At the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan opens her fairly nuanced op-ed with a curious point.
All this happened after America watched the cellphone video of the extinguishing of the life of George Floyd one year ago, by an officer, Derek Chauvin, who posed through much of the tape with his hand on his thigh, the picture of brute nonchalance.
An incident so horrifying can and will stop America in its tracks, causing nationwide convulsion—protests, riots, burning of businesses.
One bad cop can stop a great nation in its tracks. A plumber, an accountant, a movie star can’t kick America off its axis. A bad cop can.
Which means police officers are more important than ever in our history. And we are not fully seeing this.
At the one year anniversary of the killing of George Floyd, with Derek Chauvin convicted of his murder, a $27 million settlement of his family’s claims and serial protests and riots demanding we defund the police, we’re staring at a mess. Why did the video of Floyd’s killing set off such turmoil? It was hardly the worst video of police excessive force. Floyd wasn’t the most sympathetic victim. Derek Chauvin might be one bad cop, but he’s hardly the personification of all cops. There are far worse. There are far better. Sometimes, they’re the same cop.
It’s reform heresy to say this, but Floyd wasn’t Saint George and Chauvin wasn’t the devil. Of course he shouldn’t have been killed, but there is a long list of people who shouldn’t have died at the hands of police, and whose deaths were more violent, deliberate and inexcusable. Want a name? Try Philando Castille. Why isn’t his name on some law in Washington?
Yet, Floyd was the match that lit a fire, both figuratively and literally, across a nation. Now that we’re here, and the opportunity presents itself to do something as people, at least for the next twelve hours, are behind it, maybe we can do something right or indulge the simplistic, the fantastical or the ridiculous, and find ourselves no better off, likely worse off and back to the pendulum of bad quick-fix solutions for too much, or too little, or too deadly, or too passive, policing.
We are asking them to be a combination of Henry Kissinger, the Dalai Lama and John Wayne. All after four to six months of training.
If they get it innocently wrong—if they misjudge a situation in real time, or panic—it’s all there on cellphone video, and if they are judged guilty they lose their jobs, their benefits, their pensions; and their families will be left vulnerable. So now instead of doing something when bad things are happening, they feel the temptation to do nothing—to stay in the car or turn away from trouble. Street criminals know that.
To cop right is hard. It’s hard for the good cops, which is meant to say those police officers who are honest in the performance of their duty and respectful of their fellow citizens. Is there such a thing as a “good cop,” when the good ones cover for the bad ones, say nothing, do nothing, as their brothers beat some perp in cuffs to show him who’s in control? The ACAB crowd isn’t necessarily wrong, but it doesn’t help if they’re right. The answer is not that we abolish police, but that cops be better. That, of course, is easier said than done.
We train them almost as an afterthought. You’d think men and women so crucial to domestic tranquility would be trained deeply and carefully, spending years in the police academy, but no, we train them for four to six months.
There are thousands of departments in the U.S., each with its own standards and policies. The Los Angeles Police Department provides six months of training for those who qualify. So does Miami. Smaller forces train less. The state of California mandates 664 hours of training, but the San Jose Mercury News last year quoted a criminal-justice reform advocate noting the state requires more training for cosmetologists than for police. On some forces, a high-school diploma or GED is enough to qualify. Some cities require two years of college or military service.
Cops are decidedly under-educated and undertrained. But the mantra of “better training” has long been shown to be something of a false god. Sure they need better, and substantially longer, training, but no one needs to be trained to control one’s emotions and not beat a cuffed perp because you can get away with it and the guy pissed you off. Will a class in “don’t beat people for kicks” change the mentality of an angry, hateful, racist, violent cop? And training is merely the “official” classroom. The real lessons are taught by training officers on the street, where cops learn not to rat on their brothers, show weakness to the public or ignore the First Rule of Policing.
Missing from Noonan’s analysis is that we’ve spend the past five decades playing the “tough on crime” song to woo voters’ respect. Cops are who save us from the “animals,” so we have to tolerate a few broken eggs when cops cook up the safety omelet. Unspoken is that police staffing has ballooned over this period of time, which the police explain as the reason crime sunk to historic lows. While there is correlation, no one can show causation between the two.
Noonan adds another wrinkle into the toxic mix of police reforms, that the next crop of cops, to the limited extent people still want the job now that “cop” is a dirty word, will be people reared in a broken America.
We are putting it all on the frail shoulders of the guy who was born in 2000 and spent visitation with his father playing “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft.” And the girl without a father who came from a chaotic home. They are the academy’s new recruits.
