Learning From the George Floyd Tragedy

Several people have asked my thoughts on the George Floyd situation. I don't often chime on these matters, because I typically don't talk about things I don't know much about. But a few things are obvious: 1) The murder of Floyd was heinous, 2) All the other officers are liable in and should have already been charged, especially as they knew that Floyd was unresponsive and refused to take resuscitative action until it was too late.

A Few Less Obvious Things:

• Killing by police in US/ yr are about the same for past 6 years: 1106 (2013) / 1098 (2019);
• From 2015-2018 fatal shooting of unarmed black men dropped significantly (from 36 in 2015 to 7 in 2018) (though I can't find 2019 data);
• However, most likely using multi-year data, the lifetime risk of being killed by police is about 3x for black men as white men. The rates of a black man being killed by police are higher than the odds of the average American dying in a motorcycle crash;
• In some states, it's much worse, in Oklahoma a black man is 6x likely to be killed by police than in Georgia;
• In 8 US cities — including Reno, Nevada; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Scottsdale, Arizona — the rate at which police killed black men was higher than the US murder rate;
• From a criminal justice perspective, there appears to be little connection between police killings & violent crime. Some cities with high rates of violent crime have fewer police killings than those with higher violent crime rates, a situation that can make police killings feel wanton and baseless.
• 99% of officers involved in killings are never charged with a crime.

The numbers above are shocking, and more striking by world standards. The rate of death by police in the US (28/10M) places us as comparable to Rwanda. The next most dangerous industrialized country is Canada at 9.7/10M, almost 1/3 our rate. Essentially all of Europe is under 9% of the US rate. When you narrow to the African American male experience, the US numbers appear comparable to many warzone nations: such as Congo and Iraq.

What is Going On?

Essentially we have given a group of people a monopoly on violence, have trained them in using force, have told them that they are seconds away from being killed themselves and to always be on their guard, and have given them military equipment in the wake of 9/11. Most police are great people, they are in our neighborhoods and streets, putting themselves in harm's way to help others. And most agree the Floyd situation is odious and that it doesn't represent the police. But police departments are also a reflection of society, the good and the bad.

Police officers are both the first responders who ran to the World Trade Center to help firefighters on 9/11 and they also include those who committed the atrocities we see on our televisions. They work for us, we pay their salary, we know they serve an important purpose in society. Every day they do enormous good across the country, saving women from abusive husbands, intervening to stop active threats, protecting property and thereby enabling commerce. 89 officers died in the line of duty in 2019, paying the ultimate sacrifice for society.

But too often, police officers, consciously or subconsciously, reflect the racist tendencies in society, especially in areas with an especially racist past. We know this not just within evidence of atrocities, but in who officers pull over, who they search, who they arrest and then racial disparities in sentences. The bad apple argument (for police atrocities against minorities) is harder to sustain when too often unions, police chiefs, and prosecutors look the other way after egregious incidents, themselves becoming complicit. Luckily, however, there does seem to be evidence that recent cases have received strong scrutiny from prosecutors and in George Floyd’s case his killer was charged quickly. But why are the other officers still free?

I wish I knew the answer to reduce or eliminate racism in police departments, and society more broadly, but I don't have an answer to that. As one data point of the difficulty of that challenge, several studies show that even black police officers respond to back men and white men differently (with use of force etc.). The Obama DOJ took several positive steps on this front in their Task Force on 21st Century Policing report - but unfortunately, it was thrown out as soon as Trump was sworn in.

What We Can Do Right Now?

What we can more quickly do is (while acknowledging this is a bandaid to a larger problem):

1) Hold police accountable for their actions - quickly and publicly. 99% of police killings aren't charged, that must change. Police union contracts place impediments to doing this, that must change. Until we can get to the basis of the problem, we can do our best to respond swiftly when it happens with justice;

2) Place strong restrictions, training & repercussions on use of force - chokeholds are a very dangerous technique to be banned or extremely rarely used;

3) Scale back overcriminalization throughout society, a world where everyone is a potential criminal because everything is over criminalized is inherently a dangerous one;

4) Change how police respond to non-violent crimes (Floyd was detained on suspicion of "passing counterfeit currency" and Eric Gartner for selling untaxed cigarettes- these are non-violent crimes requiring extremely minimal force to non-threats);

5) Increase diversity of police departments, community-based policing, and going after clearly visible racist behavior where it can be identified (looking to outlier states in particular like Georgia and Minnesota);

6) Leadership matter, when RFK gave a stirring speech the night of MLK’s assassination, Indianapolis one of a few cities that did not riot:

Today, our President has been unable to offer genuine sympathy and instead has antagonized the situation. His statement threatening to send in federal troops against the will of Governors is completely unconstitutional and is autocratic in the extreme. It also doesn’t help address the anger or the underlying problem;

7) We need better data. There is no federal accounting on officer-related deaths, hence we have no strong data. The federal government must mandate data reporting to give better visibility on the problem.

Searching for Meaning in Tragedy:

These ideas won't bring back the George Floyd and countless others who have died. But maybe it will help provide justice, give them a broader meaning in society and reduce future atrocities.

The next time there is an atrocity, and there may be another atrocity, the story should be how the other police officers intervened to stop an ongoing crime by a fellow officer; how those officers booked the rogue officer; and how those fellow officers spoke out publicly to condemn what happened quickly and strongly.

Accountability has to come from within these police departments to have a real impact. If that happens, then we will have turned a real corner as a society. And if that happened here, George Floyd would be alive.

Open to thoughts or criticism. And while I understand the frustration of those protesting across the country, I worry about the impact of the destruction of rioting and looting will do for the overall cause. Further, often the destruction is in the communities who need the help the most.