In her statement after last Saturday’s protest in downtown Northampton, Police Chief Jody Kasper lists several recent events where law enforcement were injured across the country. For the millions protesting in hundreds of cities, it’s a small list.
But here’s why justifying the response to the community with those examples is not helpful. The list the community could give back to her on law enforcement abuses in the last two weeks is much, much longer. Among those are police SUVs being driven into protestors in Brooklyn, another police car driving into a crowd of protestors in Los Angeles, the shooting death of a beloved man, Dave McAtee, who regularly fed the local police in Louisville, Kentucky, the loss of a man’s eye from a rubber bullet in Texas, a women shoved to the ground causing a serious seizure and concussion, the group beating of peaceful protestors in Philadelphia, over 240 acts of assault and arrest on the press causing the U.S. to be labeled as an area of concern for journalists by other nations and, of course, the attack on peaceful protestors and the press in Washington, D.C. And it goes on and on, with twitter video compilation after compilation.
If the chief is going to justify preparing for the violent actions of a few across the U.S., then it breaks down the dialogue. Why shouldn’t the people of Northampton also assume then that the police here are similarly just as violent as the police elsewhere? I would hope she’d revisit this notion of these examples to justify the police response.
What would be helpful from city government and the police department is to engage in what can be done to change the status quo. The Minneapolis City Council has vowed to defund and dismantle the police department, completely eliminating that agency in favor of a new structure that puts policing-type functions into a new office for public safety. Like Northampton, Minneapolis sees most of its 911 policing calls for nonviolent events. Minneapolis notes most of its calls are for mental health, health, EMT and fire.
Similarly, instead of a stronger police presence on the streets, Northampton government could meet the protesters at the idea table. Responses to the protests would be 1) a plan for review of what the city is asking the police to do, 2) what the police are trained for, 3) what tools they have, 4) what review policies are in place, and 5) an examination at how a positive culture put in place maintained. Changes could then be recommended based on that review.
The review should address many questions. Do we need different groups who can respond to domestic issues and nonviolent emergency calls? Should it be clear that certain restraints, like choke holds, are not allowed, as some communities have done in recent days. Should it be clear that qualified immunity will not be provided to members of the police force, but that every use of force or restraint will be reviewed by body camera footage?
I appreciate the communication from Chief Kasper and hope that we’ll see changes not just in Minneapolis, but across the country, in how we think of public safety; the role, tools and training of public safety officers — what used to be called “peace officers” — and what other professionals we need to fund and hire, such as social workers, crisis counselors and public resource program representatives, to respond to many assistance calls to better address what we ask the police to do now.
Theodore Paradise lives in Northampton.