Whether this will make for better or worse cops is irrelevant. This is who will be coming into the academy and will be the next generation of police officers. How many we really need, how they will be vetted for their psychological ability to resist the impulse to treat fellow human beings like subhumans, how they will be able to face the potential of harm without reacting to quickly or harshly, how they will be able to do their job with integrity and respect, are the questions we now face.
I close with the words of William Bratton, former police commissioner of New York, Los Angeles and Boston, in an interview a few weeks ago. I asked him what cops are, what their role is, why we should care. “They are the glue that literally holds society together,” he said. “They are an essential element of a successful democracy.”
Of course we need cops, despite Bratton’s glossy response. But there are so many aspects of where we are that need to be faced, addressed and fixed with serious and sustainable answers that provide us with police that do the job for which they exist. This isn’t a “George Floyd” problem, but a complex cop problem that has been festering for the past 50 years. Maybe now is the chance to do something real to fix it and create that police force we need that earns the respect it so desperately desires. But it won’t happen as long as we’re stuck spewing simplistic solutions to critical and complex problems.
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Agree that Floyd shouldn’t be deified like he’s been. As you say, there have been incidents that are much worse. Philando Castille (as you mentioned) did everything right and still got shot. He had no chance. Daniel Shaver was much worse, but I suppose his life doesn’t matter. Carolyn Small was another awful one with actual official corruption involved that nobody talks about.
Given that our government is trapped in a battle of the extremists between the Trump cult and the progressives, nothing reasonable is possible.
Her idea of a longer training period is not at all bad. There are dozens of occupations that required extended education capped by an internship. Doesn’t seem unreasonable to require that of cops. Classes in mental health management. Deescalation. Say 2 years and if you pass you get your license to “practice”. I kinda like that thought.
She has some worthwhile ideas in there, but then there are some additional ideas (like reduction in force to where we were before the Drug War) that wouldn’t require more funding. There is much to consider if we really want better cops.
The incident has been rather overblown. It was a big deal for George Floyd, his family, the witnesses, four cops, the random morons who took time to burn things down, and the random people who suffered losses accordingly. I watched a few extra episodes of Court TV, and that was about it as far as any personal impact. Police departments here and there tweaked policies (futile reactions to a case caused by an officer not following departmental policies). The whole “reckoning” thing is a media fantasy. Fake news to the nth degree. There is no big change afoot. It is simple wishful thinking.
Some rando on the twitters replied to a twit of mine about how we’re squandering this opportunity that the George Floyd Act would criminalize a cop putting his knee on a guy’s throat. That’s as far as the grasp of the unduly passionate seems to go, as if that fixes the problem.
That no big change is afoot is a sad conclusion. There was so much potential squandered. And it’s all our fault, comrade, for not doing enough to earn our red badges of courage or so some would say. I’m no good at falling in line and I’m cowardly. I can’t help it. My only hope is that something worthwhile can be salvaged, some small glimmer is all I’m asking for.
BM has been known to be wrong about such things, if it makes you feel better.
The issue isn’t so much how many hours of training rookies get; it is what IS taught and how good the training is. I was a cop and part time academy instructor in Florida when the Academy went from 12 to 14 weeks. What did those extra 2 weeks get the recruits? Things like 4 hours training on RICO statutes!?!!!
Rookies, and veterans need hands on training in subduing violent suspect, how to recognize and deal with Excited Delirium and Meth Overdose patients until paramedics can get there, and basic marksmanship and what used to be called Decision Shooting (when to shoot and when not to), statute and case law, Mental Health (the public’s and their own), physical fitness and wellness (not stressed nearly enough). Add basic 1st Aid for knife and gunshot wounds, CPR, Driving, Crime Scenes and you could fill an academy or in service curriculum.
But hands on training risks injuries, workers comp claims and lawsuits, so many academies and agencies are “hands on averse” in training. And quality training, especially force on force and firearms training can expensive quick and training budgets are the 1st areas administrators look at for budget cuts.
Most cops want better training and tools. Portland Oregon cops begging for body cameras and the city refuses to buy them citing the expense.
Excited delirium? smh.
All makes sense from the cops’ perspective. Now consider what’s needed from the public’s perspective. Remember, people may not understand what cops do, but then, cops don’t seem to understand why so many people hate them.
Ever see someone so agitated they could pick up a 275lb person like picking up a beer can? I have. Often there drugs (meth and cocaine especially) that play a role but I also have seen people with 105 degree body temperatures and no pain sensation. Call it whatever you want, but it is a known thing.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22390995/#:~:text=The%20term%20Excited%20Delirium%20Syndrome%20%28ExDS%29%20has%20traditionally,as%20altered%20mental%20status%20and%20combativeness%20or%20aggressiveness.
