Politics Trumps Pandemic!

 

Some states never closed. Most opened too early. We are experiencing the result of a fractured national administration and a health pandemic turned into a political circus.

The President has lost interest, the administration is afraid to let him lead the almost nonexistent press updates because of previous gaffs, and precaution is based on party affiliation. The governors are on their own, the mayors are digging in, the cases of the virus are increasing by the tens of thousands every day, hospitals in the heartland are at capacity, ICUs are jammed with the seriously ill and the dying. What could go wrong?

Well, plenty it seems. Let’s be clear about the lack of leadership from the people who should be leading the charge to quell the growth of the virus. They have failed us but not having an effective national plan for fighting the virus. They have failed us by squelching the voices of the scientists, the experts who devote their lives preparing for these kinds of events. They have failed us by mixing the messages, confusing the people, and making healthcare a partisan issue. It is true; the members of the two major political parties evaluate the seriousness of the pandemic in exactly the opposite view.  

The CDC and NIH gave specific guidelines to the governors to help them phase in the reopening of the states. Not one state met the requirements of phase one. Most states just opened with little caution given to the people, other than stay six feet apart and wear a mask around other people. Younger adults, who still think they are invincible, ignored even those simple guidelines. The beaches were crowded, the bars jammed shoulder to shoulder, and stores were filled with too many people. Most felt, I’m guessing, that the virus only killed older people, those who had exceeded their expected years anyway.

We all know the “rules.” Stay at home, stay six feet away from other people, wear a mask if you go outdoors around other people, and wash your hands a lot. When the pandemic is understood, when there is a cure or a vaccine, then loosen up the isolation. Some people, most really, try to follow the guidelines.  

There is no doubt that fighting the virus decimated the US economy. We went from one of the most robust financial situations in history to near depression style collapse in a matter of weeks.  Nobody wanted to just stay in the house all day. That isn’t normal for most people. They want to go to work, kids want to go to school, families want to gather. But, because most people followed the shelter-in-place guidelines, the experts tell us that we avoided four hundred thousand cases of the virus. After a couple of months of isolation, people started stirring. They had had enough.

The governors, especially those who had not really closed down bowed to the pressure. Others followed suit. And then the perfect storm hit us. The death of George Floyd brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets with marches and protests that lasted for weeks. The flood gates were opened and the virus spread everywhere. People jammed the beaches and the caseloads went up. People marched in the streets and the caseloads went up. Some governors who pooh-poohed the seriousness of the virus are now telling people to stay at home. Arizona has lost control of the virus. Florida’s governor finally took action to close the bars and the beaches. Arkansas, whose governor decided to tough it out by not closing businesses or mandating shelter in place, now has one of the biggest outbreaks of COVID-19 cases. Texas didn’t want to be messed with and now it’s a mess. Their hospitals are jammed, people are dying in big numbers and the governor finally suggested that people should take precautions. California, one of the first states to shut down, and though they had the virus somewhat under control, is experiencing a huge surge in cases since it reopened a bit. 

Last week, the President held a rally in Tulsa Oklahoma, one of the states where the number of cases is rising quickly. Tulsa is seeing record cases with hospital ICU beds full, and hospitals strained. What better place to have a campaign rally? The BOK arena holds about 19,000 people, but only 6,200 showed up. The President was furious about the low attendance. In fact, he should have been exhilarated, knowing that the majority of his supporters would not take a chance of coming into contact with the virus, getting sick, and then not being able to vote for him this fall.

 The following Tuesday, he held a rally at the very large Dream City Church in Phoenix. Nearly 3,000 people filled the space. Videos showed only one or two people wearing masks, all sitting shoulder to shoulder. Politics outflanked healthcare for the evening.

When the President doesn’t follow the suggestions of his own healthcare experts, has no unified approach to conquering the virus, and instead leaves it up to each state to do what it wants to do, the least we can expect is confusion among the populous. What we have is that confusion and the worse outbreak, and death rates of any nation in the world. The President’s solution is to slow down testing people for the virus because that will reduce the number of cases. Really?

