Tag Archives: George Floyd

Big(ger) Pay-Outs to Police Victims is the Only Viable Reform

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I am of course shocked that Congress blew the deadline to produce a Police Reform bill by the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. And despite brave words about “making progress” I suspect whatever is finally produced will fall well short of the basic changes needed to control routine abuses of police authority.

That said, Ben Crump, the attorney representing Floyd’s family and a half dozen other victims of panicked/racist cops, is clear-eyed about the best and most immediate solution. Says Crump, “My goal is to make it financially unsustainable for them to keep killing Black people, unjustifiably, as we continue to fight for these policy reforms to prevent the next George Floyd.”

If the $47 million that Minneapolis alone has paid out to victims of its thin blue line of protectors and servers isn’t enough to force the city and police administration to put a shock collar around the neck of its worst-trained and regularly violent employees, nothing Congress comes up with will have any great impact.

The great Randy Newman once sang, “It’s Money That Matters” and this being the USA, he was spot on. The twist within that idea of course is connecting these enormous ever-larger pay-outs to the bottom line of residents far more terrified of ransacked auto parts stores than black folks being murdered — in front of children — over a $20 bill.

Back to legislation: the fixes that would do the most to put the spook in your average gun-waving, f-bomb dropping former telemarketer/security guard-turned-cop remain boldly obvious.

1: End qualified immunity. Republicans and a few nervous Democrats are leery of this because they imagine a ceaseless tidal wave of law-suits against individal cops for anything a citizen doesn’t like about an interaction with police. Moreover, the fear of getting sued personally would put a serious chill on cop recruitment. (There are only so many well-heeled former telemarketers and mall cops pining for the ego boost from being handed a badge and a gun.) But this is another example of cops having little to fear if they actually obey both the law … and the spirit of the law. Namely, turn on the body cam, keep your cool and treat whoever you’re dealing with basic respect, regardless if they’re a nice suburban lady in her pajamas or a big, scary black guy who maybe might have passed a fake $20. Camera on? Case dismissed. No body cam footage? Waving a loaded gun and cursing in someone’s face? You’re on your own, dude.

2: Pre-textual traffic stops. Frankly, I’d think even cops would be happy red-lining this widely-accepted policy, which as practiced around the country is a tortured abuse of the Supreme Court’s Whren v United States decision from 1996. As it is commonly perverted, “broken tail lights”, and the most minor of traffic violations (failure to signal, two miles over the speed limit) are sufficient basis for a cop to ignore any semblance of probable cause, hit the lights and get down to what they’re really up to, namely “stopping and frisking” for something that looks good on the squad room wall and gins up some easy revenue for their municipality. Deep red states have made thousands of such stops under the guise of “interdicting smugglers” from “drug states”. (I.e. more liberal places that conservative politicians want to show they won’t tolerate.) These stops — flagrantly bogus to any reasonable adult — mean a couple thousand dollars worth of court costs for someone caught with CBD oil or a couple gummies in their medicine bag. It’s one thing if the stopped and frisked are white folks. But as we’ve seen over and over … and over and over again … a whole different animal when the gung-ho cop gets in the grill of anyone whose grandparents didn’t come from northern Europe. Crude, over-aggressive police work mixed with naked pretense for the stop itself not only seriously undermines the credibility of police authority but has a habit of going very bad way, way too often.

But all this is pretty well lost in the usual partisan gamesmanship. No Republican is going to make a big show of supporting anything that might be construed as getting “soft on crime” (i.e. crimes committed on streets by black folks). Hell, unless I missed it, there wasn’t a Republican face to be seen up on the stage for Minnesota’s kick-off to these days of remembrance for George Floyd.

Maybe it’ll take another $40-$50 million out of Republican cities’ insurance funds to get their attention.

But I doubt even that’ll be enough.

To Address Racial Equity, Most of Us Need To Pay Higher Taxes

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When it comes to addressing racial equity issues in education, health care, and housing, racism is a barrier.  But I would argue that fiscal conservatism is an even bigger barrier. 

In Minnesota’s policymaking debates about racial equity, this is the unacknowledged “elephant in the room.” It is what makes all of the hopeful dialogue about addressing racial equity feel hollow to me.

