- It's ridiculous that I can't tell you how many people
were shot by the police in this country last week,
last year, the last decade.
It's ridiculous.
- That's James Comey speaking
at Georgetown University in 2015.
This lack of transparency has made it extremely difficult
to understand the scope of police violence,
and a lack of clarity undermines our ability
to hold police accountable for egregious violence.
In the five years since Comey's response,
not much has changed,
but this most recent wave of massive protests
has created a rare opportunity to re-examine
both the accidental and deliberate mechanisms
that protect law enforcement
from the consequences of police violence.
(gentle music)
Ensuring public safety is a critical part of society,
and for centuries,
police have been tasked with that responsibility,
but with police has come the problem of police violence.
A Bureau of Justice Statistics' public survey estimated
that there were nearly one million threats of violence
and use of force incidents by police
against civilians in 2015 alone.
Advocates for change have different ideas
on the best way to reduce this number,
from immediate police reforms all the way
to abolishing the police altogether.
For reformers, progress comes down
to increasing police accountability.
So what more can be done?
For one, changing how police unions
create accountability roadblocks.
A study on 178 police union contracts found
that 156 of them included at least one provision
that could be used by police officers
to stifle disciplinary action for misconduct.
These provisions can impose time limits on investigations,
establish rules on when and how an officer
can be interrogated after fatal encounters,
and require complainants' personal information
to be turned over to the offending officer,
which discourages people from coming forward
with complaints out of fear of retribution.
When officers are fired for misconduct,
many union contracts require arbitration,
but that arbitration is based
on evaluating officer's disciplinary records,
which is made more difficult by union contracts
that require departments purge records
after two to five years.
These arbitrations do result in officers being rehired.
In a report by The Washington Post examining
the firings of 1,881 police officers,
The Post found that departments were forced
to rehire 450 of those officers,
even though some of them had been fired
for offenses as serious as physical assault,
sexual abuse, and fatal shootings.
Even after all of that,
the officers that are successfully removed
can be easily rehired by other departments.
Another way to increase accountability
is to improve data transparency.
Since 1994, there have been a handful
of federal legislative attempts
to track police-involved fatalities in the U.S.,
but they've all fallen short,
primarily because most law enforcement agencies
just don't participate.
Some news and research organizations have stepped up
to fill that gap by doing their own investigations.
One group found 1,795 incidents
of fatal police encounters in 2019 alone.
This is up to 125 times the rate
of other developed countries.
These investigations confirm
a troubling police violence problem in America,
but even more troubling is the fact
that this data isn't shared with the public to begin with,
not just police fatalities and use of force incidents
but misconduct records as well.
A report by "WNYC" found
that 22 states keep police records confidential
with state laws
specifically exempting police record disclosures,
even through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Cities like New Orleans, though,
are showing the tremendous value in choosing to collect
and share this kind of data with the public.
The Office of the Independent Police Monitor
provides yearly reports about complaints,
misconduct, and disciplinary action.
In 2016, they were able to use police data
to determine that 90 out of 1,200 officers were responsible
for half of the use of force incidents that year.
Even when we do know
about a police officer's transgressions,
problematic officers can claim qualified immunity.
Because of this doctrine,
victims of police violence are often unable
to utilize lawsuits as a method to hold police accountable.
Qualified immunity was created by the Supreme Court
to protect government officials acting
in good faith from expensive litigation,
but the burden for proving that government officials,
particularly police officers,
didn't act in good faith can be exceptionally high.
Take, for example, the case of Khari Illidge in 2013.
Illidge was unarmed and experiencing
a mental health crisis along a quiet, wooded road
when deputy sheriffs in Alabama found him.
They hogtied and tased him 19 times
before he died of cardiac arrest.
In court, the deputies claimed qualified immunity,
and both the federal district court
and U.S. circuit court of appeals sided with them,
because there was no prior ruling specifically establishing
that hogtying and tasing someone
that many times was unlawful.
Cases like Illidge's demonstrate how difficult it is
to overcome the standard for qualified immunity,
even when the victim's constitutional rights
have seemingly been violated.
When looking for ways to improve police accountability,
it's important to remember
that single measure reforms aren't enough,
and nothing showcases this more than body-worn cameras.
Multiple studies show that without regulation,
body-worn cameras don't actually make a huge difference
in use of force incidents, perhaps because typically,
footage isn't released to the public since there
often aren't rules enforcing their use.
For example, the Phoenix Police Department
initially required that officer's record
all civilian interactions,
but just one year later,
officers were only capturing less than 14%.
Recent protests have helped broaden reform efforts
to remove these obstacles to police accountability.
In just one month,
we saw Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo pull out
of contract talks with the police union.
Governor Cuomo signed the repeal of Section 50-a into law,
a provision that was being used
to hide police records of misconduct,
but already faces a battle with unions in the courts.
Governor Lamont signed an executive order requiring reports
of all use of force incidents,
and Governor Polis signed a comprehensive reform bill that,
among many other reform measures,
blocks qualified immunity for government officials.
These are huge police accountability reform measures
happening at a rate we've never seen before,
but advocates believe
much more transformative change is needed.
They're not wrong.
There is still lots of work to be done,
but while we work towards a larger solution,
these accountability reforms can reduce police violence
and most importantly, save lives now.
Thanks for watching.
If you're interested in learning more about the ways
that we can make meaningful change
to our criminal justice system,
be sure to check out our ongoing coverage
on fixing justice at Freethink.com.