-For more than a week massive protests have been staged in nearly every major city in the nation. These protests are an expression of pain and outrage from years, decades, of black men being murdered at the hands of local police.
In this particular case, the largest direct demand is for all four officers who participated in the lynching of George Floyd to be charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
But there is more that needs to be done, much more.
1) One of firsts things that needs to happen is that President Obama’s 21st Century Police project needs to be adopted as a guideline by every police department in the nation, and pursuant to that a National Crime and Justice Task Force should be established to examine the issue of criminal justice reform on an ongoing basis.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they protect and serve is essential in a democracy. It is key to the stability of our communities, the integrity of our criminal justice system, and the safe and effective delivery of policing services. In light of recent events that have exposed rifts in the relationships between local police and the communities they protect and serve, on Decem-ber 18, 2014, President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing the Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
The President charged the task force with identifying best practices and offering recommendations on how policing practices can promote effective crime reduction while building public trust. This executive summary provides an overview of the recommendations of the task force, which met seven times in January and February of 2015. These listening sessions, held in Washington, D.C.; Phoenix, Arizona; and Cincinnati, Ohio, brought the 11 members of the task force together with more than 100 individuals from diverse stakeholder groups—law enforcement officers and executives, community members, civic leaders, advocates, researchers, academics, and others—in addition to many others who submitted written testimony to study the problems from all perspectives.
The task force recommendations, each with action items, are organized around six main topic areas or “pillars:” Building Trust and Legitimacy, Policy and Oversight, Technology and Social Media, Community Policing and Crime Reduction, Officer Training and Education, and Officer Safety and Wellness. The task force also offered two overarching recommendations: the President should support the creation of a National Crime and Justice Task Force to examine all areas of criminal justice and propose reforms; as a corollary to this effort, the task force also recommends that the President support programs that take a comprehensive and inclusive look at community-based initiatives addressing core issues such as poverty, education, and health and safety.
2) Secondly, the recommendations of Campaign Zero, which is a follow-on project to the 21st Century Policing by activists Deray Mckessen and Sam Sinyangwe should be implemented as well.
- End Policing of Minor "Broken Windows" Offenses
- End Profiling and "Stop-and-Frisk"
- Establish Alternative Approaches to Mental Health Crises
- Establish effective civilian oversight structures
- Remove barriers to reporting police misconduct
- Establish standards and reporting of police use of deadly force
- Revise and strengthen local police department use of force policies
- End traffic-related police killings and dangerous high-speed police chases
- Monitor how police use force and proactively hold officers accountable for excessive force
- Lower the standard of proof for Department of Justice civil rights investigations of police officers
- Use federal funds to encourage independent investigations and prosecutions
- Establish a permanent Special Prosecutor's Office at the State level for cases of police violence
- Require independent investigations of all cases where police kill or seriously injure civilians
- Increase the number of police officers who reflect the communities they serve
- Use community feedback to inform police department policies and practices
- Body cameras
- The Right to Record Police
- Invest in Rigorous and Sustained Training
- Intentionally consider 'unconscious' or 'implicit' racial bias
- End police department quotas for tickets and arrests
- Limit fines and fees for low-income people
- Prevent police from taking the money or property of innocent people
- Require police departments to bear the cost of misconduct
- End the Federal Government's 1033 Program Providing Military Weaponry to Local Police Departments
- Establish Local Restrictions to Prevent Police Departments from Purchasing or Using Military Weaponry
- Remove barriers to effective misconduct investigations and civilian oversight
- Keep officers' disciplinary history accessible to police departments and the public
- Ensure financial accountability for officers and police departments that kill or seriously injure civilians
Additionally Campaign Zero points out how more restrictive use of force policies results in fewer deaths in custody.
Visit UseofForceProject.org to Learn More
I also have several suggestions which go slightly beyond the 21st Century Project and Campaign Zero's ideas.
3) As I discussed in the diary Being Born Black is a Death Sentence the FBI and DOJ should be empowered to perform criminal investigations of the use of force under color of authority.
Local police and prosecutors should not be investigating themselves, even State prosecutors who may have repeatedly worked with local law enforcement can’t be fully trusted to investigate and prosecute their friends and buddies.
As it stands right now the DOJ can only look at use of force as a civil matter and civil rights violations as a criminal matter, this should be changed. One deterrent to officer abuse of citizens would be that they’ll receive a federal investigation with every incident.
4) Establish parity between prosecutors and defense attorneys. As I discussed years ago in the diary The desperate need for new revolution in criminal justice, I argued that public defenders are paid 25% less than prosecutors, are highly overworked and understaff resulting in their ability to actually defend the rights of the public being compromised. We should take defense as seriously as we take prosecution and ensure that all public defenders officers are equally staffed, paid and supported to the same level as prosecutors.
5) As I discussed in the diary Reparations Now! we need a Full Accounting and Reconciliation of the Racial Crimes of this Nation. The lingering impact of Slavery, Jim Crow, Lynchings, the Tuskegee Experiment, Ongoing Housing, Lending and Job Discrimination, Red-Lining, voter suppression, gerrymandering and general bigotry from Karens and Permit Pattys needs to be fully documented and laid out for everyone to see. We need to stop arguing about “IF” there is systemic racism in this country and get to the part where we start repairing it and fixing it. It’s only with a full accounting, including cases of reverse and false racism claims, that we can move forward and finally close the door on this chapter of our history.
We struggled with this problem for a long, long time. It's to for it to be over at long last. These five demands could take us a very long way.
These are my ideas, what are yours?
Wednesday, Jun 3, 2020 · 7:26:22 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
I have one more: State murder statutes across the nation should be updated to reflect the tenets of Tennesee v Garner.
Under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a police officer may use deadly force to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect only if the officer has a good-faith belief that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.
Garner establishes that the officer(s) has to have probable cause that the suspect is a threat before deadly force is used. This issue came up in the Michael Brown grand jury because this factor is not included in Missouri state law, but SCOTUS case law supersedes that.
Sen. Kamala Harris has a bill that would require that officers find the use of force “necessary” — not just “reasonable” — before it is used.
I also think they should receive training in mixed-martial arts grappling techniques so they know how to pin and immobilize a suspect without killing them.
Monday, Jun 8, 2020 · 12:30:55 PM +00:00
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Frank Vyan Walton
One more idea is to separate the police internal affairs into their own unique public integrity department. For example, the 17 complaints filed against former officer Derek Chauvin were all handled as internal employment issues, not as crimes. They were investigated and examined by Chauvin’s supervisors, not an independent office of police. None of 16 of them which were dismissed ever reached the District Attorney. Internal Affairs needs to be independent and outside the police chain of command so that their investigations go on the public record, and rather than being prosecuted by the DA, the public defender's office should have a special section for handling these cases.