DFL Governor Tim Walz, Speaker Melissa Hortman, and many others deserve a lot of credit for leading on police reform.  Despite the failure to pass police reforms during the recent special session, I suspect they’ll eventually enact some police reforms. This is in large part because police reform is relatively inexpensive. 

But beyond police reform, I’m pessimistic when it comes to DFLers being willing to address other major forms of systemic racism in society, such as in health care, housing and education. 

That’s because most DFLers and all Republicans seem completely unwilling to make the case for higher taxes.

Elected officials need to get courageous and make the case that privileged white people like me need to pay higher taxes in order to build a more equitable state.  I’m not naive about this. I’ve worked in and around politics for thirty five years, so I know tax-raising is excruciatingly painful for politicians, particularly in an election year. But if we truly care about making racial justice progress in this agonizing “educable moment,” there truly is no other way.

To cite just one example, Minnesota has long had some of the worst achievement gaps in the nation, gaps that open as early as age one.  The roots of k-12 achievement gaps are early education opportunity gaps. Year after year, about 35,000 low-income Minnesota children can’t access the high quality early learning and care programs that they need to get prepared for school. Those 35,000 left-behind low-income kids are the children who are most likely to fall into achievement gaps in the school years and other types of disparities throughout their lifetimes. The lack of new revenue is why our 35,000 most vulnerable children continue to be left behind every year.

Similar tales can be told about many other issues, such as health care and housing. We know what to do in those areas as well, but we don’t do it, because the changes would necessitate requiring Minnesotans to pay higher taxes.

I understand why politicians are afraid of being branded tax raisers.  But the inescapable truth is that lawmakers’ long standing insistence on perpetuating the fiscal status quo is perpetuating systemic racism.  

So we need to start talking honestly about the fiscal side of these racial justice issues too. Until we do, progressive leaders’ lofty rhetoric about racial justice gains is just idle chatter.

Police Reform, if I Were King.

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Someone, back in the civil rights fight of the mid-Sixties said, “The American attention span is ten days.” After that, lacking any fresh excitement, we get bored and gravitate to new stimulation. Today, in our digital age, there are studies saying goldfish have a longer attention span than the average human.

The context is of course the remarkable clamor for radical police reform in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. As a wizened creature of the Sixties, who saw months/years of angry anti-war street protests elect Richard Nixon … twice, I am skeptical anything seriously “reformative” is going to come out of any level of government, certainly not the Republican-controlled federal end of things.

The one wild card in this Debbie Downer thinking is the absolute certainty that as this summer goes on and leads into what is certain to be an absurdly chaotic autumn campaign season, American cops will continue to kill black men and women with appalling regularity.

Watching the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, I was flasbbergasted that the two cops involved clearly has no sense of the large cultural moment. They had no presence of mind or impulse cntrol to consider that everyone in that Wendy’s parking lot was aiming a video camera at them and that they were poised to be the next poster-boys for panicked, racist cops. (The guy’s drunk and he’s running away. You’ve got his car. Go pick him up later. FFS.)

This past weekend The New York Times hosted an unusually good roundtable discussion of what “police reform” should include. It ran the gamut of everything currently on the table. Dissolving or neutering police unions. Reallocating/restoring money for armed cops to basic social services like mental health. The tricky transition period between dissolving a police department and replacing it with something better trained in de-escalation. Reassuring white suburbanites that they’re not going to be collateral damage in “defunding” the police. It’s worth the read.

For me, as I’ve ranted before many times, the bottom line begins with a better class of person hired to be an armed cop. Time after time the curriculum vitae of cops involved in these killings plays along the lines of: high school drop out, GED diploma, junior college drop out, odd assortment of “security jobs”, maybe a hitch in the Army then on to four months at police academy where they get eight times as many hours of gun and “defensive” training as de-escalation education. After that they’re handed a badge, a loaded gun and assigned to a “senior officer”, think Derek Chauvin, who shows them how the game is really played.

That is nuts.

Add up the property damage, over-time for ensuing protests, impact on reputation and legal pay-outs (when rarely convicted) and you’re talking the most expensive employees any city puts out on the streets. Drop-outs and semi-deadenders with guns? Jesus.

Is it too much to ask and wonder how many of these characters ever took a humanities course? Ever read a novel, other than “The Turner Diaries” or some Vince Flynn pulp? Shouldn’t an education in human psychology, the roots of rage and depression and a broad depth of understanding of dissimilar cultures be primary criteria for graduation from police academy if not acceptance into cop school to begin with?

