What police chiefs and prosecutors should be telling cops
This is either what I’d be saying directly to all the police under me or have said by precinct captains to their own precincts, with someone from the prosecutor’s office present so everyone is on the same page.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
I need to make one thing really clear about what’s going on with riots and law enforcement all over the country:
Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin fucked us.
He is not a hero. He is not a martyr. He is a man who made the job of every police officer in America more difficult and more dangerous. Not that he’s the first officer to do that; there are riots precisely because he is not alone. And the fact that he is not alone means police captains and police chiefs all over America have to talk to their people in order to keep us as safe as possible. Officer Chauvin’s action resulted directly in a Molotov cocktail being thrown at a police van in New York City, an officer being shot and wounded in an ambush in Davenport, IA, and God only knows what else.
He did not do this to keep the peace. He did not do this to protect himself. If any of you have so much trouble controlling a cuffed suspect on the ground that you need to cut off his air supply in any way, particularly when you’re not alone, you should not have been allowed to graduate from police academy and are not qualified to be here. The suspect wasn’t even accused of a violent crime. Choking a cuffed suspect on the ground who isn’t actively attempting to hurt you is not the act of a man. It is the act of a wuss. And it is not the act of a cop. It is the act of a self-indulgent boy who’s too busy being a bully to be professional.
We cannot successfully maintain law and order if the population we police – and the population that ultimately pays our salaries – views us as the enemy. If we are their enemy, we have no business wearing a badge. Being their enemy is not our job; being their protector is our job. We don’t make enemies by making arrests. Arresting people for crimes, particularly violent and property crimes, helps protect people in all neighborhoods including the neighborhoods that produce the most suspects. In fact, especially those neighborhoods.
As I said, we don’t make enemies by making arrests. We make enemies by being stupid. But there’s being stupid and there’s being really stupid. Stupid means DWB’s. Yes, there are Black guys who can afford nice cars. If it looks funny to you, run the tag, but if it comes back clean you don’t need to flash your lights. Stupid is random stops looking for drugs that happen to concentrate on people of color. This may come as a surprise to you, but a higher proportion of White people use illegal drugs than of Black people, so if you’re pulling over a disproportionate number of Black guys you’re not playing the odds, you’re actually playing against the odds. You’re making us enemies without even helping our numbers.
Really stupid means getting way more violent with a Black suspect than with a White suspect of an equivalent crime. Really stupid means shooting a Black suspect running from you when he hasn’t brandished anything or threatened you, unless he’s running without being a suspect for a specific crime, in which case shooting at him qualifies as attempted murder, not police work. Running from an officer is not a capital crime, so don’t treat it as one. Really stupid means beating the crap out of anyone cuffed who is not trying to run or to hurt you.
And for God’s sake, use the same standards for whether you discharge your weapon on Black and White suspects. If you pull over a Black guy, he’s got a woman and child with him in the vehicle, he tells you he has a licensed firearm in the vehicle, he tells you where in the vehicle, you ask him for his license and he reaches into his jacket pocket for his wallet, don’t panic and shoot him. (If you’re that concerned, “Freeze!” works wonders.) You wouldn’t shoot a White guy under those circumstances and you know it.
Doing something really stupid qualifies as fucking your fellow officers because we’re all going to have to deal with the fallout.
I get that you’re going to cover for each other, though understand that if we find out you may be an accessory. A lot of you won’t care; your code will tell you not to turn on a fellow officer. However, understand that in doing something really stupid your fellow officer is risking your career, whether or not you approve of what he is doing. And he is painting a target on the back of every officer you know. Is that OK with you? Are you comfortable with his risking your career because he doesn’t bother to control himself? Is that all your career is worth to him? The first act of disloyalty is his.
Whether or not you come to us, say something to him, even if it’s in front of the suspect. If you don’t want the suspect to understand, come up with a coded phrase.
Accidents happen. We get that. But doing something really stupid isn’t an accident. If you lose your cool enough – or hate someone enough – to risk the lives and reputations of your fellow officers, my obligation will be to protect them, not you. That means neither the police department nor the prosecutor’s office will be able to afford to be lenient, and that’s putting it mildly. I will do what I can to protect people for mistakes in the line of duty. I will not do a damned thing to protect self indulgence that puts us all at risk.
06/02/2020 @ 4:52 am
“If any of you have so much trouble controlling a cuffed suspect on the ground that you need to cut off his air supply in any way, particularly when you’re not alone, you should not have been allowed to graduate from police academy and are not qualified to be here.”