This pandemic is not the ordinary flu, nor is it to be trifled with. The virus doesn’t care about our political views, which state we live in, or our personal preferences. When the rest of the world is hunkering down to prevent the spread of the virus, the US crisis is getting more serious every day. Yet, too many people don’t believe the science, don’t care enough about their neighbors to put on a mask in public, and they gather in large-close groups at bars. Some even protest that the government can’t make them wear a mask in public because they are freedom-loving Americans. Web sites are dedicated to fostering that kind of gibberish. When did Americans stop caring about other Americans? What part of the Freshman Civics class did they miss?

The President, and the members of his administration, should be encouraging us to follow the recommendations of the CDC and the NIH. Instead, their behavior tells too many people not to worry, not to follow scientific guidance, not to listen to the experts. The President should be setting the example, wearing a mask around other people, staying at home as much as possible, and not launching large gatherings of people that can infect others. He shouldn’t demand that Jacksonville allow his convention to meet without proper distancing and masks. He shouldn’t have large rallies where people can infect each other. If he won’t follow the science, then the states and cities should. Dr. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert in the field of virus management is predicting that if we don’t change our behavior soon, we can expect to see virus cases increasing by as much as 100,000 per day. At that point, the nation is out of control.

The health departments of Phoenix, and Tulsa, and yet to come in Jacksonville, should just say no. Large gatherings should be prohibited in every state of the union and in every town and city in the states. Otherwise …

The US has over one-quarter of the covid19 cases in the world and the largest number of deaths from the virus in the world. We have botched this big time and much of the blame can be placed at the feet of our civic leaders who abandoned us in a time of peril.

Box Score

Australia	Japan	Mexico	France	New Zealand	Germany	Canada	Finland	England/Wales	United States
1	2	145	26	1	11	36	1	3	1,536

 

Four people die each day at the hands of police in the United States. Police are smart people. They live among us. Their kids go to school with your kids. They worship where we worship. They don’t get up in the morning hoping to kill someone or be killed by someone. Mostly, in a moment of crisis, they react the way they have been trained to react, trained over and over again until the reaction is embedded in their muscle memory. That training often saves their lives. Yet, 44 were killed in the line duty last year.

 

We are a large country, but that alone doesn’t account for the wide disparity between our police shootings compared to other countries. Our kill rate per million people is 4.7. If Japan killed citizens at the same rate, their police would have killed 504 people, not two. If France killed citizens at the same rate as the US, their police would have killed 268 people last year instead of 26. Blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be shot than Whites, and 17% of them were unarmed. Something is wrong? What accounts for the difference?

 

Paul Hershfield, a professor at Rutgers University studies policing worldwide. He suggests that there are three main reasons why our police kill so many more people than other countries:

1.      The US is an armed camp, with millions of guns. The police must assume that every suspect could be armed, and so they have to be ready to take preemptive measures to safeguard themselves. They are trained that way. Most police in Europe, for example, don’t have to make that assumption. Many don’t even carry guns.

2.      The legal bar for shooting a suspect is much lower in the US. Here, a police officer is trained to shoot if they have a reasonable fear that they are in danger. In most European countries the officer must have an absolute need to shoot, not just a fear of danger.

3.      A typical officer in the US spends about five months in training, learning the basics, and practicing the skills they need to do the job and survive. In most European countries the training is up to two years, with an emphasis on communications, dealing with different cultures, settling disputes, and some marksmanship. It is a significantly different approach to the job.

 

Police Officers join the force to protect and serve. From time to time, they only have a nanosecond to decide about the use of force, including the decision to shoot someone. I would not want to have to make the decisions they have to make or to live with the results. What we know, however, is that only 27 % of police officers have fired their guns during their career, other than on the range. A Pew survey conducted in 2016 indicated that 85% of those who have used their gun believed that the country had done enough to accommodate Blacks in America. The study also found that white males and military veterans are more likely to use their guns on duty, as were those from cities with a population over 400,000. The study also suggested that we should be careful about how we use the results; for example, larger cities may have a higher percentage of criminals than small cities. The real takeaway should be that most police officers can go through a career without firing a shot in the line of duty. And then there are those who didn’t have to shoot at all.

