In the James Bond novels and movies, the significance of the 007 designation for the hero was that it conveyed to him a “license to kill” in the interests of queen and country and gave him a very special status. To us Americans, this pulp fiction and Hollywood scenario should now seem rather quaint; for in our country, it has been clear to me for a long time that every law enforcement officer in the United States, no matter his status or jurisdiction, has the authority to kill any one of us, especially if our skin is dark.
The origin of this goes back to the thousands of lynchings that regularly took place from the period after the Civil War through much of the 20th century, in which virtually no one was ever held accountable and which were often committed with total impunity, in public, with photographs, postcards and other depictions of the event widely distributed. Murders, tortures and mutilations thus became spectator sports for many Americans through much of our history.
In the Southern states, the criminal justice system and prisons soon took the place of slavery in keeping African Americans from enjoying the rights and freedoms they had been promised after the Civil War; a system of convict labor arose, which reduced tens of thousands of Black men to servitude, and the use of wholesale violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan produced something more like a totalitarian police state than a democratic society.
In our own era, the war on drugs and the emergence of mass incarceration has led to the United States leading the world in locking up people, far more than in “police states” like China, and our legacy of violence has led to almost total impunity for anyone in a police uniform committing violent acts on the job.
The trial of Derek Chauvin actually proves this point. There is little doubt that if the people watching him with his knee on George Floyd’s neck had not had cellphones with video cameras (which they would not have had 15 years ago), he would not have even been charged with a crime! As it is, even with clear video evidence of him with his knee on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, it is still not an open-and-shut case, with him committing his crime in broad daylight in front of witnesses, so that his only option is to try to make a plea deal for the least punishment possible.
The answer to all this is not defunding the police but reimagining the police, starting with vastly raising the standards we use to screen and determine who is eligible to become a law enforcement officer. We generally give our physicians and medical professionals great power over life and death, as well, but the training and expertise required of them to hold that power make it seem acceptable, and we generally know that we can trust them to hold that power responsibly and professionally, according to the highest ethical standards.
That same training and expertise should also be required of anyone who holds similar power of life and death, as a policeman or any law enforcement officer does. This would entail much more education, knowledge and skills than we require now, but it would also mean that our law enforcement personnel would then rightfully deserve, and hopefully receive, increased pay and status. It would also mean, I believe, that our society would become a safer place for us all, including the police themselves.
Being a police officer is a very difficult job, and it is not a job that just anyone should aspire to. The best police officers, just like firefighters and nurses, are truly the best of us but, with the awesome power that we grant them, it is critical that we make sure that all of them are truly the best.
Daniel Pritchett
Dover
