The spate of police killings (or near-killings) of non-white Americans has to reach a tipping point and trigger reform sometime, doesn’t it? That is, if there is justice in the universe, or karma, or enough cell-phone video. (Yes, that’s a desperate hope.)
The weekend police shooting (“accidental discharge,” per Brooklyn Center, Minn. police) of a Black motorist just miles from the site of the Derek Chauvin murder trial for the killing of George Floyd provoked protests and curfews last night. State law enforcement has called in the National Guard around the Twin Cities area.
Conservatives routinely complain that Democrats’ answer to problems is to throw more money at them. Conservatives’ better answer is to ignore the problems exist and throw more money at the military and police. Which is why in the aftermath of September 11 the government up-armored local police with surplus military equipment to have hanging around the po-lice officer station just waiting to be used on somebody. Demonstrators would do in a pinch.
We were at war. Ostensibly, with foreign terrorists. In their absence, non-white others make convenient practice targets, as they have since slave-patrol days.
Policing is broken in this country. Police training is broken. Police culture is broken. A couple hours of unconscious bias seminar will not even put a dent in it.
Perhaps if we put some people in near the top who see there is a problem (Washington Post):
President Biden has selected Anne Milgram, a former state attorney general, prosecutor and longtime advocate for reform of the criminal justice system, to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, the White House announced on Monday.
Milgram, who once declared, “there’s no system that is more old-school and broken and problematic than the criminal justice system,” currently works as a lawyer in private practice, and as a law professor and podcaster.
The White House touts Milgram’s work to develop “a screening tool that can be used by law enforcement to identify individuals suffering from mental health and substance abuse disorders who can safely be diverted into treatment.”
She is also an advocate for better use of data in policing (New York Times):
“Without data and without information, a system that’s run really subjectively based on our gut and our instinct, we don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know whether we’re doing it well. And we don’t know whether or not we can do it better.”
Milgram is expected to focus on fighting the opiod epidemic at a time when marijuana laws around the country are easing.
A popup at the Center for Policing Equity where Milgram serves on the board reads:
As the call for reimagined public safety has grown louder, our work must accelerate. The Center for Policing Equity has always centered vulnerable communities through the most effective means at our disposal. Now, the nation is calling into question core assumptions about who and what keeps us safest.
That and the fact that Milgram has appeared on CNN means her nomination will draw fire from Senate Republicans who feel police exist to keep the lower classes in line.