 

The nation needs to come to grips with what constitutes a justified use of deadly force.  There are 17,985 law enforcement departments in the US, with about 800,000 sworn officers. They range from one and two-person units to New York City with about 36,000 officers. Large school districts often have their own police departments, universities have their own police, transit systems have their own police departments, counties have sheriffs, national parks have rangers, and it goes on. Each is a world unto its own.

 

Each department has its own rules, regulations, training, and hiring practices. Each department trains its own standards. There is no national standard for policing, for use of force, and for investigation of shootings, for controlling internal investigations, to require transparency. To make such suggestions raise objections from every direction, reminding us that one size doesn’t fit all, that each municipality has its own needs, that one place is different from others. We know that argument doesn’t hold water; that bucket has a hole in it. Many cities and states are starting to change their operating standards. Some are considering partial defunding of police departments. Congress is even pretending that it is concerned and trying to get new standards into law. So far it is hard to identify a holistic approach to the issue.

 

Where you live makes a difference. In cities like Reno, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, and Anaheim Blacks are most likely to be killed by police than other metropolitan areas. Oklahoma, New Mexico and DC have the highest number of police shootings per million people, but many only lag by a percentage point or so. The data is clear. If we cleaned up the policing practices of a few large cities and a few states, we would have at least started working on the issue.

 

The smartphone is changing our knowledge of police tactics, some of which have existed for decades. Without live filming by stand-by-witnesses, we wouldn’t know about George Floyd. We would not know about all the other unnecessary shootings that we witness on TV news, over and over. The videos of people being shot by the police are cringe-worthy.

 

This morning I watched raw footage of a man, who had been sleeping in his car, who failed a sobriety test, and then ran away from the police. He was shot in the back. Another day I saw a man shot by the police because he had jaywalked and resisted arrest. We have seen a man shot in the back as he ran from police who stopped him because the brake light on his car malfunctioned. The tales go on; four people a day. We have seen videos of a police officer shooting a man in the back at a BART station, even though he was on the ground, on his stomach, and handcuffed behind his back. Enough already!

 

There is no national standard or set of qualifications for being a police officer. Many states, counties, and states have minimum requirements that range from a high school diploma to a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. There is no national system for reporting the few bad apples in the system when they are found to have violated procedures and policies. Many are fired for cause, but just get hired by another department. We need a nationwide system that sets hiring qualifications and monitors compliance. We need a nationwide system for tracking the very few who violate the public trust.

 

When a police officer discharges a weapon, most departments will conduct an investigation to determine if the shooting was justified. They very seldom, until the last few weeks, found that the officer violated procedures or was guilty of any crime, because of a law called implied immunity. When an airplane crashes, for any reason, the National Transportation Safety Board sends in an investigation team. We need a National Police Incident Board to investigate police use of force. The investigation teams should never be from the same department that is being investigated. That will be a hard pill for many departments to swallow. In Sacramento County, the Sheriff refused to let an investigator enter department headquarters.

 

There is a national movement to defund the police departments and direct the money to programs that deescalate violence and riots, improve housing and schools, and other programs to reduce crime and racism. On the surface, that makes a lot of sense, but with the current level of crime across the country, why cut police budgets? We need the police to keep order, on a daily basis. There are many things that police departments can do to use their funds more efficiently and effectively. Europe trains its officers to be a lot better at communications, understanding different cultural issues, handling domestic squabbles than in the US. We need to change the way we train officers and demilitarize the policing process.

 

So, what should we expect from those who are sworn to protect and serve, and what should they expect from us? Those questions are why people are in the streets protesting. To start the discussions, we might consider the following:

 

• ·         Police officers should be better trained to not use their guns except as a last resort.
• ·         Every police officer should be able to use a gun to protect themselves from someone who threatens them with deadly harm, obviously.
• ·         Police officers should not use a gun if they are not being seriously threatened, unless the suspect is known to have killed someone and is actually carrying a gun
• ·         Police should use stun-guns or batons if they are threatened by a person who isn’t threatening to use a gun
• ·         Police should be better  trained to “talk down” threatening situations, as many other countries require
• ·         Traffic violations, property damage, bank robbery, car theft, bad tail lights, and a list of several hundred other violations are not worthy of the suspect being shot even if they are fleeing arrest.  

