One of the things that I admired about the BLM protests was that they stayed on topic. The signs and the chants focused on the issue of over policing in minority communities and the particular case of George Floyd. With the video of his gruesome death — a snuff film, really — there was no debate that this poor guy was the victim of bad police practices. There is no grey area. It was a crazy, bad thing.
And then the police response to the protests seemed to confirm the protestor’s messages. Rubber bullets and smoke bombs outside the White House? Come on!
So, people stayed on that message and marched. I didn’t even see many anti-Trump signs when I was out there. It was all about policing and Floyd. Which is one of the reasons that the protests have been so effective.
But now poor Mr. Floyd, who probably had a more colorful life than his mourners admit, is in the ground next to his mother. And it’s time to move on to the obvious next step: what should be done to make sure that this doesn’t happen again? I’ve seen two responses.
One is to do lots of self reflection about white privilege and racism. So, I’ve seen various institutions and businesses hold self-reflection seminars and assign books for discussion. The second response, which is more my cup of tea, is to look at policies and make concrete, permanent changes to police forces.
I have always thought that cops do too much. Do we really need a guy with a gun to wave cars around the PSEG trucks working on light poles? Do we really need a cop to come to schools to give anti-drug talks or help the senile lady who is lost in the supermarket. When Steve fainted last year, because he took too much blood pressure medicine, why did a cop come to my house along with EMS?
And the police around here are protected by a powerful union. We have small little towns with less than a 5,000 residents. Each one has a police chief that can earn as much as $300K per year and retire at age 55.
The PBA asks for donations from local residents. If Steve gives them $25, they give him a sticker, which he puts on the window of his car. That sticker is widely known as the “get out of jail free card.” If you get pulled over for speeding, that sticker increases the chances that you’ll get a warning rather than a ticket. Ew.
Police departments should be broken up. It will mean that the cops with guns who do stop serious crimes can be trained better. Other police jobs can be outsourced to others. It will be better for the community AND save a ton of money. It makes total sense.
So, who is going to push back on this? Surprisingly, it is going to come from Democrats, because of their alliances with unions. If we take a look at protectionist policies of police unions, what’s to stop people from taking a close look at the teachers’ unions or the teamsters?
Anyway, I hope that our next step is practical, measured, and achievable. I think that even with complicated politics, restructuring policing is a much more achievable goal than ending all racism. I hope that we can stay on topic long enough to make some real changes.
Apt. 11d 
So, who is going to push back on this? Surprisingly, it is going to come from Democrats, because of their alliances with unions. If we take a look at protectionist policies of police unions, what’s to stop people from taking a close look at the teachers’ unions or the teamsters?
I don’t think so. For instance, look at this Twitter thread from Steve Fletcher, who is a strongly pro-labor Minneapolis city councilman. He points out, correctly, that police unions are not like other labor unions. It is possible to break those “unions” without touching the other, better ones.
I am concerned that right-wingers will use police reform as a stalking horse to break other (better) white collar unions.
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Which is what they did in Wisconsin, carving out an exemption for police unions while undermining the others.
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One starting point in reforming the police would be for most of them to stop carrying firearms. In both the UK and Australia, where I used to live, only the “special branch” (which was essentially their SWAT-type force) carried weapons. Normal police did not.
Of course, this would have to be paired with the sort of sensible gun control they have there.
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Older kiddo is a part of the “defund the police”, “abolish prisons”, “abolish ICE” movements and has been sharing ideas. One is a reference to the reform in Eugene, OR, where police are not sent in mental health “wellness checks”, but others are.
Other kiddo has been researching and has been citing the Camden, NJ model: https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/08/872416644/former-chief-of-reformed-camden-n-j-force-police-need-consent-of-the-people
I want to see more substantive evaluation of the various models — Camden’s is 7 years old. That should be enough time for some real analysis.
I’m a little it wary of micro sourcing the jobs of the police, though, because I think a fundamental need is that the police need to be a part of their communities. No, we don’t need people with guns coming with EMTs when someone faints (and that seems like one of the ways that black people get killed, as opposed to upper middle class residents in white neighborhoods). But, changing the police into some kind of special ops force that only deals with the most violent situations doesn’t seem like it is a good solution.
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But, changing the police into some kind of special ops force that only deals with the most violent situations doesn’t seem like it is a good solution.
One doesn’t have to change the police into a special ops force. Rather, make it so that only a small subset of police are trained to use weapons and carry them.
I read an interview with a police officer where he pointed out that in his training he had 80 hours of firearms training and only 8 hours of training to deal with mental health issues. Why not reverse that in basic training (or have 0 hours of firearms training in basic training) and only heavily train a small percentage of the police force to use weapons and only issue firearms to the trained ones?
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No, we don’t need people with guns coming with EMTs when someone faints (and that seems like one of the ways that black people get killed, as opposed to upper middle class residents in white neighborhoods).
