Does diversifying the police make a difference? Using history to analyze the Tyre Nichols tragedy through the Detroit experience (Part 2 of 3)
History and current events have shown that without structural reforms in policing, a focus on diversity and representation will not solve the systemic issues that allow police brutality to persist.
Click here for the first post in this three-part series
The murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis shares many of the same hallmarks as other high-profile deaths of unarmed Black men at the hands of police. But the case is unique in that all five police officers charged with murdering Nichols are Black.
Having Black cops and Black mayors doesn’t end racial bias in policing. By now, most of us have seen the statistics that show the disproportionate number of police stops of African-Americans on highways, streets, and in neighborhoods. Stops of White drivers are 30 percent more likely to reveal drugs and contraband. Yet police still stop African-Americans at double, triple, even five times the rate of White Americans. (Horace & Harris, 2019) And what’s more disturbing is that the race of the officer doesn’t seem to help.
For instance, in Baltimore, where Black cops make up over fifty percent of the police department, one Black man was stopped and questioned more than twenty times without any charges ever being filed. (Horace & Harris, 2019) Baltimore is a majority Black city putatively run by African Americans. Mayors, police chiefs, and prosecutors may be Black, but the racial composition of the local government and police force doesn’t seem to help that much.
Prior research shows that Black officers are better positioned to police the African American community due to greater familiarity with their own ethnic group, greater sympathy for its unique social circumstances, and greater sensitivity than non-Black officers for police abuse of minorities (Walker 1982). However, other studies indicate that Black and White officers discharge their firearms with equal frequency (Fyfe 1981), make arrests under similar circumstances (Worden 1989), and are both prejudiced against African Americans (Kuykendall and Burns 1980; Sklansky 2006). Furthermore, research indicates that the police institution socializes White and Black officers similarly and that the distinctive ethnic experience each officer brings to policing loses significance over time as officers adapt to police culture (Fielding 1986; Paoline et al. 2001; Holdaway 1997). For instance, both Black and White officers have been found to espouse conservative social views and circulate and defend negative stereotypes of the residents of low-income Black neighborhoods. (Moskos, 2008)
And yet decades ago, during the Civil Rights era, many activists across America called for the hiring of more Black police officers in response to rampant police brutality. The reasoning for this demand was simple. They believed the presence of Black people in law enforcement would foster greater trust and more open dialogue between Black citizens and their government. We now have yet more evidence to dispute that notion, thanks to the murder of Tyre Nichols. Let’s resume our three-part series by returning to the Detroit experience.
Police brutality in Detroit and the campaign to diversify the police department.
Although the first Black officer joined the Detroit Police Department in 1893, African American police officers remained in the extreme minority prior to the election of Coleman Young. Although Detroit’s Black population increased significantly between 1915 and 1920, only fifteen Black officers were numbered among the 3,000 members of the police force by 1920. (Darden et al., 2013) As the Black population expanded further during the 1920s, the Detroit Police Department hired only thirty-two additional Black officers. (Darden et al., 2013) During the 1930s, the Black population increased by 25 percent, compared to a White increase of 1.7 percent, but the Detroit police hired only sixteen more Blacks during that period. (Darden et al., 2013)
In 1953, out of a department of 4,200 policemen, only 101 were Black, of whom there were only four sergeants and one detective lieutenant. (Darden et al., 2013) No Black policemen worked in administration at central headquarters or were assigned to any precinct unless they were on special duty (Kresnak et al., Michigan Chronicle, March 21, 1953). Black and white policemen neither walked beats together nor rode together in squad cars. Blacks did not belong to the motorcycle squad, the arson squad, or the homicide squad. The department assigned White policemen to both Black and White districts but assigned Black policemen only to predominantly Black districts. (Darden et al., 2013)
As crime increased in the Black ghetto (thanks largely to the terrible living conditions produced and maintained by racial discrimination in housing and employment), the Detroit Police Department expected these Black officers to “keep their people” in line. (Darden et al., 2013) But the responsibility of “keeping the nigger in line” fell mainly to White officers, who tended to go overboard in combating crime in Black neighborhoods. (Darden et al., 2013)
Prior to Coleman Young’s election, if African Americans in Detroit were to name the worst racial abuses they had to encounter, without a moment’s hesitation they would have said “police brutality.” White police brutality began to increase in 1930s as the Black population expanded. Blacks were indiscriminately beaten, repeatedly harassed, subject to slurs, and often killed at the hands of racist policemen for doing little more than saying the wrong thing or making a move at the wrong time. (Darden et al., 2013)
For example, in 1933, White policemen killed several Blacks in rapid succession, prompting the Black community, along with several concerned civic organizations, to lodge complaints against “the promiscuous shooting of Negroes by police.” (Darden et al., Detroit Tribune, September 30, 1933)
Two years later, White policemen were still shooting Blacks on the slightest pretense. In one case, in 1935, a White policeman fatally shot a young Black man in the abdomen while he was sitting in the rear seat of a car that the officer had stopped for exceeding the speed limit. (Darden et al., 2013) Several months later in June 1935, a White policeman shot and killed a sixteen-year-old boy “for allegedly taking a sweater” from a store (Darden et al., Detroit Tribune, June 15, 1935).