 

None of those suggestions deal with the other issues that cause so many shootings, the systemic racism that permeates our history as a nation and that exists today. Racism is built into our culture, and as far as I can tell is built into the general police culture. It is important to keep in mind that although most of us would deny being a racist, racism is systemic in the country. We see it in the red-lining that still exist in the real estate and banking industries, we see it in the dilapidated school buildings in poor neighborhoods, we see it in less well-trained teachers and outdated textbooks in schools of poor areas. We see in the lack of good grocery stores in poor areas. We see it in the lack of well-kept parks and playgrounds in poor neighborhoods. We see it in the lack of job opportunities for minorities.We see it everywhere, but in many cases, it doesn’t register with us that there might be a problem, because we don’t live in or experience the racism first hand.

I had never seen anyone actually die until I watched the death, on camera, of George Floyd. His death is resulting in calls for rapid change that was inconceivable only a couple of months ago.  My fear is that too many politicians feel there is only a short time to get change started and that they need to do as much as possible in the shortest time possible. Knee jerk reactions aren’t often the best solutions. What can we do?

 

We can do the obvious quick fixes: stop the use of knees-to-the-throat techniques, stop shootings as a first resort, eliminate implied immunity protection for rogue police officers, assign different officers to the training cadre, get police into the neighborhoods, demilitarize the police forces and eliminate the use of war machines. None of those quick steps will result in an increase in violence in our towns.

 

The long-term changes need to be thought through thoroughly. Police officers aren’t racists by nature; they have to be carefully taught to survive in a systemic racists organization. The police, like the rest of us, need to understand the difference between personal racism and systemic racism. One is personal, the other cultural. So, we must change the culture, and that takes time, it takes new laws, and it takes affirmative action.

 

One place to start is the schools. We are all familiar with the Pygmalion effect, where our expectations for kids lead them to behave in a way that meets our expectations. Do our schools ensure that the young scholars have a good breakfast and lunch, that their eyes are checked regularly to ensure that they can see well, that they have regular dental checks, that they have books at home, that their parents know how to read to them, take them to the library? Do the schools make sure that each child has a connection to the internet and the means to access it? We know these things can be done because many schools already do them. When schools closed early this spring, there was suddenly money to buy thousands of Chrome Books for the kids along with hotspots so that they could attend school online. Failure to do these things is, in many ways the cause of systemic racism. Do all the schools have quality teachers, books, and facilities? Treating everyone equally isn’t good enough; we must ensure that everyone is on a level playing field.

 

Cities can negotiate better contracts with the police unions. Rather than simply grand-father in everything negotiated at the last negotiations, maybe it’s time to start from scratch. Cities can make sure that the police department knows that it reports to the civilian leaders of the community and that they are not a government unto themselves. Cities can ensure that “bad” police officers are dismissed from the force quickly. The other 99.99% of the police department will take more pride in their work knowing they are not being dragged down by the few.

 

This is a seminal time for our country. We have the opportunity to change for the better. Changing the culture and outcomes of our public safety institutions is one of many first steps that we can take. The will to do the right thing seems to be prevalent. If law and order is our goal, we need to satisfy ourselves that those who serve and protect our safety are using the best practices that we know about.

 

A Tale of Two Countries?

In my hometown, small admittedly, the police were our friends when we were growing up. I remember referring to a police officer as a “cop” on one occasion. I don’t think I ever came so close to having my mouth washed out with lye-soap as that afternoon. “Cop” wasn’t considered polite. It didn’t show deserved respect. As a kid, the police were the ones who directed traffic, who drove around town making sure everyone was safe, that there was a minimum of mischief on Halloween night, or that the four saloons in town were well behaved. They even walked a beat in the downtown business district. I went to the police station to learn about fingerprinting to qualify for my Boy Scout merit badge. After a few visits, I knew all of the officers and they all knew me. That may explain why my mother really did know what trouble I had gotten into, long before I got home. They protected us and they served with distinction. I still try not to call police officers “cops.” The thought of lye-soap still haunts me. What’s changed?

