Police Accountability in the USA

On the 20^th of April 2021, nearly three months ago, former Minneapolis police officer – Derek Chauvin- was found guilty on the charges of second degree murder, first degree murder and third degree manslaughter after being swiftly and unanimously convicteby the jury for the killing of 46 year old, Black male,  George Floyd on May the 25^th 2020.

Although it was a relief that Chauvin had finally been convicted, this quickly raised questions about why we as the black community as well as our allies were so scared to find out what the verdict would be, even though there was video evidence on what had happened and the verdict was nothing but obvious. 

Unfortunately, the answer is simple. 

We have been in this situation countless times before. With the murder of 7 year old Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley Jones in 2010, the murder of 12 year old Tamir Rice in 2014 and the murder of  Breonna Taylor just last year just, We have seen police officers murder and then get away with it. Which leaves us to ask the bigger question…

Why are Police Officers not being held accountable?

Police Accountability is an issue that is faced worldwide but for the purpose of this article, I will focus on the USA. 

In the USA, one black person is killed by cops every 40 hours. Black teenagers are 21x more likely to be killed by police than white teenagers and 1/1000 black men can expect for their life to end prematurely by being killed by a police office .

Scary right?

Well, according to The EQI project (or ending qualified immunity project), there have been between 15,000 and 16,000 civilian deaths due to police officers since 2005. Of these killings, only 8 cops were convicted with murder.

One argument that is very often heard is the ‘bad apples’ argument. This is often used to excuse police misconduct and blame it on the individual officer, rather than the broken system itself. This comes into play with the newly popular phrase, ACAB or All Cops are B*****ds. With the ‘hype’ of the Black Lives Matter movement, this phrase was shouted, written, sung and more in protest to call for police reform and even abolition.However, the true meaning of ACAB is often swept under and instead judged by the people that hear it. Then again, if a police officer has chosen to pick a career in which they protect people’s lives, how can they be bad?

Being someone who does agree with the 'All Cops are B******ds' slogan, I´m often asked this question. I´m often asked how I can believe such a thing when police are supposedly there to protect and serve us. This all comes back to a slight misunderstanding. When people say ‘ACAB’, they believe that the system is bad and that once a human being has agreed to go under that system and put on that uniform, they are representing an oppressive regime. So we're not necessarily saying that All Cops are Bad but we're recognising that the system itself and everything under it is.

So although we´re often told that police officers as a whole are not bad people and there are just a few ´bad apples´, we should really  be focusing on how a few bad apples can destroy the barrel’´. 

Just like how the system itself may have good police officers as individuals but those police officers who are doing the wrong thing (which is unfortunately more than we think), make the whole system, as a whole, extremely dangerous.

One way that police officers often get away with their offences is through a doctrine named ‘Qualified Immunity’. Qualified immunity was established by the supreme court in 1967. It enables government officials to get away from being held accountable for damages claims even when the constitution has been violated, if ‘they’ve not violated what the supreme court call ‘clearly established law’.

As I speak, qualified immunity is currently being debated on and being questioned as a need for police officers. There are both pros and cons as to why it works. This includes removing the stress from police officers to take split-second decisions, and having room to make mistakes without being sued but also escaping from accountability and also affecting marginalised groups more.

In conclusion, police accountability in the USA reflects an even larger issue on an international scale. And you may be wondering, but what can we actually do about it.

The best way to move forward would be to keep ourselves educated. By engaging in these sometimes, uncomfortable conversations, we can learn about things as well as teach others. You can also support groups like the EQI project and even sign petitions to help make a difference.

I believe that holding the police accountable for their actions is needed and that without it, there cannot be any justice for those who have lost their lives and had lives destroyed by the policing system.

Not only does the lack of police accountability show us how much the system fails to prosecute themselves, it represents a bigger issue overall and this is the policing system itself. 

The policing system seems to be a system that cannot be reformed and so that's when our conversation about reform against abolition comes in. 

Can we reform a system that isn't broken? Can we reform a system that is working exactly how it should?

Well, that's an article for another day.

To end, a quote seen on a protest poster at a BLM protest earlier on,
‘Judging a demonstration by its most violent participants but not judging a police force by its most violent cops is the language of the oppressor’