The rate of assault on EMTs and paramedics is significant. Without police escort, the rate will increase. There’s a link to a study from this page: https://www.usfa.fema.gov/current_events/083117.html
From the study (which is interesting, if depressing, reading): Health care workers have the highest rate of workplace violence compared to all other industries, with the majority of violent injuries committed by their patients [Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007]. Reports show that health care workers have an injury rate of 20.4 per 10,000, which is significantly larger than the general sector rate of 2.1 per 10,000 [Gates et al., 2011].
further:
We found that emergency medical responders were threatened or assaulted by patients as well as family members and bystanders. Common underlying factors included: violent patients, patients with a mental health issue, and patients with particular health conditions (e.g., seizure, hypoglycemia) [Taylor et al., 2015].
Hypoglycemia IS a condition which causes fainting. It is also, apparently, a common factor associated with increased danger for EMTs and paramedics.
As public health scientists, we asked participants for primary prevention suggestions to prevent or mitigate a patient-initiated violent injury from occurring in the first place (such as de-escalation techniques, cultural competency, and curbside first aid). We were surprised when our questions were met with self-preservation responses such as guns, tasers, mace and bulletproof vests.
Female Speaker 1: I want a taser.
Female Speaker 2: Taser. I agree.
Female Speaker 1: I want a taser and I want some mace. Female Speaker 2: Or mace. Exactly.
Female Speaker 1: But the first choice would be a taser,
because I’m taking you.
In the study, the first responders interviewed stressed that they are often dispatched to calls with very little information about the situation. They are flying blind. So, in upper-middle class communities, the patients may be less likely to attack first responders, if only because it’s nearly impossible for someone with severe mental illness to hold down a highly paid job to pay the exorbitant mortgage.
But it does happen in upper-middle class communities. Example: https://patch.com/massachusetts/newton/newton-woman-busted-after-attacking-needham-police-officer-paramedic
The Needham Fire Department and Police responded to the scene and reportedly found a woman lying on the driveway. They placed a 64-year-old Newton woman, Elisabeth Hughes in protective custody, and transported her to Beth Israel Needham.
While in the ambulance, she punched a Needham paramedic, and kicked a police officer in the face. She was later charged with disturbing the peace, and assault-and-battery of a police officer and ambulance personnel, according to Needham Police.
The resident of the home, a 59-year-old man, was put in protective custody was put in protective custody.
Example: https://www.courant.com/chi-man-attacks-paramedic–20140706-story.html
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Cranberry,
Yep. I haven’t caught up with the threads, but I’ve seen a lot of happy talk elsewhere about replacing the police with social services, when it’s very likely that whoever was providing those services would need police back-up.
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I think the question is, what kind of police backup is needed for first responders? Does the security for an EMT need to be someone trained the way current police are trained?
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The article you cite says that the assault rate in the study is about 2.8%. That’s high, but not necessarily higher than in other professions in which armed escorts are not available (psychiatric aides, for example).
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Here’s a historical perspective on CAHOOTS, the Eugene, OR plan to provide non-police intervention to people in crisis (addiction, dementia, mental health, . . . ): https://www.registerguard.com/news/20191020/in-cahoots-how-unlikely-pairing-of-cops-and-hippies-became-national-model
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Laura,
One of your conservative readers here. We disagree on many political issues, but we’d find tons of common ground on police reform. This has been a topic for many conservatives and libertarians for some time.
I get “defund the police” is a simple slogan, but it is not well received on the right where BLM protestors actually have common cause with many. Conservatives are not on board with great social change (see the book The Great Debate about the Burke vs. Paine argument on that topic-I’m fully with Burke). But many of us will be willing participants in working through incremental change that may help address minority policing issues.
I hope to see conservatives work with liberals to abolish qualified immunity, really pull back on the drug war, de-militarize police, end police unions (I don’t like any public-sector unions), etc.. I also fully agree police shouldn’t be mental health workers and have no business being in schools. Too many fatal police shootings, even “justified” result from mental health/substance abuse calls and it’s tragic.
This is all from a Trump voter.
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I think with the people in the streets, they wouldn’t have charged any of those officers yet. The district attorney was clearly making noises to that effect. There’s no chance anything towards fixing this would have happened without BLM and because of that I’m willing to follow their lead.
The only thing I push is that you need to have an independent prosecutor because the regular ones (of necessity) work too closely with law enforcement.
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The CAHOOTS group from Eugene, OR were on NPR yesterday and a caseworker there said that in the 20+ years the organization has been answering diverted calls from 911, there has not been a serious injury to a CAHOOTS worker. The group also spends 2 M of the 90M budget of the Eugene & Springfield police departments.
Scaling up and modifying for different communities and environments is a non trivial exercise, but worth exploring.
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“Stop Training Police Like They’re Joining the Military
If policing is to change, the spotlight must turn toward police academies, where new recruits are first inculcated into the folkways of their profession. ”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/police-academies-paramilitary/612859/
June 10, 2020
Rosa Brooks
Georgetown University law professor
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The police have a legitimacy crisis. They seem to think that God gave it to them, and that the only role for citizens is instant obedience to the commands of their betters. Yeah, no.
Have I mentioned here lately that the Republic of Georgia fired the entire highway patrol because of corruption and a culture of impunity? American advisers helped set up a new force that actually served the populace, instead of preying on it, and regained the legitimacy that their predecessors had thrown away.
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