 

We say “we can’t let it happen again,” and then it does. George Floyd’s death isn’t unusual in America. It isn’t unusual for a person of color to be killed by the police even if they are unarmed and non-violent. We see it with our own eyes, broadcast over and over on television. George Floyd was not the first killed for no reason, filmed for all to see. In broad daylight, on a busy street in Minneapolis, in front of dozens of people, a man handcuffed behind his back was thrown to the ground and a police officer knelt on the side of his neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, until he was dead. Three other officers aided and abetted the killing.

 

Too many of us White folks don’t understand what it is like to be Black in America. We are two countries. In 2018, the police killed 992 people in the US. In 2019, they killed 1004.[i] Many of those shooting were justified, absolutely! More White people die at the hands of police than any other race, but that is not the point. If you look at police killings per million people, Blacks are three times more likely to be killed than White people are.[ii] Ninety-nine percent and more of police officers joined the ranks and do their jobs because they want to protect and serve the greater good and the people of their jurisdictions. So what happened?

 

The police officer who killed George Floyd had 18 charges against him for past bad behaviors. While he was killing George Floyd, three other officers watched and said or did nothing to stop him. All three were fired quickly, which is unheard of in police culture. The murdering officer has been charged with 2^rd degree murder and 2^nd degree manslaughter. The other three officers were charged with felony aiding and abetting a 2nd-degree murder.

 

Jon Meacham, the distinguished historian, said this week that “In this convulsive moment, let’s not say: ‘This isn’t who we are,’”[iii] because this IS who we are, but we just don’t want to admit it. Our nation has a long history of racism. Too many of us, perhaps, thought that we had ended it in the ’60s. How could it continue after Dr. King’s “I had a dream” speech? How could racism continue after so much effort spent on affirmative action programs? Well, it continued, and it continues to continue. Marcellus told us, “There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.”[iv] When we face the data, the facts, see the results of our collective actions, we can’t but conclude that there is something rotten in our society. George Floyd was eulogized in Minneapolis with a call for action to get society ‘s knee of the necks of Black people – poor schools, lack of good housing, lack of good jobs, redlining of real estate in our cities and towns, higher arrests and convictions compared to Whites for the same crimes, and an end to police brutality. What?

 

The well-publicized killing of George Floyd, eight minutes and forty-six seconds of deliberate brutality, gone viral on the internet, was a breaking point for so many that people across the continents took to the streets every day and every night. Hundreds of thousands marched in New Zealand, in Germany and other European cities. The protest took place in over 400 cities and towns across America to support the idea that Black Lives Matter. Unfortunately, too often the demonstrators’ messages were drowned out by a few well-organized anarchists and looters hell-bent on destruction.

 

The police needed to be strong and timely in their response to the mobs. Cities announced curfews to help squelch the destruction. The irony, of course, is that the demonstrations protesting police brutality were met, in many cities, with brutal tactics by various law enforcement units. We all saw a couple of police officers drive their vehicles into protestors, we saw people with wounds from rubber bullets, we saw children pepper-sprayed while standing with their parents. We saw families sitting on the porch of their home shot with paint bombs. We saw police push a man to the ground for no reason and then not only leave him bleeding, but also discourage other officers from helping him. We saw police officers in NYC flash the white supremacy sign at Black people who were demonstrating. We saw smoke bombs used to clear the streets so the President could have a photo op in front of a church. Some will ask how we got this way; others will say we have always been this way. Is this who we really are? I’ve never thought so, I don’t want to think so, but I carry a fair amount of privilege, and the facts are not on my side of the argument.

 

Let’s not be Pollyanna about this. The demonstrations include massive destruction throughout the nation, especially in large urban areas. There is a huge difference between peaceful demonstrating to make a point and destruction of personal property. An old African proverb tells us “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” Have we reached the point where one people feels the animus of the village to the point of needing to burn it, to overthrow it, to establish something anew? Hopefully not, but it will take a lot of change to bring us to the point where everyone feels the warm embrace of the others.