Good start! I might have said that such an individual should not have been allowed into the police academy in the beginning.
Here’s what a subsequent statement should read:
“…There are Black guys who can afford nice cars. If it looks funny to you, you should turn in your badge and resign. We cannot permit you to weaponize any stereotypes you may harbor about any group of people that you are sworn to protect and serve. Profiling is not probable cause for any legitimate police action.”
Moving on with my editorial rewrite::
“If you’re pulling over a disproportionate number of Black guys you may be suspended. If we see a habit or pattern you may be dismissed from the force.”
“Running from an officer is not a capital crime, so don’t treat it as one. If you shoot at or beat someone who can be shown to have been running away from you, you are subject to automatic suspension and may be summarily dismissed. Your actions may be considered probable cause for your immediate arrest and subsequent prosecution.”
I figured since you decided to take a rhetorical stroll through Fantasy Land or the Twilight Zone, why shoot for the moon, why not reach for the stars?
BTW
I’m convinced that the interdependent relationship between the police and prosecutors should be altered or displaced in any and every scenario involving a fatality caused by the police.
Furthermore,
I believe that all police recruits should have at least a bachelor’s degree, demonstrate a working knowledge of the Constitution, undergo a rigorous background check and stringent psychological screening BEFORE BEING ADMITTED to a police academy or engaging in formal police training of any kind.
This should be true of any officer being considered for upgrade or promotion.
Reviews and screenings should occur at regular intervals throughout an officer’s career.
People who aren’t fit for police work should not be encouraged or permitted to become police officers in the first place.
In the case of Officer Chauvin, there were a total of 18 complaints of excessive force filed against him prior to his encounter with George Floyd.
He should not have been in the position to murder Mr. Floyd while on active duty and wearing the uniform of a Minneapolis Cop.
It is in this regard that the argument must be made that it wasn’t simply police policy, training, or protocol that failed George Floyd.
What failed is the entire cultural conceptualization of law enforcement and criminal justice maintained by white people in this country which is predicated on the subconscious presumption that people of color, black men in particular, are not human beings and therefore not entitled to be treated as such…
06/02/2020 @ 7:17 am
“I believe that all police recruits should have at least a bachelor’s degree, demonstrate a working knowledge of the Constitution, undergo a rigorous background check and stringent psychological screening BEFORE BEING ADMITTED to a police academy or engaging in formal police training of any kind….”
This concerns me also. While much of this is already true, and tends to depend on the resources of the agency doing the hiring, it is important to note that degrees only change the likelihood of the types of crime, but not of criminality. The reasons for the discrepancies in types of crimes perpetrated by criminals with different levels of education has more to do with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs than it does with character.
06/02/2020 @ 7:35 am
Bitey , there tends to be a significant difference in IQ ( whatever that means or measures) between those with degrees and those without degrees.
Even the political pollsters show differences in the the voting patterns of the two groups.
If after all is taken into account, the pool of police academy candidates is comprised largely of people with at least some higher education, we can ‘ve reasonably assured that those chosen are a tad brighter than those who have no exposure to complex societal issues and concepts.
However, I must admit that as a college professor I am biased toward those who seek intellectual improvement. I’m not too keen in people who are stuck on stupid.
Especially if they aspire to wear a badge and carry a gun.
06/02/2020 @ 8:52 am
R.P., I too am biased toward thinkers, but my bias does not conflate ability to process, communicate, or invent, with character or morals. Education may bring a slight correlation as it applies to perception, and by extension accountability, but I assure you that it does not bring a correlation to sociopathy. Again, there are brilliant criminals and there are less than intelligent angels. Education or even mental acuity is not causal in this regard. It exists elsewhere.
A gynecologist may not steal a loaf of bread…or a car, or buy or sell methamphetamine, but he is far more likely to abuse a patient in an examination room. Crimes exist where you are physically, but also where you are sociologically. Albert Speer was an architect, and Jesus is thought to have been illiterate. Education can help, but it is far from determinant.
06/02/2020 @ 11:35 am
Perhaps you miss my point.
I understand that education level is not a determinant.
However, it may be an adequate predictor of the level of comprehension need to properly absorb and correctly or accurately process the rubrics of training police recruits are required to complete.
