On January 7, 2023, a young black man named Tyre Nichols was brutally beaten by five police officers after a traffic stop. As he was being pummeled he called out “I’m just trying to go home” and “Mom, Mom, Mom.” He lived with his mother and stepfather about 100 yards from where he was assaulted. Three days later he died from his injuries. The ugly scenes of the beating were caught on video from bodycams and surveillance footage. The officers, oblivious to being filmed, seemed to think their badges would shield them from consequences. Instead, they have been dismissed and are facing murder charges. Now America must once again wrestle with the issue of police violence.
This is an interesting analysis. As with most of America's broken systems, there are multiple factors at play, racism being just one.
You mention the overwhelming numbers of guns, which certainly make Americsn policing more dangerous than is the case in other countries, but you don't mention the fact that many police officers do not favor gun control. In fact, in response to a ban on assault weapons in IL, numerous sheriff's stated their intention to disregard this law. A measure that would increase safety for both civilian and police is not supported by the police.
I may have missed it, but qualified immunity confers a sense to American officers of being above the law...and attempts to prosecute police are often confounded by this arbitrary protection.
Finally, while I agree with your points about staffing and training, police departments are extraordinarily well funded in the US. The problem is that substantial funds are used for over-militarization (which you note) and hundreds of millions (if not more) on settlements for a wide variety of police misconduct.
Mote training alone is not the answer (and you don't suggest that this is the case), but structural changes are essential for training to be effective. Police unions instill a culture of 'us vs them' that's prevalent in police departments.
There are no simple solutions. Stricter guns laws, elimination of qualified immunity, changes to police unions, greater involvement in the community, enhanced training would all have to be implemented cohesively to effect real change.
A thoughtful and even-handed essay on a subject that could easily fill a book.
I've been curious to see some discussion of the lack of marches and the relatively meager public reaction compared to the Floyd murder. The Nichols murder on video looked at least as awful and violent as that of Floyd. Maybe the arrests so soon after the murder? Maybe most just didn't perceive racism. (Plus it's unimaginable that another DA wouldn't file charges.)
I tend to dislike the 'woke' verbiage of systemic racism and white supremacy. I think there is some poor reasoning and/ or co-opting of language. One interlocutor on Twitter said he couldn't imagine Nichols' assault happening to a white person, though, which rings true to me. I'd love to see ways to enhance economic opportunities for all the poor and won't complain too loudly if I must pay more taxes to do that.
Excellent article, Carl! Definitely maps on to what a lot of my fellow students are doing in terms of research - I can think of a number of projects my lab has done examining unconscious bias and sympathetic nervous system activation in police encounters, and I know many of the people in the Law & Psych program are looking at bias in jury decision-making, as well.
I feel better and more extensive training is maybe the one that jumps out to me the most - I was shocked by how little seems to be required in some precincts and on a first impressions level, it seems completely backwards. Given what police are tasked with and the kinds of decisions they're forced to make (often in a very short period of time), it feels like they'd need the most training on how to effectively use firearms (and more importantly, know when not to use them). I'm very much a supporter of 2A, but I do feel some restrictions (closing the gun show loophole, red flag laws, restricting sales to the mentally ill depending on certain variables) might be helpful, and my personal philosophy on it is that while I don't think "it's the guns" or "guns kill people", and there are a number of other uses for them besides self-defense, you should still keep in mind how easy it is to end a human life with them (and therefore, only use them as an absolute last resort - i.e. use minimum necessary force, and don't go waving them around everywhere). The police should be even more aware of that responsibility imo, and I think you did a great job providing suggestions as to how we can help with that, including collaborating with mental health professionals.
Echoing everyone else here to say that I really appreciate this fair, thorough, and thoughtful analysis. I'll be bookmarking it to share next time I find myself in a conversation or debate in which it might be useful.
Personally, my intuition says that the only real effective solution we have is economic. I don't know exactly what that specific solution is, but as you cover here, it's clear that people who are economically secure do not often commit violent or deadly crimes.
Good piece. It is a pretty much a universally acknowledged matter of fact that every interaction with the police is fraught with danger no matter what your race, color, or creed.
