Every time I hear about another shooting like the one that killed Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center Sunday afternoon I remember that Philando Castile was stopped by cops at least 46 times … before one of them panicked and killed him.
46 times! How is that even possible? Says the old white guy living in Edina. (I ask my fellow white guys and gals: how many times before you’d be mortgaging the house to drop a gigaton of legal hell on the city that was pulling that kind of crap?)
All the details may not yet be fully known about what went on with 20 year-old Mr. Wright. But as of this moment the story has it that a group of Brooklyn Center cops initated the incident with Wright because of … expired tabs. (My wife will confirm that every time I see a car pulled over by a city cop I say, ” Expired tabs.” And I say that because trawling for expired tabs is such a cliched, easy-revenue cop game.)
Whether, like Philando Castile, the cops involved in the Wright case first noted a black kid driving and then decided to check his tabs, will come out at some point in Minnesota’s next, long cycle of investigation, law suits and court proceedings. All likely leading again to another astonishing pay-out to the now deceased Mr. Wright’s family from a city’s self-insurance fund.
Pundits are mulling whether a conviction in the Derek Chauvin case will have any substantive impact in the way America’s cops go about their business. (At this point I always like to point out that three cars and six cops showed up — and were immediately cursing and waving guns — in The Case of the Possibly Counterfeit $20.)
Having seen enough of how this stuff goes down, I doubt anything significant will change. But one facet of America’s police violence epidemic worth re-thinking is the necessity of using city cops to churn up money for the city’s general fund. Would Castile still be alive if he wasn’t a regular target of otherwise bored cops under implicit (or maybe explicit) orders to “crack down” on expired tabs and other ticky tack offenses? (Being careful of course not to get too aggressive with drivers who look like they might know their way around City Hall.)
A few years ago The New Yorker published a story titled, “The Link Between Money and Aggressive Policing.” (One of my favorite car sites, Jalopnik, revisited the story today.)
From the New Yorker we get this: “Alexes Harris is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington and the author of ‘A Pound of Flesh’. Published in June, the book analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal-justice system. Harris argues that jurisdictions have increasingly relied on levying fines for minor infractions—broken tail-lights, vagrancy, traffic violations—as a way to generate municipal revenue. For instance, a Department of Justice investigation revealed that, in 2013, police in Ferguson, Missouri, issued arrest warrants for nine thousand people, almost all for municipal-code violations such as failing to pay a fine or missing court appearances. Doing so allowed the city to collect $2.4 million in fines and fees, the second highest source of income for the city, behind taxes.”
The political indictment here is on politicians too terrified to raise adequate revenue for city operations through normal taxes, preferring instead to turn their police forces into tax collectors by another name. “Fees”, you know. Never, “taxes.” (Trademark: Tim Pawlenty.)
The racial indictment is that most cops are smart enough not to pull over a late model Mercedes for a dead LED. Far better to nail the guy in the beat up Oldsmobile. He’s not likely to come after you with a lawyer who plays golf with the city manager. Unfortunately, as we see, over and over and over again, a lot of that latter crowd are either poor, minority or both.
And that’s where poorly vetted, poorly trained aggression comes in.
The incident with Daunte Wright is classic in its tragic familiarity. Three cops. Three cops … approach his car with hyper-cautious, stalking movement. Their fear is palpable. One at the driver’s door, one at the passenger’s door and one tailing along behind just for … for … well, in case any of them suddenly finds themselves in a position where they … fear for their life.
The scene is aggressive and intimidating as hell. And sure enough pretty soon the scared kid is wrestling free of the hand cuffs and trying to drive away … before being shot — and killed — by a panicked, shrieking cop who doesn’t have enough training to know the difference between a Taser and a revolver.
The point being … traffic stops … of minorities for petty, revenue-producing “infractions.” It’s bullshit and dangerous. And now lethal, again. Considering the way nervous, aggressive cops react in these situations — resulting in millions of dollars of legal costs and pay-outs — “revenue stops” need to be seriously re-thought, if not curtailed entirely.
City desperately needs the cash from expired tabs and broken tail lights? Trawl the parking lot at Walmart and leave tickets on windshields. Walmart won’t let you do that? Trawl city streets for parked cars.
Someone got outstanding warrants? Get a de-escalation expert and go knock on his door.
Among everything else that is completely screwed up about the way the U.S. enforces law and order, getting the average street cop out of the infraction–for-profit business would do something to reduce the number of Philando Castiles and Daunte Wrights haunting our collective memory.