If what passes for training in a police academy bereft of any academic or intellectual degree of difficulty, then perhaps the curricula in the academies should be reviewed, revised, and overhauled.
If a person can’t pass the basic examinations for entrance into military service, he/she should not be able to gain entry to a police academy anywhere, much less graduate and be given a badge and a gun.
In fact I would a accept 4 years of military service in lieu of 2 yrs of college under the right circumstances.
There’s a reason why we are required to graduate from high school prior to going on to college.
There’s a reason why we expect medical doctors to complete undergraduate pre-med before entering medical school.
I would like to think that the person who might put a gun to my head or his knee on my neck has as much of a knowledge base in his or her head as the manager of a McDonald’s or the person who teaches children the alphabet and how to count to ten…
Hopefully, somebody somewhere along the way would have been able to instill the notion that we’re all HUMAN BEINGS under the skin..
The more exposure to formal education, the greater the likelihood of that fundamental bit of information falling into place….
06/02/2020 @ 2:45 pm
06/02/2020 @ 6:44 am
“Yes, there are Black guys who can afford nice cars. If it looks funny to you, run the tag…”
I agree with your post, and it is not my purpose to nitpick, but this is an important point. DWB does not involve only black people driving nice or expensive cars. DWB is not about the apparent incongruence of the two concepts of wealth and blackness. DWB involves a black person driving any car. The occurrence of expensive autos is quite small relative to average, or old, or dilapidated autos. The risk doesn’t change appreciably based upon the value of the vehicle because it doesn’t really have to do with the suppression of crime. It is about the oppression of people. 100 ten year old Hyundais get pulled over illegally in the same time that 1 Mercedes is spotted.
06/02/2020 @ 9:16 am
Thank you for your comments. I couldn’t submit the text up front to you to be edited because you guys are typically the entire commenting audience.
Thanks for the correction on DWB’s.
I don’t know what’s feasible and what’s not. It’s beyond the scope of my post to address recruitment. That has to have happened already. It’s today, we’ve got problems with police all over the country, I assume the unions are very powerful, and we have to change behavior without turning the issue into management vs. labor because if we do that the rank and file will close ranks against management and we will get nowhere. Right now we’ve got a bunch of angry cops supporting each other and avoiding oversight. That means management has to change behavior while appearing to be pro police, particularly in this environment. Structural changes are great and I hope we see them, assuming there are enough recruits at all levels to put education standards in place, but my first concern is today. How do I reach the cops we have?
Put another way, what excuses are racist police hiding behind?
Bill, what are the penalties for taping over a body cam? That can be addressed with straight discipline.
06/02/2020 @ 3:45 pm
I don’t know about how body cams are handled from within the departments because they came after my time as an officer. I just knew how they would be handled. Allow me to make an allusion to a film that you have likely seen to help convey the attitude.
Do you recall the film, All the Right Stuff”? Back in the 60’s, as they were building the Friendship program, they went looking for the best test pilots and former “fighter jocks” that they could find. To this day, Astronauts are pilots. Anyway, they wanted educated guys, obviously. At that time, some were, and others were not so much. We got the know the ones that we got to know. Former war heroes and Academy grads. One that we did not get to know…until the film, was Chuck Yeager. Many considered him to be the best of the best, but he did not have a degree, and NASA didn’t want him. As news got around about how these great fighter jet pilots would be used in this early capsule, they received ridicule. I recall them using a term derisively, “Spam in a can. Spam in a can, boys.” The first capsule had no flight controls whatsoever. As the story goes, John Glenn and the others insisted. It’s a hands on sort of bias, with a belief on one’s abilities that got them there. (Later generations of Naval Aviators had a similar reaction to modern jets with no physical controls. The recent versions are called “fly by wire”, and many pilots still hate them). Anyway, this is the sort of thing that I knew officers would feel about cameras as a piece of equipment. They already carry quite a lot, and this was being added. The difference is that the camera had no actual purpose for the officer in the doing of his job. It was only to monitor HOW he did his job.
Now, I am not saying that this was not needed. CLEARLY more eyes makes for a better situation. I am just saying that it was predictable that this new piece of equipment would not be welcome. (Please, I hope that is not misunderstood).
As for addressing the issue with discipline, I would suggest that cameras are a requirement, and the failure of a camera, or a loss must be accounted for at the risk of being prosecuted for destruction of evidence…no matter what. As it is today, if you driver a car all day, and do not properly inspect it, and an arrested suspect hides contraband under a seat on the ay to the station, and a cop does not find it on the suspect, or in the car and make a report of it, that cop can be on the hook for the possession. It can be assumed. I think a similar type of responsibility for monitoring equipment is feasible.