White police brutality continued throughout the 1940s. On the night of June 4, 1948, Leon Mosley, a fifteen-year-old Black youth driving a stolen car, was killed after he was beaten and shot in the back by White police officers, adding to the long list of atrocities against Black residents. (Darden et al., 2013)
Police brutality against Blacks continued into the 1950s. In fact, relations between the Black community and the police became so bad that NAACP officials “spent most of their time processing complaints against the police department” (Darden et al., Michigan Chronicle, March 21, 1953). The situation became so serious that the Black community was forced to use the courts to clarify the use of firearms by White policemen in apprehending persons suspected of crime. (Darden et al., 2013)
Police brutality against Black residents continued into the 1960s. On July 5, 1963, a White patrolman shot Cynthia Scott three times, twice in the back, as she tried to walk away from an attempted arrest, even though he had no probable cause to make an arrest and his life was not in danger. (Darden et al., 2013)
Police brutality and racial profiling were ordinary occurrences in Detroit. On what seemed like a daily basis, Blacks were being harassed, frisked, beaten, and killed by police. It reached a point where they grew sick of it. Frustrations and resentment continued to simmer. By 1967, the city was primed for an explosion.
On July 23, 1967, the Detroit police raided an illegal nightclub — called a “blind pig” — in a popular and overwhelmingly Black section of the city, on 12th Street. They expected a few revelers inside, but instead found a party of 82 people celebrating two local veterans who had recently returned from the Vietnam War. The police decided to arrest everyone present. A crowd gathered on the street to watch the men being carried away, and as the police left, teenager William Walter Scott III launched a bottle at the officers. (Fine, 2012) Thus began the largest riot the nation had seen since the New York draft riots in 1863.
Over the next few hours, tensions escalated as residents looted stores around the neighborhood. The police struggled to defuse the situation, as only 200 of Detroit’s 4,700 officers were on duty at the time. (Boissoneault, 2017) Looters prowled the streets, arsonists set buildings on fire, and civilian snipers took position from rooftops. The Detroit police were soon overwhelmed by the spreading carnage.
