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Civil rights attorney David Henderson, who was a guest on @AlexWitt’s show a short time ago said something so important. American police are well trained at one thing in particular: violence. Most can shoot with extreme precision from a distance (Rayshard Brooks, Walter Scott...)
Even switching from a Tazer to a firearm quickly (well, the professionals who can tell two apart...) What they don’t seem to be too good at, generally, is de-escalation and non-violent means of gaining the thing they fixate almost exclusively on: compliance.
And while some officers’ violent response to even a hint of noncompliance is disproportionately meted out on Black and Brown people, it’s not exclusively so. Even an elderly white lady with dementia can get the treatment... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/21/colorado-police-arrest-woman-with-dementia-break-arm-karen-garner
And there’s the issue of the “us vs them” culture of policing, which seems to show up in lopsidedly lax treatment of even violent offenders who cops believe are generally aligned with them or share their “enemies” (ie Black Lives Matter protesters.) https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/08/26/video-of-police-ignoring-suspected-kenosha-shooter-sparks-calls-of-injustice/
Or the weirdly noddy law enforcement attitude toward extremist — but pro-Donald Trump — groups like The Proud Boys https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/us/proud-boys-law-enforcement.html
The political “sides taking” appears to be behind the right wing and in some cases law enforcement lionization of Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot dead two white BLM protesters in Kenosha, WI. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/16/us-police-officers-public-officials-crowdfunding-website-data-breach
And there’s the issue of white offenders seemingly treated by police as fundamentally non-threatening, even when they are in the process of being violent, or have just committed extremely violent acts... https://newsone.com/playlist/white-arrested-with-by-police/
Then there’s the profit model of American policing, with the pressure to extract revenue from citizens in the form of fees, fines and forfeiture. So of course it’s low income and communities of color who are targeted, since the rich wouldn’t stand for it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2020/06/12/policing-should-not-be-about-generating-profit/?sh=44903d907356
And of course, the pernicious and deadly “war on drugs,” which has accelerated the baseline violence of American policing even more over the two generations since its gross, racist, Nixonian start... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-war-on-drugs-gave-rise-to-no-knock-warrants-breonna-taylors-death-could-end-them
...something a key Nixon aide admitted was the plan all along: to target Blacks and lefty “hippies” with the awesome, violent power of the state. https://www.businessinsider.com/nixon-adviser-ehrlichman-anti-left-anti-black-war-on-drugs-2019-7
And of course there’s also the cultural and perceptual divide that exists between many police and much of the public on issues of policing and race. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-police-see-issues-of-race-and-policing/
And there’s the political power — and frequent toxicity — of police unions; though that power has begun to wane in some places, in the wake of egregious cases of police killing unarmed Black people... https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-06-22/police-unions-political-clout-wanes-in-california
That reduction of police union clout seems likely to continue in the wake of lGeorge Floyd’s murder and the Derek Chauvin trial, which shattered the “blue wall of silence.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/police-unions-politics-george-floyd-breonna-taylor-1024473/
Interesting sidebar here on why police unions are not considered to be part of the American labor movement, but rather as conservative, sometimes-violent enforcers of the status quo. https://theconversation.com/why-police-unions-are-not-part-of-the-american-labor-movement-142538
So the question is, how do you reform a system like that, with so many complex issues and so much potential lethality? Police are a necessity for investigating crime, and for aspects of civil order. But how do you reform a multi-state regime that feels so broken in so many ways?
We need to figure it out. Because if police — who are an arm of the government, paid by our tax dollars to “protect and serve” — lose the consent of the governed (and they are, in communities of color. Let’s just be clear about that...) we are on our way to potential chaos.
