Policing has to be a values-driven profession

As published on Police1.com

His body pressed into the dirt and grit of a Minneapolis street, a man died.

He died needlessly. Some will eventually argue that he may have died anyway, even without the weight of another man pressed on his back and neck. Yet, he died just the same.

To be sure, the final analysis will show that it was not simply the weight of one man dispassionately kneeling on his victim that caused this tragedy, but rather the accumulated weight of years of systematic failures, each consisting of their own cumbersome and coalesced mass of heartbreak and ignorance. This collective pressure on a fragile mortal soul proved more than one man could survive and may prove likewise to historical limits of professional tolerance.

Over two weeks in a small courtroom in Minnesota it was argued that the actions of the murderer were not only reasonable but also consistent with the training he had received during his professional career. It was argued that his techniques, although perhaps excessively applied, were no different than many other similar applications of such use of force in comparable situations. It was argued that it was a simple, but unfortunate, sequence of circumstances that caused the victim to cease breathing and die.

Let this be the last time that a profession defends itself or its members on the basis of policies or training that fail to concede to even the most basic values of human decency and compassion. A true profession does not lower itself to the depths of its most shameful episodes. A true profession honors the values upon which it is defined as its own true lifeblood and raison d’etre and firmly rejects all other implications.

Just as certain as the judge’s announcement of the requisite measure of justice rang through that courtroom at 4:10 p.m. on April 20, he also confirmed that those who stand for values, uncompromised and without reservations, will be the standard-bearers for a profession that now must evolve, and reconcile its own history of failures against those that have a grievance.

While the actions of one former police officer on a hot and humid holiday weekend were on trial this month, in many respects so was the existence of those segments within a profession that have failed to fully evolve and live up to the purpose of its most noble calling.

Policing is a noble profession. But within that principled calling also resides the onus to constantly raise the bar of expectations in the pursuit of justice and equity. A noble profession ceases to exist when values are stymied by the words of policy manuals used to justify actions that tread on the wrong side of morality. The history of this trial will show that, at its most critical moment, the morality of policing rose to defend itself against the insult on its values. 

The true outcome that emanated from those courtroom machinations, all theatrics aside, is the inevitability that when a profession relies solely upon policies to define behavior and performance, those policies can and do, hide failures. Policy failures, left unchecked against the tenets of uncompromising integrity, will only ensure to replicate courtroom scenes such as we have just witnessed. 

The man who kneeled on George Floyd and pressed him into the grit and dirt of that Minneapolis street did not need a policy telling him when to let up. He needed a personal and professional set of values which made such an act unconscionable.

A values-driven profession must never allow that to happen again.