Police brutality: A culture of fear and force that affects us all

Note: Stephen H. Provost has just released an updated version of his book, “50 Undefeated,” which profiles 50 courageous individuals, past and present, who overcame prejudice and bullying. It’s available on Amazon in paperback and ebook.

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I was driving to the market yesterday when I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a police car a couple of blocks back. I immediately started thinking about alternate routes. I’d choose a different course, assuming the black-and-white would take the main drag ... unless, of course, the police were after me.

Why would they be? I hadn’t broken any laws, was observing the speed limit. Plus, I’m a white male. But despite all this, I breathed a small sigh of relief when the car turned right while I continued straight.

Have any of you had this experience? If you have, multiply that by 10 or 100 times, and you might understand how a black person feels. I don’t know for sure, because I’m not black. But from what I’ve seen and heard about racial profiling and police brutality, I can imagine.

On TV a couple of days ago, I saw a couple of police officers in Buffalo, N.Y., steamroll a 75-year-old white man without any provocation. He fell to the ground and started bleeding from the ear in what Donald Trump cruelly (and without evidence) suggested was a “set up,” after which he was taken to intensive care. I saw another police officer slam a shield into a white photographer and punch him in the face. The reporter (a white woman) described the police actions as “indiscriminate.”

It happens to white people, too. But it’s far more common, and far worse, for blacks. As more and more videos and accounts emerge of police brutality against people of color, a picture emerges of ingrained racial prejudice and bigotry, manifesting itself through the actions of violent “enforcers.”

Use of force

It is, after all, called law enforcement. The word “force” is right there in the middle of it.

Black people have a lot more reason to be afraid of the police, but what strikes me is that there is, among society in general, a widespread fear of the police — even among white people. And that’s a problem. It indicates that the police are viewed enforcers more often than protectors, and not just by black Americans. A 2017 Pew poll asked this very question, and the results bear this out.

A little over half of the public (53%) said police were both protectors and enforcers, but among those who chose one option or the other, 29% saw them as enforcers and just 16% considered them protectors. Among blacks, the percentage that viewed the police as enforcers alone was significantly higher, at 39%.

The same poll asked whether people saw deadly encounters between the police and black residents as “isolated incidents” or “signs of a broader problem.” Nearly 4 in 5 black respondents (79%) saw them as part of a broader problem, but more than half of whites (54%) did, too. And this was three years before the George Floyd was killed by an officer kneeling on his neck. In light of the nationwide protests that ensued, the numbers might be higher today.

But this is nothing new.

As long ago as 2006, the FBI warned that white supremacist groups were infiltrating local and state police forces (there’s that word, “force,” again). Nine years later, another FBI document stated that “domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement.” Note the use of the word “often”: these are not, to use the wording of the Pew poll, isolated incidents. Or new.

The Pew poll was taken three years after Eric Garner died as the result of a police chokehold, while gasping repeatedly, “I can’t breathe” — the same words uttered by George Floyd in a chilling echo of the past just before he, too, died.

Broader problems

The Pew poll identified a problem that’s not just broader, but deeper and more entrenched than any single incident of brutality. But what is the nature of that problem?

There are two answers, and they’re both right. First of all, there’s a clear racial bias against black people that result in them being unfairly targeted and treated — sometimes violently by law enforcement. Secondly, there’s an authoritarian culture within many police departments that’s ingrained, tolerated and often celebrated. There’s systemic racism against black residents and a systemic culture of intimidation — both explicit and implied — against members of the public in general. The idea is to instill fear in citizens.

Because it works.

There’s an old saying that “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear.” Tell that to victims of police brutality, some of whom have done nothing wrong, while others may have committed minor offenses, only to be met with unnecessary and disproportionate force.

So, it’s not just a fear of normal, legal consequences if you’re caught doing something wrong. It goes much deeper than that. It’s a fear of being stopped by a police officer arbitrarily. It’s the possibility that you might be told to get out of your car, verbally abused, frisked, handcuffed, and/or arrested based on nothing more than someone else’s suspicion alone — someone you don’t know and have no reason to trust.

