Six years ago, the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, ignited protests in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the rest of the America. The Black Lives Matter Movement was thrust into the spotlight, and rightfully so; decades of police brutality and racism had gone unnoticed for far too long. Privileged Americans became aware of a problem that had never even crossed their minds: a tension with the police that stemmed from nothing other than the color of one's skin.
You might think that six years after Ferguson, we might have seen at least some semblance of change. Some type of reform, and not just through money flushed through the police department to outfit them with fancy cameras and gear - no, we should have at least seen a decrease in murders of African Americans by the police. However, six years later, that has yet to materialize.
According to this graph from Statista Research Department, the number of African Americans shot to death by the police has not decreased in the time span between 2017 and 2019 - in fact, it actually increased from 2018 to 2019.
Now, flash back to current day, May 2020, where we are seeing the protests in Ferguson reignited. The murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis has sparked yet another round of protests across the nation. Moments after Floyd's killing, Omar Jiminez, a black reporter for CNN was arrested by the police while his white counterpart, Josh Campbell, remained untouched. Six years later, nothing has changed.
At the basis of Brown and Floyd's cases is a system that has failed to protect Black America; it's a system that has instead become one of their greatest enemies. As an Asian American, I myself have experienced much of the so-called "white privilege" that has protected me from receiving lessons on how to deal with the police at a young age; in fact, for much of my life, I have found comfort in the police. As such, I don't consider myself a proper voice to speak for the black population on the current protests. However, I can research current policing system and spread information on the broken department that was supposed to protect our black peers.
Edwards of the National Academy of Sciences in America reports that "[the risk of being killed by the police] is highest for black men, who (at current levels of risk) face about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police over the life course." In fact, data from Mapping Police Violence finds that black people are three times more likely to be killed by the police than white people. According to Stanford University, data between 2011 and 2017 showed that black drivers were more likely to be pulled over and searched than their white counterparts. In fact, the percentage of black drivers being stopped by police dropped after dark, which is when a driver’s complexion becomes harder to see from outside the vehicle.
In an interview with The Conversation, Connie Hassett-Walker, an associate professor of Criminal Justice at Kean University, explains that the police department itself has racist origins. In the south, policing stemmed from slave patrols, or groups of white volunteers that enforced slavery laws. Their dutings included returning escaped enslaved people and crushing slave uprisings. The Conversation also spoke with Eastern Kentucky University criminologist Gary Potter, who detailed that the origins of police officers in the north were taught to "control a 'dangerous underclass' that included African Americans, immigrants and the poor."
Of course, one might argue that the origins of the American police force should bear no weight on our current officers. Whether or not this history has an impact can't be calculated, but it's worth noting. However, what is real and clear is that there is still a dangerous bias against black people by the police, and this bias persists, despite the reforms that were proudly touted by our government for the last six years.
Ironically, Missouri, the place of Floyd and Brown's murders, has enacted many police reforms in the past few years. Two years ago, Jacob Frey, the current mayor of Minneapolis, ran on a campaign that promised to reform the current police department. Two years later, Frey has implemented measures such as banning warrior training, increasing de-escalation training, employing body cameras, diversifying the police force, and even incorporating training on "how to be more self-aware of their implicit racial bias" (The Guardian). The Minneapolis police department even wrote a report to detail all the reforms they had implemented. However, all of these reforms that have been long suggested by activists failed to protect George Floyd's life; and they won't protect the next black victim either.
The stagnant state of the police is due to many reasons, primarily including the racial prejudices that black people face every day. Other factors - such as the unwillingness of prosecutors to charge police officers due to occupational conflicts, police unions, the confidentiality of police misconducts, warrior style training, and the inability to sue police departments (qualified immunity) - have also kept our current broken system intact. In today's article, however, I will be focusing on the militarization of the police.
According to the Charles Kock Institute, "Over 8,000 law enforcement agencies have utilized the 1033 program to access more than $6 billion worth of military equipment such as night-vision goggles, machine guns, armored vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, and military aircraft." The 1033 Program provides excess military equipment from the Department of Defense to local law enforcement agencies across the country. President Trump recently expanded this program (against President Obama's previous reduction of it). The Charles Kock Institute finds that "the increased use of military equipment has coincided with an increased use of military tactics, such as SWAT teams and no-knock raids, by law enforcement agencies."
