What Actually Needs to Change

Forget defunding the police, unconscious bias training and the other things that are being suggested in the wake of the death of George Floyd. What needs to change is the culture within police departments across the nation. It's not racism that's the problem although the way it manifests itself may seem like racism at times.

Let me start by going back nearly four years to the Pulse Nightclub shooting. The police stood by for 45 minutes until armored SWAT members arrived and the officers who were not in armor were not allowed to participate. Why did they take so long to respond to an active shooter? The police chief explained it as "We're not like the military. We don't have acceptable casualties."

That's the big problem and I've seen it expressed similar ways from police across the country. There are no acceptable casualties for police officers. That means that they are justified in taking whatever measures they feel necessary to protect themselves, even if it means shooting a stopped motorist who was reaching for his driver's license because there was a chance he was reaching for a gun. Or telling a kid with a pellet gun to drop his weapon then shooting him before he could respond. Or putting a knee in someone's back until he asphyxiated. It's all part of a "take no chances" mentality that excuses police for fatal over-reactions because there are no  acceptable casualties.

This attitude means that police lives matter more than civilians. It's accepted within the police community and defended by the unions. It's argued in the courts in the few cases that make it there and enshrined in the legal principle of qualified immunity.

This is not inherently racist. Police can and do kill whites and non-black minorities with impunity, also. But the news media pays more attention when a black man is killed and that skews our perception. Yes, black men are killed out of proportion with whites but blacks also commit way more violent crimes leading to police shootings. Once that's figured in, blacks are killed at a slightly lower rate than white violent offenders. Regardless, too many people of all races are killed by police out of an abundance of caution.

So the culture has to change. Police need to be less cautious about shooting anything that moves. There should be an implicit contract - we give you a gun and we trust you to wait until you see an actual threat before using it rather than reacting to a possible threat.

But no one is talking about this so nothing will change.