Such treatment is, by its very nature, degrading and humiliating. And it doesn’t even touch on the horrors of police brutality and homicide.

Message of fear

The fact that politicians like Donald Trump, who preach “law and order,” actively support this culture of fear should come as no surprise. Politicians have used fear to get elected for generations: fear of communists, of terrorists, of immigrants, and, of course, fear of minorities.

Confronting fear with force has become an almost instinctive response: fear of anything or anyone who’s different, who we don’t understand. We call on armed police officers to deal with everything from loud parties to “suspicious subjects” to people suffering from mental illness. It’s like calling a heart surgeon to deal with an asthma attack or a case or a sore throat.

Some police officers do perform community outreach. But such efforts are undermined by the culture of fear that surrounds the police in general. Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) is a great idea, but are police the best people to deliver the message? How credible are they with young people, who often view police as heavy-handed authority figures — and who, at a certain age, often decide to rebel against any kind of authority? Wouldn’t medical professionals be better messengers?

The fact is that the police culture has so thoroughly identified itself as based in fear that there may be no way to salvage it, as it exists today.

What if, instead of law enforcement cops, we had public service CAPs — Community Assistance and Protection representatives? Don’t call them “officers.” That’s a military term that, again, is designed to invoke fear and conjure up images of aggressive, violent action. That’s not what we need. We need people we can trust to work with us to create a more peaceful culture. We need people who will defuse tense situations, not escalate them with violence.

Such reforms can work. The question is whether we have the courage to remake the system from one that emphasizes fear to one that focuses on problem-solving.

How to make it happen

• Reallocate some funds currently used for police enforcement to community support and intervention programs. Make police action a last resort rather than a first option.

• Require all those hired to undergo a psychological evaluation that makes crisis management and de-escalation skills a prerequisite for employment. Then mandate regular evaluations and make passing them a condition of continued employment.

• Make police officers’ disciplinary records a matter of public record. They’re not paid to “dominate” the public. They work for us.

• Prohibit the hiring of any former officer by a new jurisdiction if that officer has committed repeated (more than one) code-of-conduct violations, or subject the hiring of all such people to approval by duly elected officials — not political or police appointees.

• Conduct detailed background checks that make membership in hate groups a disqualification for employment. If such membership is discovered following employment, make it grounds for immediate termination.

• Curtail “qualified immunity,” which shields public officials from being held liable for discretionary actions. Police have applied the word “discretionary” to justify brutality, the use of deadly force, and other acts that violate the rights of ordinary citizens. In effect, this places police them above the law they’re supposed to be enforcing.

Change in culture

Beyond these specific measures, a change in culture is needed — one that restores trust in public safety representatives by encouraging them to work with communities by building trust, rather than against them by fueling fear.

We need a culture of public service that values integrity, not one that too often places internal loyalty above honor, in some ways mirroring the criminal mob/gang culture cops are supposed to be defending us against.

I can still recall the most positive interaction I had with a police officer. I’d gotten lost in San Francisco and needed directions, so I asked an officer on the street. He was friendly and answered my question, not in a condescending or authoritarian tone, but like a regular person. He even smiled. That was probably 20 years ago, but it made an impression that’s still with me to this day.

If one cop can make that kind of impression on me, imagine how big an impression that kind of helpful attitude could make if it were adopted by CAPs on a broad scale. No, I wouldn’t expect a CAP to step into the middle of a violent confrontation expecting to disarm criminals with a smile. But I sure wouldn’t expect one to step into a peaceful protest and turn it violent, either. Unfortunately, that’s where we find ourselves, and unless we embrace radical change soon, the adversarial relationship between police and members of the public will become even more toxic.

And deadly.

Main photo: George Floyd protest, Columbus, Ohio, May 30, 2020. By Becker1999, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0