06/02/2020 @ 2:41 pm
I have come to the conclusion that police work should be considered as part of the public service obligations of every citizen. Everyone – male and female – should serve at least two years in some kind of public service capacity in exchange for the right to vote. There are many things that need doing. You can serve in the military or you can serve on the police force. Or teach. Or collect garbage. Save the planet. The list is endless.
Most cops will tell you that if you spend more than five years on the street, you are going to suffer from a whole range of physical and emotional problems for the rest of your life. Being a cop is dangerous, mind-numbing, emotionally draining hard work. It should be a term of service, not a career.
Give cops a five year contract. If you can’t get promoted off the street into a supervisory role or a gold shield (detective) after five years, you have to go and do something else.
What this will accomplish, first of all, is a more diverse police force. It will also mimic the structure of the US military. If you do not achieve rank after five years, you are generally shown to the door. Sergeant or out in five. Ask any officer. Someone who has never reached the rank of corporal after five years is always some kind of fuck up.
Those five years on the police force give you enough time to learn the trade, and also gives your supervisors a chance to observe and evaluate officers for higher ranks, for leadership positions through demonstrated competence rather than by simply racking up time in grade.
In my opinion, this is the only way to break down the unfortunately accurate stereotype that a big city police force is more like a gang than law enforcement agency. In order to change the outcome, you have to change the culture that exists in most police departments. The only way to do that is to rotate people through the force and move them up the ranks on the basis of knowledge, ability, and wisdom, rather than croneyism.
06/02/2020 @ 3:20 pm
Your suggestion is an excellent one. There is a lot of good in it. Respectfully, there are some huge misunderstandings as well.
One of the things that attracted me to the LAPD was the curiosity about something that I thought was misunderstood. One example is the notion of detective status being an elevation above street cop status. It isn’t. When I first started, I thought it was also. This notion is mainly the result of television cop and detective shows. All cops are detectives, to a certain degree. And the detective’s job is not nearly what it appears from film and television. A detective’s job is to read old reports, and essentially research old events, whether it be crimes in years gone by, or events of recent incidents that are not understood or settled. Tune the glamour and intrigue down by about a billion. What you get is a really shitty job.
Now, there are specialization within the discipline, but they are often scientists and specialists who are helpers to the detectives.
Conversely, the uniform patrol job is not about barbells, donuts, and “have a nice day.” It is the most active and diverse mix of competencies in one profession that I can think of. I am not saying this because I did it. I did it because it can be said. I am and was capable of doing a fuck-ton lot of things, and this intrigued me.
We modern Americans live is utter ignorance of what things actually are, and how they operate or got there. I mean that as no insult. We live in a complex world. In a large city, we may know our way around most of it, but not all of it. And that is just the surface. There is intricate infrastructure that no one need ever concern himself with. Things like Cholera and plague, and even marauding hordes of Vandals has been essentially solved by the centers of industry, commerce, and security that is the modern city. Wanna test that basic Earth knowledge on a city dweller? How far do you need to go to find beef or milk cattle from where you live? Maybe it is a lot, or maybe it is a little. Now, compare that to how far you need to go to find an educated adult who WILL tell you that bulls have horns and cows do not. I GUARANTEE you that you wont need to walk a city block to find one of those people. This point is not about livestock, or farming, or trivia. The point is that our modern existence has removed us from the need to know…A LOT. Remember when we used to memorize phone numbers? I can tell you my grandparent’s number from when I was in elementary school. Now, ask me what my wife’s cell number is, and has been for the last 20 years. I can tell you the area code, and the first 3. I simply do not need to memorize it, and almost no one does anymore.
Now, the job of a police officer, PARTICULARLY in a big city does not have those advantages. As a uniformed cop, you’re back, “On the Waterfront”…from the 1950s. You’re back in the Crimea in the “Charge of the Light Brigade.” You’re back in Watts in 1966. And you’re back on the savannah, with your head on a swivel, looking for Sabre-toothed tigers who want to eat you. And that could all be before lunch. Do bank robbers have guns? Maybe. So can granny, or a lost 6 year old. Life threatening possibilities exist everywhere, and at all times. Nothing challenges the intellect, and the body like that job. Prior to graduating the academy, I thought like you do about detectives. After my first week on the job, I knew you’d have to tear that uniform off of my back. It would be like Tom Brady aspiring to be an equipment manager.
