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There’s a debate on police reform whether too much attention is paid to individual police misconduct and too little on the need for systemic change. For example, there are multiple smart articles with titles like “The Bad-Apple Myth of Policing.” 1/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/how-courts-judge-police-use-force/594832/
The either-or nature of the debate, however, misses the need for both systemic change and serious attention to “bad apples.” Again and again, cops involved in acts of terrible violence often have way more complaints than the average officer. A few examples follow: 2/
A study in Chicago found more than half of officers received fewer than one complaint a year. The worst 1% of officers, however, generated ~25% of complaints. The officer who shot Laquan McDonald had 20 misconduct claims filed against him. 3/ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/25/laquan-mcdonald-jason-van-dyke-misconduct-chicago-police
The officer who choked Eric Garner to death in New York while Garner begged for his life reportedly had 23 prior complaints, the second-highest number in the city. 4/ https://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2014/12/05/nypd-officer-daniel-pantaleo-faced-misconduct-allegations-before-death-of-eric-garner
In comparison, a study of 35,000 NYPD officers found 40% have never been the subject of a citizen complaint. Twenty percent have only one complaint. Approximately 1,000 officers, or about 3%, however, have 10 or more complaints. 5/ https://www.wnyc.org/story/can-the-nypd-spot-the-abusive-cop/
In short, the failure to address police misconduct is both systemic and evidence of how getting “bad apples” off the street really matters. One expert said, “If you could devise a system to identify [problem cops] early, you could prevent a lot of inappropriate actions.” 6/
“Three separate studies of police agencies that implemented early warning systems (in Miami, Minneapolis & New Orleans) have shown that targeted intervention can reduce citizen complaints against officers as much as 66% over two to three years.” 7/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/we-now-have-algorithms-to-predict-police-misconduct/
Four years ago I wrote, “removing or firing ‘repeaters’ won’t, by itself, change numerous other structural flaws… but focusing on officers accused of extreme misconduct could significantly reduce state-sanctioned violence against black civilians.” fin/ https://www.theroot.com/how-to-go-from-blacklivesmatter-to-blackpolicymatter-1790856042