 

Police brutality, visible again on videos gone viral, ignited the protests but the real issues go deeper, so we must fix both realities. We have called for reform for hundreds of years. Each time a major disruption occurs, we call for change, and then we don’t. Could George Floyd’s murder be the catalyst that moves us to do better this time? Where to start?

 

Dr. Bob Smith was a graduate of my high school, in the class of 1898. Later in life, he and a friend started an organization called Alcoholics Anonymous using the now-famous twelve-step program to create change. The first step and perhaps the hardest is to admit that you have a problem. Those in the streets in the last two weeks know there is a problem across the land. The hard part may be getting the rest of us to admit our complicity. We have to come to grips with reality and admit that we, as a nation can do better. Dr. Smith learned in his teens that we must “face the world and make it better”[v] and we must do it every day. Some ideas are more valid than others are, but we need to get the discussion started, we need to try to fix the wrongs, to make us one country, to make everyone feel the warmth of the village without burning it. We thought we had made progress, but evidently not so much. It’s taking too long.

 

The belief that the US armed forces are under the control of the civilian society is sacrosanct in our country. But if you raise the notion that the police or sheriff departments should be under the direct control of civilian authorities, or overseen by civilian review boards, the long blue line fights it tooth and nail. If we want to change how we police the nation, we need to change who controls it.

 

Men and women join police forces because they want to protect and serve their communities. Being a police officer is a noble calling that generally requires advanced education and months of arduous training. My personal experience (I get the occasional speeding ticket) is that they are all polite, efficient, and willing to give a guy a break. I admit, however, that I cringe when I see them pull up in military personnel carriers, dressed for the battlefield with weapons of war. I suspect, however, that if I were a sworn officer I would think that I was headed into a war zone from time to time and needed all of the armor. But still…

 

The people who train our police officers must be well trained themselves. Over the last decade or so many departments gave hiring preferences to military veterans. The unintended consequence to that good effort could be and likely is, that we now have many officers on the street trained to be soldiers, trained to kill, not to police. We saw evidence on the streets in the last week. Too many tactics resembled war tactics. Too many attitudes resembled people trained to kill. Soldiers pretty much use their guns as a first resort rather than a last resort. We must demilitarize the local police forces. We must train the police to be police, not military. We have a national guard for that.

 

Many police officers who shoot and kill civilians aren’t arrested, charged, tried, or found guilty. A contributing factor is a concept of “qualified immunity.” Essentially that means that an officer cannot be found guilty of a crime without a prior and similar case found to be unconstitutional. We need to end qualified immunity.  

 

When a police officer is threatened by someone, they must have the tools to subdue the offender, without question. They also need to be instructed, trained and supervised in a way that uses lethal force as a last resort. This is difficult to do when you consider that they have to make nanosecond decisions in the face of danger. But, the gun needs to be the tool of last resort. It works in other countries, albeit where it is less likely that the perpetrator is well-armed. But still …

 

Police brutality, like what we have seen these last couple of weeks, is the tip of the iceberg. People of color need to have what so many of us take for granted: good health care, good schools with the latest equipment, the ability to buy homes or rent apartments without jumping through more hoops than other people. A drive around most larger towns will present stark evidence of the disparity in America. We see neighborhood parks that lack equipment and have unmowed lawns, schools that are deteriorating; the lack of quality food sources, the lack of good nutrition, good healthcare, and good jobs. White people need to admit, step one, that we have privileges that others lack.

 

Let’s take the first step and accept the idea that we need systemic change in the nation. Then we can move on to real solutions. We can wake up each morning and try some little gesture that will make the world better, and we can encourage our governmental leaders to take action to change how we govern and how we police each other.

 

Let us also give thanks for the 99.99+percentage of police officers who get it right.

 

As a nation, as a culture, as a society, let us change who we are and become what we have always wanted to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[i] Washington Post June 1, 2020

[ii] Vox April 30, 2020

[iii] Jon Meacham Axios June 3, 2020

[iv] William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1 Scene IV

[v] St. Johnsbury Academy Alma Mater, verse 3