I'm going to write what will probably end up being a fairly lengthy comment. This is because this seems like an essay written by a basically reasonable person that actually cares about the issues and is misinformed in some ways. I hope it's taken in that spirit.
I'm just going to kind of go down the essay and respond as stuff pops up.
As a minor note, the neologism "police violence" shouldn't just be used without examination. The exercise of the state's monopoly on violence is the most basic legitimate function of the police. An organization that doesn't or isn't supposed to exercise violence can be valuable in many ways, but it's not the police. Catastrophizing the actual reason that the police exist is not a healthy approach to the subject.
Regarding MPV (and keeping in mind the above note regarding the term!), I think it's a mistake to just uncritically accept their numbers. MPV (and fatal encounters) basically count any fatality within a quarter mile of a cop as a "police killing".
So for example I just went to MPV's "see the data" link and scrolled through for one where the cause was listed as "accidental" and found this:
A guy is walking in the street at night and a squad car hits him. That's technically "killed by police" but it's not really what people think of when they say "police violence" right? Is this truly "mapping police violence"?
Scroll down another few entries and you find this guy, who was in ill health and most likely was high on cocaine and who went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance. What are the chances this guy lives if the cops DON'T help him get in the rig and instead he's allowed to just run around until he tips over? Is this "police violence"? Did the police kill this guy?
That's two examples of extremely questionable inclusions just by scrolling through the most recent 20 or 30 entries on their table, right? One of my favorite examples of an inclusion - I can't remember if it was MPV or FE - where a driver crossed over the center line of a 2-lane road and struck a cop going the other way, killing both drivers, and that was counted as the police having killed someone!
The overall point being that you can use those places as data sources but their data shouldn't just be credulously accepted as a far accounting of "police violence."
Regarding statistics about number of OIS proportionality, for years and years and years I've been mystified by the comparison to crime rates. It's not completely without value but it seems to reach for a level of abstraction that's not really necessary. Each level of abstraction you add also creates opportunities for people to play little games with interpretation.
Most people would prefer that police generally use force - especially lethal force - in a defensive manner. If that is in fact what's happening, then you would expect to find a higher rate of lethal assault ON police officers in the US, right? Well, it just so happens that the FBI publishes a report on Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA). LEOKA is part of UCR and UCR is a mess right now, so the most recent LEOKA I could find was 2019:
1. That's a total of 537 officers killed in a 9-year span, and those are just cases tracked by UCR (incomplete) and of the UCR cases, only the ones where offender is known. If you expressed this as a rate per 1k officers it would be some multiple of any comparable European country, and that rate would still be lower than the ACTUAL rate.
2. 97% of the offenders were male, which generally lines up with the percent of people shot and killed by police being male.
3. 37% of the offenders were black, which is actually a HIGHER percentage than the percent of people shot and killed by police being black (roughly 25%).
Table 116 is "Law Enforcement Officers Assaulted and Injured with Firearms, Knives, or Other Cutting Instruments":
Of those 1,031 incidents, the offender is known in 903 of them. The percent of those offenders that were black is again 37%, and again this is HIGHER than the percent of persons shot and killed by police.
"But still," you may say, "that's only about 1,600 cops murdered or shot/stabbed in a decade, why are cops shooting and killing 1,000 people annually?"
That's 22,088 firearms assaults in that 9 year span (always remember: this is only a partial accounting! The actual number is higher!). 22,088 incidents where someone shot, shot at, or pointed a firearm at a police officer. 2,454 such incidents per year, averaged out. 10,008 "knife or cutting instrument" assaults, or 1,112 per year. 81,166 assaults with "other dangerous weapons" (bats, rocks, screwdrivers, etc) or 9,018 per year. 436,630 assaults with "personal weapons" i.e.: hands, feet, biting, etc. 48,514 assaults like that per year. And at least one or two cops get beaten to death most years! Or if you get knocked out or incapacitated your opponent can take your weapons!
This is an interesting analysis. As with most of America's broken systems, there are multiple factors at play, racism being just one.
