Police brutality: It’s real, rampant, and must be stopped

On July 26, 21 Miami Beach police officers rushed up in support of two fellow cops in the process of subduing a man ordered at gun point out of an elevator. His arms raised and with no firearm, the young man, 24, followed orders and lay down on the floor, head down, putting his hands behind his back so he could be handcuffed. He was being arrested for striking a policeman with his scooter while trying to escape a citation for wrongful parking. After hitting the cop with his bike, the man in question tried to escape by running into a nearby hotel where he was arrested.

A video captured the incident that followed. Moments after his arrest, what looked like half the police department showed up to get in a good swift kick to the arrested man’s head, a few hard punches to the face — and there was one who smacked his head hard on the terrazzo floor. A bystander, also a Black man, was then arrested and roughed up by the brave men in blue acting, as a Miami Herald columnist described, as “entitled criminals.” The bystander was charged, I guess, for observing police officers gone wild and videotaping them.

The police savagery instigated on two Black men in Miami Beach became national news for a day or two, but then most of us shrugged and life continued. At least he was not killed, must have been in the national subconscious. Of the 21 cops who showed up protecting that thin blue line that grants them almost universal immunity in their performance of illegal (and sometimes murderous) acts against other human beings, only five were suspended while the state attorney investigates. Suspended with pay.

Cops in the United States violently manhandle a bound man on the floor, and if things go as they usually do, months from now the five cops will receive a slap on the wrist for their wrongful actions and ordered back to work — after their months of ‘paid vacation’ in the South Florida sun.

As reported by the magazine Nature, “About 1,000 civilians are killed each year by law-enforcement officers in the United States. By one estimate, Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime. And in another study, Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed.”

This is not surprising. In the southern United States, some of the earliest roots of policing can be found in slave patrols. Beginning in the 18th century, white volunteers developed slave patrols (also known as “paddyrollers”), which were squadrons that acted as vigilantes. In 1704, the first slave patrol was established in South Carolina. Eventually, all states with legal slavery had slave patrols, and they functioned as the first publicly funded police forces in the South. These patrols focused on enforcing discipline and policing of African-American slaves. 

So it should not surprise us that that old southern mentality still reigns among many in the business of policing. 

A research article in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) states, “Police violence is a leading cause of death for young men in the United States. Over the life course, about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police. Risk of being killed by police peaks between the ages of 20 and 35 for men and women and for all racial and ethnic groups. Black women and men and American Indian and Alaska Native women and men are significantly more likely than white women and men to be killed by police. Latino men are also more likely to be killed by police than are white men.”

Who’s in charge?

At a time of dwindling union membership in the United States, police unions have only grown in sheer size and power. “You have really politically powerful police unions that lobby, that are organized, that donate and give to major political candidates,” says Stephen Rushin, an associate law professor at Loyola Chicago University.

As reported by Forbes, “Over the past three decades, U.S. cities have allocated larger and larger shares of their budgets towards law enforcement. Today, the U.S. collectively spends $100 billion a year on policing and a further $80 billion on incarceration.” While governments spend billions on cops and jails, they must cut investments in basic infrastructure and slowing investment in social safety net programs in order to afford the police programs.

In their executive summary on a study conducted on policing in America, the Center for Popular Democracy concludes, “The choice to resource punitive systems instead of stabilizing and nourishing ones does not make communities safer. Instead, study after study shows that a living wage, access to holistic health services and treatment, educational opportunity, and stable housing are far more successful in reducing crime than police or prisons.”

Which leads us to the problem: Politicians fear the police and their unions. And instead of listening to studies that tell them too much is being spent to militarize police, and too little on education, health services, housing and jobs, those same politicians keep feeding bloated police departments around the country. Based on that fear created and stoked by powerful and wealthy police unions, many politicians succumb to buckling knees while police departments hold them up (legally) when demanding raises, retirement perks and deadly weapons to control communities who have seen their quality of life dwindle. For the politicians in question, it’s either bow to the cops, or pay the price at election time.

And as life becomes more difficult for many, and quality of life is sacrificed at the altar of greater “security,” police departments have seen their budgets grow. Oakland, for example, in 2017 spent 41 percent of its yearly budget on their police department; Chicago spent 39 percent; and New York managed to dole out almost $5 billion. Yes, it’s billions with a B.

Money well spent?

In 2020, 1,126 people were killed by police. Ninety-six percent were killed by police shootings. Officers were charged with a crime in only 16 of these cases, or one percent of all killings by police. Eight of these 16 cases had video evidence — most captured by police body and dash cameras. A national police violence report was able to identify officers in 445 cases. At least 14 had shot or killed someone before; five had multiple prior shootings. Most killings began with police responding to suspected non-violent offenses or cases where no crime was reported. One-hundred-twenty people were killed after police stopped them for a traffic violation. Ninety-seven people were killed after police responded to reports of someone behaving erratically or having a mental health crisis. Eighty-one people killed by police were unarmed — most were people of color. Fifty-eight percent of killings by police in 2020 — 629 deaths — were traffic stops, police responses to mental health crises, or situations where the person was not reportedly threatening anyone with a gun.

What can we do?

The 2020 Police Violence Report shows that “some cities and states have begun to restrict or remove the police from traffic enforcement.

“In July 2020, the City of Berkeley passed legislation moving traffic enforcement duties from the police department to a new agency of unarmed civil servants. Other cities like Cambridge, MA, are considering similar measures. And in November 2020, Virginia lawmakers passed HB 5058 which prohibits police from stopping cars for equipment violations like a broken light or tinted windows.”

As for responses to erratic behavior or mental health crises, “In Eugene, Oregon, mental health providers respond to these calls instead of police. In Los Angeles County, co-responder teams of mental health providers and police jointly respond to the most extreme mental health-related calls.

“An analysis by LA Sheriff’s Department estimated this program prevented as many as 751 use of force incidents and 9 killings by police in 2018.”

Fascism

After what we experienced under the Trump presidency, and the continued power being gained by police departments from around the country, are we headed towards fascism? Defined, fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy. 

The bad cops are winning. Society is losing. And I refuse to say that there are good cops, until those good human beings that become cops start pointing fingers at their brothers and sisters in police departments who’ve succumbed to corruption and violence. Those police men and women the Miami Herald columnist referred to as entitled criminals.