The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
The death of Mr. George Floyd has allowed us to witness an explicit abuse of authority. I have not heard from a single law enforcement officer who watched the video of Mr. Floyd losing his life and condone the behavior. So, it begs the question, what did the officers involved in his detention not see?
With decades of experience, the video still shocks the conscience. The 1992 video of Mr. Rodney King being beaten was the smoking gun of abuse of authority in its day. Nearly 30 years later, after countless consent decrees and police reform, we are startled by this display of lack of regard for human life. We see “Serve and Protect,” on the sides of so many law enforcement agencies’ vehicles. It has blended into the background. However, agencies have embraced modern police reform.
De-escalation is a necessary follow on to the use of force. Law enforcement training teaches the signs and signals for the application of force. Post Ferguson, policing requires law enforcement to recognize when force is no longer necessary and de-escalate (relent) force and the situation.
By and large, the approximately 17,000 law enforcement agencies around the country provide police service and have millions of contacts a month demonstrating service and often humanity. Abhorrent behavior disgusts us all.
Were the officers in this situation too close to see their own behavior was wrong? Was it a personal focus on Mr. Floyd? Was it race or socioeconomic class driven? Or was their behavior the pointed end of a system of privilege and American history?
Mr. Floyd’s death was an explicit abuse of authority. Those officers had explicit authority, by their badges and position, to stop and detain.
We would expect people to intervene when they see another in distress or near death. It is a common belief or laws across this country of an expectation to render aid.
These officers were tone deaf to what was unfolding or should have anticipated the outcome from the sustained physical position.
The bystanders to this tragedy would likely have intervened had the perpetrators not been in uniform or acting under state authority. In fact, the witnesses did verbally intervene. A reasonable intervention would be to call the police. The police were already present and the “suspects.” Who then do you call to intervene? Physical intervention by witnesses was thwarted by their understanding or belief of personal consequences and the officers’ explicit authority.
The witnesses to the death of Mr. Floyd had no options without consequences except to create a record of the tragedy.
I am not encouraging physical confrontation with law enforcement. I am encouraging law enforcement to be among the majority that preserve and protect life and understand that explicit authority comes with explicit accountability.
I have traveled with President Obama’s White House staff and at the requests of Congressional members to communities where people of color have died during contact with law enforcement.
I have reviewed police tactics and don’t know of departments that advocate sustained body weight on a person’s neck. If there are law enforcement agencies training this as a tactic, they now know the result.
Increasingly law enforcement leaders are holding personnel accountable for tactics that significantly deviate from training. Bad tactics have created instances where lethal force is necessary.
The profession needs to get to the place where line personnel are holding their peers accountable for bad tactics.
Mr. Floyd would be alive had one officer intervened.