Cows have horns, and the modernity that you see around you is an illusion. It is a mental and psychological construct. Where exactly do the shoes that you wore most recently come from? Who made them? Can you walk a mile in them on pavement? Now, can you walk a mile without any?
06/02/2020 @ 3:36 pm
I’ve been a long-time believer in universal service, like Switzerland has and Israel mostly has. We should all experience that kind of national collective responsibility in some capacity. There is so much that needs to be done and so many people who need to be connected that they owe something to their country. It can be in anything we need. Infrastructure, obviously. Police. Hell, the economy of this country would be insanely healthier if we had government-provided day care.
06/02/2020 @ 2:48 pm
Bitey: Well put, sir. Education does not confer enlightenment. It only provides information. Experience teaches enlightenment, but only when there are positive role models around to emulate. Becoming a cop (as I think you know) is a process of emulation that really begins after you graduate from the Academy. The Academy teaches you what you are supposed to do. Your first year on the job shows you how to do what you have to do to live up to the first rule of police work: Go Home after your shift.
06/02/2020 @ 4:07 pm
Also true. In fact, there is massive pressure to “relearn” or “unlearn” academy ways. Some old cops will tell you to stick to what you were taught, and others will tell you to “forget that shit.” Navigating that socio-political environment was risky in and of itself. I had a MAJOR advantage when I got out of the Academy in that socio-political process. It is fascinating now how those characteristics that older cops valued were subjectively evaluated.
1. Once I began my process to get into the academy, I was still in the Corps. It is a long series of interviews and tests. There is background investigation that would amaze you, and psychological evaluation that would unnerve you. I was a squeaky clean black kid, college degree, intact home, USMC service, Top Secret security clearance, and fit. I was at the top of their class once I began. I was their recruitment wet dream.
2. Once in the Academy, I served as the class leader. Didn’t want it, but the instructor was also a former Marine, and made me. So, I did it.
3. I graduated 3rd in my class. And the dude who made the selections from headquarters from from the division that I wanted to go to. (I did not know that at the time). As a former Hollywood officer, he chose the picks of the litter, if they wanted to go there. I did, so it happened.
4. Once I got to my division, the fact that I was a Marine got me less slack than many. Older officers valued that because they figured it was safer for them, whether it had a practical value on the job itself. I can say that the USMC buys you a whole lot of slack.
Now, I am also not exactly what you’d call obsequious. I could button my lip, and not be heard for days if need be, but if someone forced words out of me, they tend not to be party line…unless coincidentally. That’s not a brag, sometimes I wish I could, but I just can’t get down like that. I have taken my lumps. So, the process of emulation is intense. Like many things in life, you sell yourself out, or you determine to be yourself. I prefer the latter. Your suspicion is correct that some of these jackass cops prefer the former.
06/02/2020 @ 5:32 pm
Apparently the standards for admission and matriculation in a police academy vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Should there be some universal standards and a common core curriculum?
06/02/2020 @ 4:44 pm
By the way, Mr, Milner, that concept of emulation would make a fantastic read. I think this particular process is universally applicable. I think it represents the dividing line between privilege and subordinate culture.
It is much easier to be coopted by the establishment when the establishment is not far from where you came, or where you are going. But when you are different in some material way, and that way could be known only to you, but it helps define you, emulating the ways of the establishment is a more complex struggle. Sometime people from dominant culture will loudly reject the notion of “privilege” if they did not come from wealth. But your observation about emulating an orthodox structure makes the point.
06/02/2020 @ 3:06 pm
This is quite possibly the best sentence you have written in all the years I have read your work : “It is the act of a wuss.”
06/02/2020 @ 5:14 pm
Unless I’m missing something, we’re all in agreement on the requirement of some kind of public service upon graduation from high school.
“Give cops a five year contract. If you can’t get promoted off the street into a supervisory role or a gold shield (detective) after five years, you have to go and do something else.”
I’d vote in favor of this recommendation a t time any where.
06/28/2020 @ 12:03 am
I said in the post that Officer Derek Chauvin fucked the police. At the time, I had no idea how badly. The Minneapolis City Council has voted to dissolve the Minneapolis Police Department. Now all his fellow officers will be out of work.