4 inconvenient facts for George Floyd protesters

4 inconvenient facts for George Floyd protesters

Four inconvenient facts for anti-police rioters

by Jason C. Johnson

 | June 05, 2020 12:54 PM

The tragic death of George Floyd has reignited the debate over police-involved deaths. Justifiably, Floyd's death, which was recorded, has brought swift and certain rebuke to the Minneapolis police officers involved in his arrest. One may be tempted to compare Floyd’s death with other cases that have garnered significant public attention, but such comparisons only serve to mislead and divide. In order for the debate surrounding police practices to be constructive and not destructive, we all have the responsibility to seek and rely on facts rather than emotion and racially divisive rhetoric.
Virtually everyone has seen the viral video of what happened during Floyd’s arrest. Even for seasoned law enforcement veterans, especially for seasoned law enforcement veterans, it’s difficult to watch. It was inexcusable. It was wrong. It was not police work. It does an incredible disservice to the honorable men and women who proudly wear a badge to call this policing. It undermines the great work being done across law enforcement to sow seeds of trust within communities. The officers involved in Floyd’s arrest have all been fired and will soon face further accountability, of that we can be sure.
Is Floyd yet another name to add to the litany frequently cited by anti-police activists as being wrongly and unjustifiably killed by police? Or could it be that the circumstances of this most recent case are exceedingly rare and genuinely unique? I would strongly argue it’s the latter. It is remarkable, maybe unprecedented, how police officers have engaged with peaceful protesters, in many cases making statements or gestures of solidarity with protesters.
Cases involving the death of a citizen, particularly an African American citizen, during a confrontation with police have gained significantly more public and media attention since 2014. That year was a very difficult year for law enforcement. It marked a transition in the public conversation around race and policing.

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Why the peoples rage

Politicians, professional athletes, and Hollywood celebrities took up the cause with gusto. There were protests, riots, and hundreds of pieces of local, state, and federal legislation all promising to address what was being touted as a dire and growing threat. An entire industry of race-baiters and profiteers has formed and coalesced around the fraudulent assertion that police are out-of-control, trigger-happy racists. They have excused and even promoted rioting and other forms of anarchy, the economic destruction of which will hit minorities hardest.
We have seen destructive riots here in Washington and in cities across the country. The losses of life and property, along with the economic damage that has and will result from these despicable acts, are not justified in any way. It’s the community that will bear the heavy burden of rebuilding in the wake of this senseless destruction. The money and human effort needed to do that will detract directly from any effort to improve the performance of law enforcement in those cities.
Still, rather than moderate the misdirected anger and focus the effort on solutions rather than destruction, the loudest voices on the ground are using Floyd's tragic death as a way to polarize races and perpetuate the false narrative that police are inherently brutal and bigoted. There has been a huge and glaring piece missing from the conversation: facts.
Fact #1: Only about 2% of police-citizen interactions result in any use of force or threat of force.
This figure includes even very minor uses “force” such as grabbing, pushing, and handcuffing. The overwhelming majority of these types of force result in no injury. Using this very broad definition of force in almost every arrest would result in a reportable use of force.
Fact #2: Fatal shootings by police officers are extraordinarily rare (about 0.0004% of police contacts) and are declining.
Law enforcement agencies are as focused as they have ever been on finding alternatives to situations that would previously have resulted in deadly force. Police are adopting training that focuses on de-escalating volatile situations and recognizing and responding to mental illness in new and innovative ways. Officers are increasingly equipped with less-lethal alternatives, such as Tasers. Employing new training and technology have, in some cases, prevented the need for deadly force.
Fact #3: Though better data collection is necessary, multiple studies suggest that race is not a factor in deadly force decisions by police officers. What’s more, only 8 out of 1,000 fatal police shooting incidents in 2019 involved individuals reported as “unarmed” black people. The term “unarmed” does not imply that there was insufficient legal basis for police to use deadly force, only that media reports indicated the person was unarmed.
Since Jan. 1, 2019, the FBI has been collecting nationwide data on police use of force. This is the first time there has been an effort to collect uniform national data. Having uniform data collection is key to reliably demonstrating what those in law enforcement already know.
Fact #4: The Department of Justice, while President Barack Obama was still in office, determined that the “hands up, don’t shoot” rallying cry, popularized after the shooting death of Michael Brown, was a manufactured narrative. The DOJ report further determined that Brown attempted to disarm the police officer and that the officer acted in reasonable self-defense.
It is undeniably true that Floyd did not deserve to die. His death, right there on video for all to see, is indeed a horrifying example of unacceptable brutality by law enforcement. The inhumanity and disgrace of it all are something law enforcement officers and advocates across the country have been shouting from the proverbial mountaintops since it happened. It’s something about which everyone, regardless of race or profession, can agree.
But to say that the manner of Floyd’s tragic death is “just another” example of how police treat black people is as disrespectful of the facts as it is of Floyd’s legacy. His case stands in a class of its own.