Incrementalism has failed.
In Minnesota, it failed George Floyd who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
In Colorado, it failed De’Von Bailey who was shot in the back by Colorado Springs police as he ran away with a gun hidden in his shorts.
In Georgia, it failed Ahmaud Arbery who was stalked and killed by an armed white man flying a confederate flag on his truck.
In America, it failed our black and brown neighbors who have been forced to persevere against racism, police brutality and inequality for the five decades since Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
Protesters have taken to the streets across America — and in cities around the world — to call for drastic and dramatic change to a system that empowered a police officer to kneel on George Floyd’s neck in broad daylight ignoring pleas that he show Floyd mercy.
Colorado lawmakers have responded by introducing a sweeping police reform bill, full of promising accountability measures and important changes to Colorado’s deadly use-of-force law for police officers.
But even the most progressive of America’s police departments need something overnight that a reform bill cannot bring: the immediate purging of a culture of force and power and might. Police officers are sworn to serve and protect, not to dominate and control.
Denver’s police department has slowly made improvements to its force, in part responding to outcries for change after 17-year-old Jessie Hernandez was killed by police who fired into the stolen car she was driving in 2015.
However, the department is far from perfect, and that showed during the police response to the George Floyd protests, especially during the first nights of unrest.
Nothing encapsulates problems with the Denver Police handling of the protests more than the photo of three officers in riot gear posted to social media with the caption “Let’s start a riot.” That depraved sentiment is exactly what protesters are marching in the street to change.
Police are entrusted with so much power that the threat — even if it was meant in jest — of using that power to provoke an illegal response from a crowd is horrific. It’s called entrapment and for black and brown Americans it can be life-threatening.
Protests are not illegal but if a white police officer baits a black protester into fighting back, suddenly an arrest is made and a life is ruined, or shots are fired and later labeled self-defense or justifiable use of force. The threat implied in that social media post was carried out in real life by officers on the streets of Denver who aggressively used non-lethal tactics against those who appeared to be doing nothing other than exercising their First Amendment right to protest.
The Denver Police officer who posted the photo was promptly fired. Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen took swift action and should be commended for it. But if the officer involved had been a veteran of the police force, the union likely would have protected his job for months, or years, or perhaps prevented any discipline of the officer at all. We need police unions across Colorado to step up and change their bargaining agreements to allow bad cops to face discipline.
We know officers across America faced real threats over the past several days from those who took to the streets with evil intent. Police officers have been killed and injured in cities across this country. But the bad actions of a few, call into question the honorable actions of the many.
Pazen also has launched an internal investigation into a video showing officers firing an intense volley of pepper balls at a stopped car after a man yelled at the police for hitting his car with a pepper ball when his pregnant girlfriend is inside.
“(Expletive) I ain’t going nowhere,” he yells. “Shoot it again.”
Then the police fire at the man and the woman and the car. There appeared to be no threat other than someone who was just yelling at police. All officers involved should be disciplined. We hope police body cameras will show exactly which cops fired. That wasn’t an isolated incident, either. It’s just a prominent one that was caught on video. Denver Post reporters witnessed several incidents where police appeared to escalate the conflict.
Police hold so much power. They are armed, interfering with their activities is a class 2 misdemeanor even if the officer is breaking the law, disobeying their orders is grounds for arrest, and any kind of physical contact can lead to felony charges. They must be held to the highest standard. Officers, who put their lives on the line to keep Americans safe, may say that’s unfair, but we’ve seen power be abused too many times to agree to the status quo.
Senate President Leroy Garcia, Sen. Rhonda Fields, Rep. Leslie Herod and Rep. Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez agree.
Opponents will paint the bill they introduced last week as a knee-jerk reaction to something that occurred in a different state.
But Herod has been working with law enforcement since November on legislation because, despite all the progress in some police departments, Coloradans are still having disturbing encounters with police who are then not being held accountable.
“What I was told — when I brought up some concerns — by law enforcement was that, ‘We don’t need statutory change right now. We don’t need anything. We’re good. Everything’s OK,’ ” Herod told us last week. “But when I talked to officers who were not sanctioned to speak to an elected official and said, ‘What would you like to see happen?’ They said, ‘These are things that we need. We need to see culture change and we need accountability.’ ”
Herod’s bill aims to implement just that on a state-wide basis, although some of the reforms have already happened in some departments.
The bill calls for all officers to be equipped with body-worn cameras and for recordings to be released to the public within 14 days of an incident. This is something The Denver Post editorial board has supported for years, including calling for it after police in Ferguson, Mo., shot and killed Michael Brown. In that case, witness accounts disputed police accounts and body cameras could have clarified what occurred.
It would change the portion of Colorado law that allows officers to use deadly force, increasing the legal standard for defense. When Colorado Springs police shot and killed De’Von Bailey in the back, their legal defense was based on the fact that they suspected Bailey had used a gun in a felony earlier in the day. The killing was determined to be justified based in part on the “fleeing felon” portion of Colorado law. We think the legal standard for using deadly force must be higher than suspecting someone has used a gun.
Senate Bill 217 would also increase transparency by requiring police departments to report to the attorney general: all use of force that results in death or serious bodily injury; all instances where an officer resigned in the middle of an investigation; all data relating to stops conducted by officers; and all data related to the use of an unannounced entry. This data will help to identify chronic problems that departments may try to sweep under the rug.
The most controversial part of the bill is intended to allow officers to personally be named in civil court for a violation of Colorado constitutional rights. Just as doctors who unintentionally cause harm or death to their patients can face civil lawsuits for malpractice, so too should police officers face civil liability for their bad acts. The legal standard in the bill would not allow for “good faith” arguments – in other words, an officer couldn’t use the argument in court that he or she may have made a mistake but was trying to operate in good faith. We think the legal standard should be set slightly higher so that an officer must be found to have engaged in misconduct or negligence. Officers are human and do make mistakes, just as doctors do, and while we must hold both professions to the highest standards, we must allow for unavoidable human error even when it’s tragic.
This one bill will not solve all the problems in Colorado.
It is another incremental step.
“I am kind of sick and tired of seeing innocent, peaceful black men have this level of violence that’s committed against them, and I can no longer sit by and not do anything,” Sen. Fields told us last week. Fields can hardly be accused of sitting on the sidelines of reform during her years of service at the state Capitol. We should all scrutinize ourselves in the critical light of a social justice advocate who feels she has not done enough.
What America truly needs is for everyone to commit to no-longer sitting by while racism and hatred and bias and apathy destroy our country.
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