by James A. Bacon
In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, black politicians in Virginians are calling for changes to the criminal justice system. Maybe the problems that plague the Minneapolis police force bedevil police departments in the Old Dominion, maybe they don’t — I don’t know. Are police in Virginia allowed to use the same kind of knee-on-neck choke-hold that resulted in Floyd’s death?
I’d understand the calls for reform if they bore some resemblance to the action that triggered the outrage, protests and violence sweeping the nation. But politicians aren’t demanding the abolition of choke-holds as a policing tactic. They’re advocating the same things they were demanding before the Floyd killing.
“We must commit to criminal justice reforms that center training in bias, crisis de-escalation and intervention practices for law enforcement and the criminal justice system,” said Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, according to Virginia Public Media. “We must create and enforce methods of review and transparency in investigations of misconduct at all levels.”
Despite my reservations, I do believe in openness and transparency, And, therefore, there is at least one idea in circulation that I think might have merit: creating more transparency into the official investigations of police killings.
In 2018, according to the latest Crime in Virginia report, there were 28 police “shooting” incidents in which people were killed or injured. One obvious point arises. As we have learned from the highly publicized incidents from Freddie Grey to George Floyd, not all deaths result from the discharge of firearms.
My first suggestion would be to expand the collection of data to encompass all deaths stemming from police actions.
My second suggestion would be to append data to the State Police Report listing the race/ethnicity of the victim, so the public can ascertain the extent to which blacks are disproportionately victims of police violence, as well as the ethnicity of the police officer. Not all cops who shoot people are white. A third suggestion would be to append, possibly in a separate report, a description of the circumstances in which the killing occurred.
Thus, in the highly publicized case of Marcus David L. Peters, an unarmed black man who was shot and killed by Richmond Police in 2018, it might be useful for people to know that Peters had lost control of his vehicle, crashed, fled naked, and charged a police officer; that a police officer tried to tase him but his weapon misfunctioned; and that only then did he fire his gun. My fourth suggestion would be to make public the findings of the internal investigations into the incident, along with any evidence considered so people can draw their own conclusions.
As it turns out, every police shooting incident in 2019 was judged to be “justified,” according to the Crime in Virginia report. One hundred percent justified. That’s a remarkable track record. Perhaps Virginia police are superbly well trained, cool under pressure, and rarely make mistakes. Alternatively, perhaps police investigators look after their own.
Look, I appreciate that the police face pressures that the rest of us cannot understand. They’re human like anyone else. They make errors of judgment like anyone else. But unlike your standard bureaucratic state employee, they have the power of life and death, and their actions warrant closer scrutiny and transparency.
I acknowledge the risk of giving citizens some level of oversight. In our hyper-polarized era, we would run the risk of the investigations getting politicized. But in the long run, I think justice is best served by openness and transparency.
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