You mention the overwhelming numbers of guns, which certainly make Americsn policing more dangerous than is the case in other countries, but you don't mention the fact that many police officers do not favor gun control. In fact, in response to a ban on assault weapons in IL, numerous sheriff's stated their intention to disregard this law. A measure that would increase safety for both civilian and police is not supported by the police.
I may have missed it, but qualified immunity confers a sense to American officers of being above the law...and attempts to prosecute police are often confounded by this arbitrary protection.
Finally, while I agree with your points about staffing and training, police departments are extraordinarily well funded in the US. The problem is that substantial funds are used for over-militarization (which you note) and hundreds of millions (if not more) on settlements for a wide variety of police misconduct.
Mote training alone is not the answer (and you don't suggest that this is the case), but structural changes are essential for training to be effective. Police unions instill a culture of 'us vs them' that's prevalent in police departments.
There are no simple solutions. Stricter guns laws, elimination of qualified immunity, changes to police unions, greater involvement in the community, enhanced training would all have to be implemented cohesively to effect real change.
Truly excellent. Hits pretty much every point I covered in three days of class on policing in Criminal Justice Policy.
A thoughtful and even-handed essay on a subject that could easily fill a book.
I've been curious to see some discussion of the lack of marches and the relatively meager public reaction compared to the Floyd murder. The Nichols murder on video looked at least as awful and violent as that of Floyd. Maybe the arrests so soon after the murder? Maybe most just didn't perceive racism. (Plus it's unimaginable that another DA wouldn't file charges.)
I tend to dislike the 'woke' verbiage of systemic racism and white supremacy. I think there is some poor reasoning and/ or co-opting of language. One interlocutor on Twitter said he couldn't imagine Nichols' assault happening to a white person, though, which rings true to me. I'd love to see ways to enhance economic opportunities for all the poor and won't complain too loudly if I must pay more taxes to do that.
Excellent article, Carl! Definitely maps on to what a lot of my fellow students are doing in terms of research - I can think of a number of projects my lab has done examining unconscious bias and sympathetic nervous system activation in police encounters, and I know many of the people in the Law & Psych program are looking at bias in jury decision-making, as well.
I feel better and more extensive training is maybe the one that jumps out to me the most - I was shocked by how little seems to be required in some precincts and on a first impressions level, it seems completely backwards. Given what police are tasked with and the kinds of decisions they're forced to make (often in a very short period of time), it feels like they'd need the most training on how to effectively use firearms (and more importantly, know when not to use them). I'm very much a supporter of 2A, but I do feel some restrictions (closing the gun show loophole, red flag laws, restricting sales to the mentally ill depending on certain variables) might be helpful, and my personal philosophy on it is that while I don't think "it's the guns" or "guns kill people", and there are a number of other uses for them besides self-defense, you should still keep in mind how easy it is to end a human life with them (and therefore, only use them as an absolute last resort - i.e. use minimum necessary force, and don't go waving them around everywhere). The police should be even more aware of that responsibility imo, and I think you did a great job providing suggestions as to how we can help with that, including collaborating with mental health professionals.
Echoing everyone else here to say that I really appreciate this fair, thorough, and thoughtful analysis. I'll be bookmarking it to share next time I find myself in a conversation or debate in which it might be useful.
Personally, my intuition says that the only real effective solution we have is economic. I don't know exactly what that specific solution is, but as you cover here, it's clear that people who are economically secure do not often commit violent or deadly crimes.
Good piece. It is a pretty much a universally acknowledged matter of fact that every interaction with the police is fraught with danger no matter what your race, color, or creed.
I'm going to write what will probably end up being a fairly lengthy comment. This is because this seems like an essay written by a basically reasonable person that actually cares about the issues and is misinformed in some ways. I hope it's taken in that spirit.
I'm just going to kind of go down the essay and respond as stuff pops up.
As a minor note, the neologism "police violence" shouldn't just be used without examination. The exercise of the state's monopoly on violence is the most basic legitimate function of the police. An organization that doesn't or isn't supposed to exercise violence can be valuable in many ways, but it's not the police. Catastrophizing the actual reason that the police exist is not a healthy approach to the subject.
