It's not just the bad apples

 




On Tuesday, Derek Chauvin was convicted on all three counts…

1.      Second-Degree Murder

2.      Third-Degree Murder

3.      Second-Degree Manslaughter

The look of confusion and disbelief on his face as the judge read the jury’s verdict was readily apparent. He never expected to be held accountable for his actions leading to the death of George Floyd, as so many other police officers have escaped responsibility for the actions that have led to the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stephon Clark, Breonna Taylor, and too many others.

 

There are those…too many in fact…that attribute the violence against Black and Brown Americans by the police as just cases of “bad apples” and, indeed, Chauvin was the quintessential “bad apple”, having 18 complaints filed against him regarding excessive use of force. Of those complaints only two were “closed with discipline”. And, as the saying goes, “It only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole barrel.” The thing is, if you don’t clean out the barrel, it doesn’t matter how many “good apples” get thrown into it, they’re all going to fucking rot.

 

And so, it is with reforming community policing in the United States. Politicians have nibbled around the edges of the issue for decades but have, thus far, lacked the political will to tackle the issues of the inherent bias, blatant racism, and abuse of power in police forces across the country head on. With over 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, many organized at the municipal and county levels, there is a fragmentation of regulatory mechanisms, a lack of transparency, inadequate and often ad hoc training regimens, and a lack of funding and political will to ensure adequacy, never mind uniformity of policy and training, regarding these and other issues we face in efforts to reform law enforcement in America.

 

It all begs the question though, of whether law enforcement in America can be reformed at all or must be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. Rebuilt with the goal of providing justice for all. Rebuilt to eliminate those elements we see today that regard Black and Brown Americans as “the enemy” and leaves our brothers and sisters feeling that they live….not in a republic under the rule of law…but in a territory under military occupation by a hostile power.

 

Derek Chauvin was convicted on all three counts. His fellow officers testified that his use of force against George Floyd was unjustified and unjustifiable. But he is only one of the “bad apples” at the heart of the rot affecting law enforcement in America. His trial leaves me wondering if he was sacrificed by the system to bolster the illusion that he, as an individual, was solely responsible for the murder of George Floyd, and not the system itself.

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