It’s the police who need to comply
For public safety, punish trigger-happy cops
If only policing in America worked out as well in reality as it does in prime time TV dramas.
Alas, actual encounters with armed officers of the state are not always so comforting, especially when a traffic stop is a pretext for abuse. Studies show racially disparate results; a brutal reminder that slave patrols were among the earliest forms of policing in America.
“Why did they kill Tamir Rice?” a friend asks regarding the notorious 2014 police shooting of a 12–year-old playing in a park with a toy gun. Sorry to say, I think I know: it’s a free thrill ride.
Speaking of rides, Newton’s second law of motion is often stated as force equals mass times acceleration. How do so many cops justify accelerating from zero to deadly force in a matter of seconds? Here are a few of their answers:
“If only he had complied!” In other words, do not ask why you were stopped. Do not ask why the cop is screaming and pointing a gun at you. Do not imagine, just because you are an honest citizen going about your business, that your life is worth as much as a Burger King meal. You are expected to submit to enslavement on command.
“I thought he had a gun!” In February 1999, Amadou Diallo thought he was being robbed and pulled out his wallet. One of the cops yelled “Gun!” and Diallo died in a hail of 41 shots, a detail I remember thanks to Bruce Springsteen. Many police officers, instead of being horrified at Diallo’s death, were outraged at Springsteen for his song.
“I mistook my gun for my taser.” That’s like mistaking a piranha for a goldfish. The two weapons are starkly different. Protocol at the police department where Daunte Wright’s killer worked requires them to be worn on opposite sides of the officer’s body. If you mistake a Glock for a taser, you should not be a police officer.
“Saying ‘I can’t breathe’ is a form of resisting arrest.” Seriously? Meet me in hell.
The solution is to stop the sadistic thrill ride from being free. The reason so many cops keep killing unarmed black people is not just that they don’t value black lives, although that’s pretty clear. It’s that they expect to get away with it. We must change those expectations.
Army Lt. Caron Nazario, stopped in Windsor, Virginia, stuck his empty hands out of the car window to show he was unarmed, and said, “I’m honestly afraid to get out of the car.” The responses from Officer Joe Gutierrez included, “Yeah, you should be,” and “You’re fixing to ride the lightning.”
This is terrorism, not public safety. At least Nazario survived. The people who need to comply — with the law and basic decency — are the police.
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, at Derek Chauvin’s murder trial, insisted that Chauvin’s kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes violated the department’s policy and was not acceptable. Here we see the clash between the aspirational “This is not who we are” and the observational “Here is more evidence that this is exactly who we are.”
The transformation of our approach to public safety will not be completed with one bill. During our needed reimagining, it is crucial to hold onto the victims’ humanity and not grow numb. The injustice remains vivid when we remember them. Philando Castile self-disclosed that he was a licensed gun owner, and was cooperating when he was shot by an agitated officer. Daunte Wright’s mother said her son was stopped for an air freshener violation.
Perhaps it is easier to accept extrajudicial executions if you are not the ones being arbitrarily threatened by hotheads with badges. Meanwhile, toxic police culture persists. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Sunday denounced as “chilling” assaults by Brooklyn Center police on journalists covering protests over the death of Wright, and ordered the police to stop. On April 16, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order forbidding the assaults. Such orders are necessary because too many police are doubling down on their above-the-law mentality.
One of the assaulted journalists was freelance photographer Joshua Rashaad McFadden, working for The New York Times, whose press credentials police refused to believe until another photographer vouched for him.
Chris Rock says, “Bad apple? That’s a lovely name for murderer.” As an LGBTQ rights advocate, I have fought for police accountability for a quarter century. Tinkering won’t do it. We have to restructure the whole barrel.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at rrosendall@me.com. Follow him on twitter: @RickRosendall
Copyright © 2021 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.