Mike – Good post. All of your suggestions are great. I’d add training in conflict resolution as well. Best they can, cops need to learn to be the calming influence. The adults in the room.
And yes, conflict resolution. And that is assuming people are interested in resolving their conflicts. Often they aren’t but it never hurts to try where you can.
I remember decades ago they tried a shoot/no shoot training program somewhere. The disturbing thing they found was the training desensitized the officers to the act of pulling the trigger on a suspect. No big deal with a paper target with clear indications for when to shoot. On a dark street facing a person of a different race and culture or language/deaf/autistic possibly intoxicated or mental health problems? You will pay a price for that desensitization. Philando Castille died because an officer saw something that just wasn’t. Shoot/no shoot cannot change that.
Maybe the time would be better spent reviewing all the video of officers making bad decisions and being total d****.
The problem with many shoot/no shoot scenarios it that they bias toward shooting.
At a department I used to be with, we used slide projected on to paper. I’ve had officers shoot a person holding a badge instead of a pistol, and other officers not shoot when faced with a firearm. It was a sobering experience for everyone. When I left we were trying to expand the training to using paintball guns (today it’d be Simunitions I suppose) to make it more realistic.
You want officers to fire and hold fire at the proper times. And as I said, its labor intensive and departments don’t like the expense. And that’s totally aside from getting them to put the shots on target and not miss.
Does that mean I’m allowed to make a joke about the NYPD cop who fired 6 rounds and struck 7 bystanders but not the target?
Absolutely. Guaranteed his/her compatriots do so regularly to this day. If the officer was male he’d be tagged something like “Annie Oakley “ in a heartbeat, with appropriate adjectives, and the name would stick.
Sure, NYPD is infamous in law enforcement circles about their (lack of) firearms shooting.
Rarely, is the time when I can disagree on this topic. Today, is no exception. What I have been hearing recently on the conservative side of the aisle, is that the rise of violent crime is rampant and it’s all the fault of BLM and the defunding the police movement. Cops are afraid to do their jobs! It’s a simplistic argument, but nonetheless effective. People fear crime. People fear violent crime even more. This is the real impediment to police reform. And as you so accurately stated “we have to tolerate a few broken eggs when cops cook up the safety omelet”. When it’s the other guy getting beat down or killed…everything can be reasoned away.
I’d settle for a thoughtful discussion about what our society wants cops to do as a starting point. As it stands now, the answer to that question is a hodgepodge of history (real and imagined), societal wants ( also real and imagined), needs (also real and imagined), political sophistry, legislative inanity, and a legal system that from the outside seems hell bent on describing every individual angel on the head of every pin while truckloads of angel dust transit our border.
Give us a clear mission devoid of double-speak and preferred pronouns. Then, and only then, begin building the structure best suited to accomplish that mission.
Yes, I did wake up cranky this morning. Fortunately she went back to sleep.
The crazy thing is that you want that discussion about what society wants in a society that elected Donald Trump. Good luck with that.
Even deplorables get a say in what society wants from cops.
Yeah, the very definition of democracy. Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. But as I said… good luck.
…and in a society that has large segments who want to eliminate the police altogether. There’s crazy on both sides.
Stop making everything so complicated, esteemed one….
All you got to do is swap out the elementary school teachers and the cops. Fire all the trial court judges and replace them with the senior ranks of the public works department, and then swap out the parks and rec people with the district attorney’s office.
Problem/s solved.
As stupid answers go, this ain’t bad.
At the risk of violating the no-tummy-rubs rule, you’re dismissal of the “more and better training” solution as being inadequate is critically important.
Whatever else you can say about Derek Chauvin, he wasn’t undertrained. He had: (1) been a cop for 19 years; (2) a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement; (3) served in the military police for the army reserve; and (4) had received two medals of valor. Chauvin’s qualifications should give pause to anyone who thinks we can just train our way out of the problem.
Chauvin also had a long history of complaints that he used excessive force. Most of those complaints resulted in nothing. And the two times he was reprimanded for excessive force, those reprimands were kept confidential and away from any potential public scrutiny. Chauvin’s long career was made possible by a 50+ year culture of police union contracts that shield cops from any sort of meaningful accountability for misconduct.
And we, the public, let these police no-accountability contracts exist. In fact, we (as represented by our elected leaders) are the ones who signed those contracts with the cops.