By the time the violence ended after five days, 3,800 people were arrested, 2,509 buildings were destroyed, and some 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops had been called into service. At least 47 people lost their lives, and of this total, 37 were African American. Law enforcement and military units killed at least 34 of the civilian casualties and almost all were unarmed and posed no threat, including a 4-year-old Black girl named Tonia Blanding. The most shocking incident was the execution-like slaying by police of three unarmed Black men in the Algiers Motel. White police officers shot these men to death while they were lying or kneeling. (Fine, 2012)
Many systemic problems contributed to feelings of frustration among Detroit’s Black communities, including deep patterns of racial segregation and discrimination in housing, education, and employment. But a survey of African Americans in Detroit revealed that police brutality was the leading issue. The Detroit Police Department, which had few African American officers at the time, was viewed as a White occupying army. Despite decades of demands by civil rights groups to diversify the force, The Detroit Police Department still consisted overwhelmingly of White men. Given the beatings, killings, and harassment that Black residents suffered on a yearly basis, many saw the rioting as pushback — or in some people’s words, a “rebellion” or “uprising” — against the White occupying force that was the police. (Boissoneault, 2017)
In April 1968, the Michigan State Advisory Committee to the United States Civil Rights Commission warned Governor Romney that the greatest threat to racial peace in the state was “the manner in which law enforcement officers operated in and serviced the Black community.” (Fine, 2012) Yet these warnings went unheeded by Detroit police officials. Despite disturbing findings in research and reports that pinpointed police brutality as one of the main causes of civil disorder, the policing in the Black community did not experience any real change. In fact, police aggression toward Blacks continued to worsen.
During that year, the Detroit police launched two unprovoked mass assaults on nonviolent civil rights activists at Cobo Hall, the convention center located downtown on the waterfront. In the first incident on May 13, 1968, Detroit mounted police and “demonstration control” officers brutally attacked an interracial, mostly African-American, group of civil rights activists who were part of the Poor People’s Campaign. The demonstration, which was being telecast over a local channel, was peaceful and orderly until a car stalled. At that point, the police became agitated and almost without warning, mounted a cavalry charge upon the demonstrators.
An official of the U.S. Department of Justice who witnessed the aggressive actions of the police commented:
“I saw old ladies being pushed and manhandled, grabbed by the collar and pushed outdoors. I saw young men being beaten with billy clubs…I saw officers ride horses into a crowd which I judged to be under control. I saw officers strike individuals in that crowd for no apparent reason.” (Darden et al., 2013)
Nineteen people were seriously injured in the action. The police falsely blamed Black youth for provoking the violence, and no officer was held accountable. There was widespread outcry from civil rights leaders, but nothing of any substance emerged from the mayor’s office sufficient to check further police aggression, which resulted in still another incident at Cobo Hall.
In the second incident on October 29, White police officers launched a premeditated attack on 1,000 Black and White activists who were protesting a rally by the segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace. During this event, a phalanx of officers charged and attacked a group of protesters who had taken refuge in front of the nearby Ponchartrain Hotel. In the aftermath, forty-three people filed formal complaints of police brutality, with near identical stories of being clubbed by charging police. That total represents only a fraction of the unknown number of civilians beaten by police that day.
The 1970s began with the Detroit police killing more civilians than any other police force in the nation. The department had the highest number of civilian killings per capita of any American police department, killing civilians at the rate of 7.17 per 1,000 officers in 1971. (Darden et al., 2013) John Nichols, the Detroit police chief, unleashed a wave of police terrorism and intimidation when he created the STRESS initiative (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets), an undercover entrapment strategy. The 100-man STRESS unit conducted 500 raids without the use of search warrants and killed twenty people within thirty months — nearly all of them Black. More than one-third of the police killings in Detroit were done by STRESS, which represented, at most, 2 percent of the department. (Darden et al., 2013)
The problems continued until after the 1973 mayoral election, when the city’s first Black mayor, Coleman A. Young, defeated his opponent. Young’s campaign declaration was, “The first thing I will do as mayor is fire the police chief and disband STRESS.” His election was a definitive response to decades of police repression within the Black community.
For years, White public officials appeared insensitive to Black victims of police brutality. The liberal Cavanagh administration, in power since 1962, repeatedly promised equal treatment under the law but believed that the Detroit Police Department could investigate itself and therefore did nothing substantive to curb police brutality against Black residents. Few if any White policemen were punished for killing a Black person. Change could only be achieved by remaking the political landscape of the city. In short, it took Black political power to end what amounted to White police intimidation of the Black community. (Darden et al., 2013)
In the early days of his administration, Mayor Young sought to make good on his campaign. True to his promise, he disbanded the STRESS unit, thereby ending one of the bloodiest periods in Black community-police relations in Detroit. But even more notably, Young pursued a vigorous policy of diversifying the city’s police department.
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