How to Police the Police?

After the death of George Floyd, and the video that was later released, protests and riots have been breaking out across cities in the US. The police and government response has been less than stellar in most cases. An overwhelming anger and sense of injustice has boiled over. People are angry, and feel that the violence and brutality perpetrated by the police has gone on for to long. But the question is what do we do about it. What can we expect going forward?

It is hard to start a blog called faith in Governance at the same time these riots and protests have started. I wanted to show examples of great governance in the world, or formulate new ideas that would lead to a better and brighter future. But how do I expect a populace to buy into great governance when ours is failing at its most basic level. As societies have formed the simplest aspect of government has been protection. It is understood that certain freedoms are given up because the government is there to protect. If they fail at that most simple task, how can we put any faith in other institutions that are supposed to help us.

First, let look at the police response. Yikes… That was a women sitting on her front porch, and she get shot at. The police did not have the authority to order her inside, but as we know police know that the rules don’t apply to the. Light them up is not a term police should be using in terms of innocent civilians. Foreign civilians see more restraint from the U.S. Military than American civilians see from the police.

This video here is a compilation of police actions during the riots and protests. It can be difficult to watch. Multiple examples of excessive use of forces, of attacking journalists, or disrupting peaceful protests. Video here: As the captions states, who does this protect, who does this serve.

Here is a video of an old man getting shoved down by Salt Lake City Police. While not as violent as many of the other examples, it highlights the us vs. them personality. They are willing to go and assault an old man standing peacefully, why? Because we have spent years fostering a system that promotes and protects the police over civilians. The police enjoy this sense of power and security they have and it looks like they are willing to protect it with force.

Now, it has not been all doom and gloom. Glimmers of hope present themselves in cities across the US. Look at this example in Camden, or this example in Flint. These are examples of good police understanding the distrust and anger that have built up in communities, and not approaching the situation with force or violence, but with compassion and understanding.

Now, what are actions that we can take that can try and fix the issue at hand: I took a pretty comprehensive list off of Reddit.

• Abolish qualified immunity
• Require police for carry malpractice insurance
• Use pay incentives to get a better breed of police officer
• Incentivize community policing
• Make “Brady lists” public record
• Abolish cities’ sweetheart deals with police unions
• Require de-escalation in Use of Force policies alongside public, transparent training on de-escalation
• End “tail-light policing” entirely
• Mandate a separation between the crime response units and investigative units in a department
• Automatic special prosecutors for all police brutality incidents
• More frequent USDOJ intervention
• Expand data collection and mandatory reporting on use-of-force incidents (and other police activity generally)
• Enact statutory protections to restore the 4th / 5th / 6th / 8th Amendments
• Scale back, or eliminate entirely, “contempt of cop” statutes
• Stronger sentencing for police misconduct offenses

That is quite a list. But how do we get there. Some thing seems obvious, but what can we do to try and really cause change to our police forces.

I ended up having to take a break from writing this. I was becoming to upset seeing a country and city (D.C.) that I truly care about be torn apart. The police have continued to use excessive force against all protesters, and Trump has showed a completely inability to lead. Instead, he has called in military troops to suppress Americans acting on their constitutional freedoms.

I say fire them all. All police have to go. Obviously not all at once, but put in place a solid plan of retraining and new rules that limit their protection, and overtime each and every office must be fired. Once fired, they can try to rejoin, but if they do not pass the new guidelines, or fail to respect the new rules, then good riddance. The daily videos of their actions against protesters has made it hard to give any ongoing support for these officers.