Were I allowed to play king, (feel free to bend the knee), I’d coordinate a temporary force of the State Patrol, county sheriff’s department and National Guard as needed, (deal with them later), simultaneous with the dissolution of the Minneapolis police department (and its “union” — not that the AFL-CIO wants anything to do with Bob Kroll et al). The dissolution would come with a promise that all current officers would be allowed to immediately re-apply for the new Minneapolis Peace Force (or whatever). This would be conditioned on them proving they have not been a repeat violent offender, have not participated in one of Betsy DeVos’ brother’s paranoid “Bulletproof Warrior” trainings (or the like) and pass a dramatically upgraded and aggressive psychological examination designed to thoroughly assess their worst authoritarian impulses.

The carrot to all this would haver to be — have to be — a substantial increase in pay and benefits. Day to day policing is miserable work, (made worse by the cast of alpha dog Derek Chauvins you have to kowtow to). If you want better people, you’re going to have to lure them away from jobs that don’t require them to get in between raging spouses, chase around gang-bangers, piss off average citizens with nuisance, revenue-enhancing traffic tickets and write up minor car accident reports.

The savings would come with — picking a number here — 35-40% fewer armed cops. And significantly more mental health counselors, accident investigation personnel and similar non-uniformed, unarmed civilian staff to respond to things like, well for example, suspicion a guy tried to pass a counterfeit $20.

“Over-policing” is a real thing. It’s expensive to sustain, and catastrophically expensive when it goes bad. How much better off would George Floyd and the city of Minneapolis be if two MPD plus a Park Police squad, totalling six officers didn’t show up to “investigate” that bogus $20?

But I’m not holding my breath for anything of the sort. The old Cold War mentality that any “cuts”, any changes, anything other than more firepower would leave us “nekkid before the Rooskies” applies in this case as well.

Walz and Ellison Are On a Short Leash to Get This Right

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On the list of people for whom I sympathy, down past George Floyd, his family and those who were close to him are Gov. Tim Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey and now Attorney General Keith Ellison. In the midst of an economy-crushing pandemic, with no constructive national leadership and the usual “opposition party” petulance, they have to deal with this. Another thug cop race killing jacked up to an epic national scale.

Walz and Keith Ellison, who is now getting “final say” over Hennepin County Mike Freeman in running the Floyd case, have just left their 7 p.m. news confrence, and I wish I could say I was encouraged that they were getting a grip on the situation.

Some thoughts:

The Governor, as he should, continues to express his anger and indignation over the Floyd killing, as well as a decent human being’s understanding of the pent-up frustration over police brutality exploding here and all over the country. But when he says “we”, meaning Minnesota government and courts, have to get this right, I couldn’t help but say out loud, “Uh huh. But as in this case and right now. Not in maybe the next killing or the one after that and not in a year’s time.”

Ellison than got up and reminded viewers of the difficulties in prosecuting cops.

Uh. Sir, we know that. All too well. Those “difficulties” are seeping wounds of America’s original sin, which is going back a ways now.

The unenviable job you have, taking over for (although in coordination with) Freeman, is getting the prosecution train up to speed in days, not weeks and months, and securing a murder conviction of not just Derek Chauvin, but his three accomplices as well, all of whom should have been charged and taken into custody by now.

Ellison is a pretty savvy political animal. So I hope he’s also aware that the collective antennae of outraged Minnesotans are going to be watching — closely — to see if he is just a black face getting slapped on the usual institutional rope-a-dope. If he is a cynical move to give the bureaucracy time the public wasn’t going to give a establishment white guy like Freeman he’s in for a very rough time, black be damned.

The point again being, this case has to move, dramatically and quickly. Everyone understands the courtroom peril of a jury of 12 law and order-abiding citizens giving the men in blue the benefit of every implausible doubt. And everyone is aware the 1992 Rodney King riots — with destruction far beyond what we’ve seen here to date — came after the trial, when the jury acquitted LA cops in spite of the filmed evidence.

