The great majority of victims have been African American. According to most experts, a key factor explaining the predominance of African Americans among victims of police brutality is racism among members of mostly white police departments.
While racism is a major cause of police brutality directed at African Americans and other ethnic groups, it is far from the only. Other factors concern the unique culture of urban police departments, which stresses group solidarity, loyalty, and a "show of force" to any perceived challenge to an officer's authority. Acceptance, success, and promotion within the department depend upon having the attitudes, values, and practices of the group, which historically have been infused with racism.
Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime. "We have enough evidence that tells us that action needs to be taken," says Justin Nix, a criminologist at the University of Nebraska Omaha. "One thousand deaths a year does not have to be normal."
The rate of fatal police shootings in the United States is increasing, with a total 132 civilians having been shot, 16 of whom were Black, in the first two months of 2021. In 2020, there were 1,004 fatal police shootings, and in 2019 there were 999 fatal shootings. The rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than any other ethnicity, standing at 35 fatal shootings per million of the population as of February 2021.
Racism in law enforcement takes many forms, from membership or affiliation with violent white supremacist or far-right militant groups, to engaging in discriminatory behavior toward the public or law enforcement colleagues, to making racist remarks and sharing them on social media. While it is widely known that racist officers are within police departments around the country, federal, state, and local governments are doing little to identify them, AND report them to prosecutors who might unknowingly rely on their testimony in cases, or protect the diverse communities they are sworn to serve.
In 2017, the FBI reported that white supremacists posed a "persistent threat of lethal violence" that has caused more fatalities than any other category of domestic terrorists since 2000. Alarmingly, internal FBI policy they also warned agents assigned to domestic terrorism cases that the white supremacist and anti-government militia groups they investigate often have "active links" to law enforcement. But one doesn't need intelligence gathered in FBI terrorism investigations to find evidence of racism within law enforcement. Since 2000, law officials with alleged connections to white supremacist groups or far-right militant activities have been exposed in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and elsewhere.
A 2006 intelligence assessment based on FBI investigations and open sources, warned of "white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement . . . by organized groups and by self-initiated infiltration by law enforcement personnel sympathetic to white supremacist causes."
Systemic racism is nothing new to law enforcement. As the son of a former Sherriff, who was a known associate of the National Alliance (neo-Nazis), it was no surprise to me at all.
To fix this will take more than one step. First is to get rid of the "Blue Wall of Silence". It is used to denote the code of silence among police officers not to report on errors, misconduct, or crimes, including police brutality. It is aiding and abetting in crime (technically make those officers ineligible to serve as officers). Many officers who follow the code may also participate in some of these acts listed above during their career for personal matters or in order to protect or support fellow officers.
The code and police corruption stems from the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was known for using police officers to violently end strikes. Many members of the Ku Klux Klan were police officers who protected each other when conducting racist acts. This later gave rise to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which gave new protections to the victims who had long suffered discriminatory policing.
Whistleblowing is not common. The low number of officers coming forward may have to do with the understanding that things happen in the heat of the moment that some officers would rather keep personal. Another reason officers may hesitate to go against the code may be that challenging the code would mean challenging long-standing traditions and feelings of brotherhood within the institution. The fear of consequences may play a large role as well. These consequences can include being shunned, losing friends, and losing back-up, as well as receiving physical threats or having one's own misconduct exposed. I suggest we fire, and bar any officer following the code, from any further service anywhere in the US as an officer.
Thorough vetting of all applicants to weed out Nazis, racists, and other despicable elements that will corrode the police force is a must. And mark said Nazis and racists as ineligible from any service anywhere in the US as an officer.
Prior tragedies have resulted in a string of independent, blue-ribbon commissions (Wickersham (1929), Kerner (1967), Knapp (1970), Overtown (1980), Christopher (1991), Kolts (1991), Mollen (1992), and the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2014)) to make recommendations for actual change that could address police misconduct. These groups have developed well-reasoned conclusions and suggestions that were widely discussed and enthusiastically implemented, but only for a time. As public attention shifts, politics moves on and police-reform efforts wane. The cycle continues unbroken.
Congress could pass legislation to further encourage better data collection about what police do and how they do it. For example, no one really knows how often American police use force, why force was used, whether it was justified, or under what circumstances it is effective. No one knows how many high-speed pursuits have been done or why they were started; how many fleeing drivers have been caught, or the number of collisions, injuries, or deaths that resulted. Only one state, Utah, requires agencies to report forcible entries and tactical-team deployments. Neither the police, nor anyone else, can tell us how many people have been injured when taken into custody, how many people have been arrested only to be later released without charges, or how many cases local prosecutors have refused to file for lack of evidence, constitutional violations, or police misconduct.
State legislatures, which can move faster than the pace of national politics, have their own objectives to focus on. But even where state statutes do exist, the courts that interpret them unfortunately tend to rely on the Fourth Amendment law. This is a problem for two reasons. First, the Fourth Amendment regulates police seizures, but state law is supposed to regulate use of force, and not all uses of force count as seizures. (Several courts have held, for example, that an officer shooting at someone but instead striking a bystander does not constitute a seizure.) State law is supposed to be broader than the Fourth Amendment, which means that referring to Fourth Amendment doctrines in the interpretation of state law can provide less protection than state lawmakers intended. Second, and perhaps more important, those Fourth Amendment doctrines are a mess; they provide little guidance that officers in the field can use to determine when and how much force to use, and the guidance they provide to courts reviewing use of force is flawed.
Some states allow use of force to make an arrest if the officer believes the arrest is lawful, even if it isn't and their reasoning is in fact unreasonable. Others are outdated, and other provide a defense to officers who use deadly force to prevent a feeling suspect. Most states authorize officers to use "reasonably necessary" force, but do not define what said force is or explain how they determine that it is necessary. Very few states punish officers for mistakes that contribute to avoidable use of force.
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