Regarding MPV (and keeping in mind the above note regarding the term!), I think it's a mistake to just uncritically accept their numbers. MPV (and fatal encounters) basically count any fatality within a quarter mile of a cop as a "police killing".
So for example I just went to MPV's "see the data" link and scrolled through for one where the cause was listed as "accidental" and found this:
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.houstonchronicle.com%2Fnews%2Fhouston-texas%2Fcrime%2Farticle%2Fhouston-police-car-hits-man-during-call-17696131.php
A guy is walking in the street at night and a squad car hits him. That's technically "killed by police" but it's not really what people think of when they say "police violence" right? Is this truly "mapping police violence"?
Scroll down another few entries and you find this guy, who was in ill health and most likely was high on cocaine and who went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance. What are the chances this guy lives if the cops DON'T help him get in the rig and instead he's allowed to just run around until he tips over? Is this "police violence"? Did the police kill this guy?
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2023/01/06/body-cam-footage-released-after-dallas-police-say-man-died-in-custody-after-cardiac-arrest/
That's two examples of extremely questionable inclusions just by scrolling through the most recent 20 or 30 entries on their table, right? One of my favorite examples of an inclusion - I can't remember if it was MPV or FE - where a driver crossed over the center line of a 2-lane road and struck a cop going the other way, killing both drivers, and that was counted as the police having killed someone!
The overall point being that you can use those places as data sources but their data shouldn't just be credulously accepted as a far accounting of "police violence."
Regarding statistics about number of OIS proportionality, for years and years and years I've been mystified by the comparison to crime rates. It's not completely without value but it seems to reach for a level of abstraction that's not really necessary. Each level of abstraction you add also creates opportunities for people to play little games with interpretation.
Most people would prefer that police generally use force - especially lethal force - in a defensive manner. If that is in fact what's happening, then you would expect to find a higher rate of lethal assault ON police officers in the US, right? Well, it just so happens that the FBI publishes a report on Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA). LEOKA is part of UCR and UCR is a mess right now, so the most recent LEOKA I could find was 2019:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019
The formatting isn't especially friendly, but here's the table for race/ethnicity of known offenders in the felonious murder of LEOS from 2010 - 2019:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/tables/table-42.xls
Some interesting facts:
1. That's a total of 537 officers killed in a 9-year span, and those are just cases tracked by UCR (incomplete) and of the UCR cases, only the ones where offender is known. If you expressed this as a rate per 1k officers it would be some multiple of any comparable European country, and that rate would still be lower than the ACTUAL rate.
2. 97% of the offenders were male, which generally lines up with the percent of people shot and killed by police being male.
3. 37% of the offenders were black, which is actually a HIGHER percentage than the percent of people shot and killed by police being black (roughly 25%).
Table 116 is "Law Enforcement Officers Assaulted and Injured with Firearms, Knives, or Other Cutting Instruments":
https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/tables/table-116.xls
That's a further 1,031 officers shot or stabbed during that time period, and again this is a floor. The actual number will be higher.
Next look at Table 129:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/tables/table-129.xls
Of those 1,031 incidents, the offender is known in 903 of them. The percent of those offenders that were black is again 37%, and again this is HIGHER than the percent of persons shot and killed by police.
"But still," you may say, "that's only about 1,600 cops murdered or shot/stabbed in a decade, why are cops shooting and killing 1,000 people annually?"
Well, take a look at table 85:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/tables/table-85.xls
That's 22,088 firearms assaults in that 9 year span (always remember: this is only a partial accounting! The actual number is higher!). 22,088 incidents where someone shot, shot at, or pointed a firearm at a police officer. 2,454 such incidents per year, averaged out. 10,008 "knife or cutting instrument" assaults, or 1,112 per year. 81,166 assaults with "other dangerous weapons" (bats, rocks, screwdrivers, etc) or 9,018 per year. 436,630 assaults with "personal weapons" i.e.: hands, feet, biting, etc. 48,514 assaults like that per year. And at least one or two cops get beaten to death most years! Or if you get knocked out or incapacitated your opponent can take your weapons!