Walz and Ellison have to gather what lessons they can from that failed prosecution, (i.e. venue and jury selection) and somehow apply them to a winning verdict against Chauvin and the others. Moreover, to repeat myself, they are not going to have the luxury of months of secretive, exhaustive investigation. I could be wrong. (I often am.) But this case is so egregious, so outrageous and so fully processed in the entire country’s mind there is not going to be any patience for the normal, glacial pace of evidence gathering. (As though we needed more than what our lying eyes are already telling us.)

Then, adding to my sympathy for them all, is the matter of these “outside agitators”. I’m sorry. But healthy skepticism is in order, and will remain in order until I see unequivocal proof that “professionals” have descended in our midst and have been guiding the attacks on property.

Of course it’s possible. But what little evidence there is in terms of social media chatter to date, is pretty vague and inconclusive. There was talk tonight of planted incendiary devices and an unusual influx of stolen, plateless cars, and a guy in Bloomington pulled over in such a vehicle getting out and setting the thing on fire. All of that stuff is very provocative, and supports a wishful narrative that no Minnesotan would ever do such things, apparently because there couldn’t possibly be a hundred of us so enraged and despairing at the endless cop beat downs and court system bullshit they’d torch a dozen city blocks.

Give me a break. Twin Cities cops pulled Philando Castile over 49 times before they killed him. Of course there are enough people, black folks mainly, who are enraged.

On a pure reptilian level, I’d love to have solid evidence that white supremacists are here in town acting out their long-planned “boogaloo” scenario by juicing up a race war. But if a major publc official is even going to hint at something like that, they better have the goods. Otherwise they sound hysterical, which seriously undermines their hard-earned credibility.

“He Feared for His Life” Isn’t Going to Cut It This Time

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While we wait for County Attorney Mike Freeman and his advisors to assure themselves they have an “airtight” case against Derek Chauvin and the three other ex-cops who killed George Floyd, I’m preparing myself for the appearance of Earl Grey, or someone of his, um, stature.

A slick, high-priced lawyer like Grey (who successfully defended the hapless, panicked cop who killed Philando Castile) is, in my mind, umbilically linked to the tried and true cop defense, “He feared for his life.”

The argument being that the average cop (pick any of them from any of the hundreds of dead black man/woman incidents) faces such constant peril protecting and serving their city they have every reason — and therefore right — to operate with a hair-trigger for “resistance” to their authority.

Grey’s problem — of whoever accepts the high-profile challenge of defending Chauvin and his band of brothers — is all the video documentation of Floyd’s killing. Not being a great legal mind, I can’t imagine how you create a situation of peril … to the cops … with killing an unarmed man already on the ground and in handcuffs. But based on experience we’ve all seen with the American court system, given enough time and money, I’m sure there’s a way.

But until the logic-bending court room theatics begin, you have to feel overwhelmed by the reaction to this particular incident of race-based violence. This one is as stark a case of “depraved indifference” as you could imagine. Newsfeeds are filling with police chiefs, retired law enforcement officials, legal scholars and such making unequivocal condemnations of Chauvin and partners. With them — right now, based on videos alone — there’s no “wait to see all the evidence”. It’s right there. Caught in the act. You’re looking at a capital crime.

With all this, and searching for solutions, I’ve found myself most interested in … police union contracts. The outrageous thuggery of Chauvin and the jaw-dropping complicity of the other three proves that stricter guidelines and all the city/community hours spent improving “dialogue” are a futile waste.

Police culture is diseased. It’s infected. And will continue to undermine its own authority unless and until you A: Hire better quality people to be cops, and B: Make them sign contracts with swift and heavy penalties for what, let’s face it, is regarded within “the brotherhood” as sanctioned brutality.

I’ve said before there’s a solution to this institionalized thuggery in better, tougher psychological screening of cop candidates. Half-facetiously, I’ve also said the red warning lights should start flashing when any candidate tells you they’ve always “dreamed of being a cop.”

Obviously, pay and benefits would have to be a lot better than they are if you want to attract and hold people who don’t get a secret tingle over being “the man”, the dude in uniform, with a badge … and nearly unlimited authority over whoever they cross in the street. Because as we’ve seen, there’s obvious racism in that “tingle”. A racism that becomes more overt and less restrained once out on the job and interacting with a lot of marginal people.

As of this morning Keith Ellison is telling CNN he expects charges soon.

That’s already overdue and will be one small step. The big ones come with thundering criminal penalties on the heads of Chauvin et al and a top to bottom re-write of the current police union contract.