did not end in a conviction, as we have seen many times over the last decade or so. In fact, just yesterday I saw a body camera video where a man was shot because he was actively attacking officers and I one hundred percent agree with what happened in that instance. At the same time, there have been several instances where cameras have shown to be complying with police, or actively running or walking way from them when they were shot. The most recent of these instances is the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha. Most people I see that are justifying what happened are stating that he had a knife and he was going to his car to get a gun. Two things stick out to me: First of all, he dd not have a gun in his vehicle, so that is a blatant lie. No gun was found at the scene, so he obviously did not have one. Secondly, they state that he had a knife. One was found in the floorboard of his car, so that part is true, but is that really a crime worth being shot in the back 7 times and paralyzed over? I have a knife in my car also, just in case I need it in an emergency. I know dozens of men who regularly carry a knife in their pocket. It’s a lame excuse at best for the brutality that took place. The police officers involved have not been arrested yet.
Sadly, this is just the most recent example of how this can happen. There is also the case of Daniel Shaver, a white man who was laying on the floor of a hotel hallway, crying and crawling to comply with officers when he was shot and killed by police officer Philip Brailsford. Brailsford was recently found not guilty of his murder. In this instance, there was no reason to shoot the unarmed man who was laying on the floor, and yet the officer was not held accountable for what he did. He literally got away with murder. These are the types of cases that have bred an atmosphere of distrust with the justice system we currently have. There need to be some reforms, and I’m going to try to make some suggestions for where we might be able to go from here.
My first suggestion is that ever civilian death at the hands of police should be reviewed by a local board of mixed experts to determine justification. This is something that happens to an extent in many parts of the country, but most review boards are made up of police officers and city officials. I suggest they add lawyers, criminal psychologists, and even behavioral scientists to the boards that can better analyze the situation through perspectives that police officers and city officials may not have the knowledge to apply. I don’t agree with non-expert civilian review boards as civilians generally lack the knowledge and analytical ability to ascertain the nuances of a situation well enough to make a clear judgement without emotion being involved. The same goes for a police only review board.
The next suggestion I have is that I feel police forces should be required to employ social workers who have better knowledge of crisis intervention tactics. I think a lot of times, situations get out of hand simply because the person the police are dealing with is someone who has issues that they are simply not equipped to handle, whether it be due to lack of training or education. I understand that police go through seminars and training for this, but that does not make them experts in the field. I can read a book on how to perform an appendectomy, but I’d be willing to bet you’d still rather have a board certified surgeon perform it on you, right? Obviously there are several cases where social workers are employed on the aftermath of an event, but I truly think that they can help defuse events as well if allowed to and if used appropriately. This is most applicable in cases that involve mental illness, drug use, domestic disputes, child endangerment, as well as many other situations.
The third idea I have is for there to be better tactics for crime prevention. One main example pf this is to have better public outreach programs in high crime areas. A lot of the time, most police forces respond to higher crime areas with more patrols. Sometimes they go a step further and perform raids in neighborhoods. These are tactics that are meant to instill a fear of police in the residents. They are a show of force. It’s the same thing that happens at peaceful protests. Police show up in riot gear and stay ready to provide violence at a moments notice, and use crowd control tactics on peaceful groups of people, who then become violent in response. Does this happen all the time? No, it does not, but it happens a large percentage of the time when certain types of protests are involved. However, there are other types of protests where there are no cops with riot gear, yet the protesters involved are carrying weapons. For the life of me, I can not figure out why there are two different types of responses to these two vastly different situations. Well, I have an idea, but they would never admit to their reasoning. The response ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I literally can not decipher how no police force has figured this out yet. In this case, maybe the local police forces just need to adjust how they deal with certain parts of their precincts. When you create an atmosphere of fear, you breed an atmosphere of defensive reaction to your presence. The patrols are understandable to a point, but by only reacting to the possibility crime rather than actively trying to prevent it, you’re not going to convince the public you’re there to help. And when you respond with brutality, especially if it’s unjustified, you dissolve trust between the police and the public, which causes even more friction. It’s a vicious cycle. Community outreach programs need to be put into place. Maybe have meetings once a month to address concerns of the citizens. Open up community centers in neighborhoods to perhaps keep kids and teenagers busy and out of crime. Form police led sports leagues or throw picnics for the public. It needs to be things to build trust between the two, because the more friction there is, the more likely this unfortunate trend is going to continue.
Obviously I don’t have all of the answers, and I’m sure there are plenty of other ideas out there that would be helpful in fostering a culture of trust. If you have any, please let me know in the comments and we can discuss them. I’m very open to discussion about anything. All I ask is that it remains civil. We all have our opinions about certain subjects, but if we can’t discuss them without getting vulgar, we can never find a way to come together to find a solution. There isn’t an easy answer about what’s happening right now for sure, but I can say that the way we’re going about it is probably not the best route. I support police officers and I know they have a hard job and they just want to go home at night, but that doesn’t meant they don’t have to be just as responsible as everyone else when it comes to how they react in stressful situations. I don’t know if it’s simply a lack of training, or a nonchalant apathy to their approach, but some kind of middle ground has to be found. People who don’t need to die are being killed, and it has to end. Justice has to be allowed for both sides. If only one side is serving up justice without being held accountable for the times they can’t justify it, then the other side will eventually fight back, and that’s what we want to prevent, right? There definitely needs to be a give and take here, but what’s most important is that the side with the power needs to understand how to use it appropriately or everything they work for can be dismantled in a single moment. That one moment can tear down several lives. It certainly can’t hurt to try to keep it from ever happening in the first place, can it?
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