Not only do law enforcement agencies receive these highly dangerous weapons, they are also pressured to use them: if the police don't use the property acquired from the program within a year, they must return them to the Department of Defense (CK Institute). This means that not only are our police forces equipped like a military, they are incentivized to use these weapons against American civilians as well. This explains why we see tanks and military-grade weapons at protests, and why police officers have come to resemble a military unit. Problematically, Casey Delehanty of the Department of Social Sciences, et. al find that the 1033 program has led to more violence among the police, and suggest recalling this military equipment to decrease this violent behavior. In fact, Delehanty also reports that militarization actually leads to more violence against police as well. This claim can be seen in current protests as protesters respond to the tear gas and rubber bullets fired upon them by the police.
Proponents of police militarization might argue that the program decreases crime. In 2017, The American Economic Association found that there is a 0.000059% reduction in crime with every 10% increase in the value of military equipment. However, the use of military weapons is not necessary in our communities. The Charles Kock Institute reports that "The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program shows that the number of homicides committed with a firearm between 1994 and 2016 decreased by more than 32 percent ... Assault weapons, or semi-automatic weapons with military-style features, are used in only a few crimes." But do we really need these military-grade weapons to combat crimes that involve a handgun? Do the killings of innocent, unarmed black men justify a fractional decrease in crime rates? I think not. Click here to sign a petition demanding a moratorium on 1033.
At the end of the day, what we value from our local police department is trust. We want to trust them when they tell us that they will protect us, but in many cases, they have attacked our black peers instead. After years of the same misconduct, we have had enough. We can no longer watch our black brothers and sisters be continuously targeted by a system that was built to protect us. Reforms haven't worked, and Minneapolis is a prime example. In the words of Moriah Stephens, a special education teacher who spoke with The Intercept: "I’m tired of being angry, and I’m tired of being tired, and I’m tired of seeing new hashtags."
Now that we've invested in the training and the reform still hasn't materialized, what else is there to do? One idea that has been gaining momentum is de-funding the police and investing the money into the community. Now, I don't support the complete abolition of the police force - I concede that we need law enforcement agencies to preserve safety to some extent - but the amount of money that we spend on our local police department is unjustifiable and warrants at least some percentage of a decrease. Alex Vitale, a professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College, reports that "New York City spends more on policing than it does on the Departments of Health, Homeless Services, Housing Preservation and Development, and Youth and Community Development combined" (New Republic). In Minneapolis, 30% of the entire city budget is spent on the police department (The Guardian). This money is invested into the training programs that have failed to reap any benefits. As our current police force is expanded and militarized, perhaps we should divert our interests to areas such as housing, employment, and healthcare. Instead of investing in a department and crossing our fingers that our civilians are kept safe, we should target the areas that will directly give our people the help that they need. Activists in the organization Reclaim the Block are currently calling on Mayor Frey to defund the police by $45 million (out of a $254 million budget) and shift these resources to "community-led health and safety strategies". This includes sending medical persons to opioid calls instead of patrol cars, counselors for adolescents instead of police officers, and more. You can sign the petition here and learn more about their mission here.
This strategy is already seeing success in Dallas, where the New York Times reports that social workers are being dispatched to 911 calls of mental health emergencies. They conclude that "many of the people receive care that they would never have gotten in jails or overcrowded hospitals."
Finally, it's important to bring awareness to these movements. Attention on this scale is what will bring back the justice that our black peers have deserved all along. Many prosecutors won't charge police departments because their jobs are entwined with the work of law enforcement agencies. Lawyers need evidence and information from the police and worry that taking action against officers will jeopardize their own careers. Police unions protect every member - including the racist murderers - therefore exacerbating and corrupting the process. The attention generated from these situations is what has brought the Georgian district attorneys to investigate Ahmaud's death and the prosecutors to press charges against Chauvin. While I pray for a world where we don't have to protest to have justice brought to murderers, public support for these events is a step in the right direction.
Protection is meaningless without trust. Without it, this "protection" is indistinguishable from an attack. Whether or not the solutions that have been proposed work, it's important to keep doing something. We can no longer condone a department that picks who to protect. While I sent my prayers and condolences to Floyd and his family, we must acknowledge that his death will not be the last claimed by police brutality if we maintain our current system. Change is needed, and we need everyone's help to get there.
Check out this document for ways to help: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0KC83vYfVQ-2freQveH43PWxuab2uWDEGolzrNoIks/preview?pru=AAABcpH-L5I*1O-3Z8a2pgp4SQfcvd5ldg#
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