How the Black Lives Matter Movement Changed the Law Enforcement Landscape
Abstract

Today, the United States faces multiple existential threats from a global Covid-19 pandemic and the concomitant economic downturn as well as rising racial tensions following the murder of an African American man, George Floyd, on May 25, 2020 by officers with the Minneapolis police department. This event, taking place amidst a once-in-a-century global pandemic with many Americans already nerve-wracked, served to further underscore the fragility of the American experiment when confronted with widespread unrest. To determine the antecedents to the current situation and help identify potential solutions, the purpose of this paper is to provide the background concerning police brutality and systemic racism in the United States, and why this issue has assumed new importance and relevance in recent years. Further, a discussion concerning potential solutions to these seemingly ubiquitous problems is following by some unconventional recommendations for action. Finally, the paper provides a summary and the key findings that emerged from the research in the conclusion.

Public Administration: Police Brutality and Systemic Racism

The death of George Floyd, on May 25, 2020 shocked most Americans, of course, but especially white people who believed that the battle for civil rights was long over and the black people had won (Tamkin, 2020). This complacency was rocked, however, following the massive, nationwide and then global response to Floyd’s death which underscored just how severe racial tensions in the United States remained. Indeed, despite decades of aggressive state and federal efforts to ensure that all Americans are afforded their 4th and 14th Amendment rights, scarcely a day goes by without the headlines trumpeting yet another high-profile instance of police brutality against a minority member in the United States. These issues have assumed even greater importance and relevance in view of the Black Lives Matter movement and the numerous issues that this and similarly situated groups have identified as being part of a larger systemic racism problem. The purpose of this paper is to review the relevant literature to provide the background on this issue and why it is important. In addition, the paper presents a discussion concerning possible solutions to this issue, following by recommendations for action by civic leaders and law enforcement organizations across the country. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning solutions for addressing police brutality in the United States are presented in the conclusion.

Background on the issue

The country was already reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic and people were suffering from the unprecedented effects of a veritable nationwide shutdown when the gruesome images of a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 galvanized the nation’s and then the entire world’s attention. Like the images of the terrorist-flown jets crashing into the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001, the news coverage of Floyd’s death assumed center stage in the nation’s consciousness despite the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, according to the account provided by Harris (2020), “[Floyd’s] murder was yet another recent murder of a Black person by a police officer in the United States, and historically, one of countless other murders of Black people committed by White people [and] his murder ignited protests and rioting in Minneapolis” (p. 383).

As noted above, these protests were followed by dozens and then hundreds of additional protests by like-minded citizens that had been outraged by yet another black death at the hands of law enforcement authorities. Indeed, many observers questioned whether the outcome of this incident would have been dramatically different had Floyd been white. The initial responses to Floyd’s death reflected the extent to which many people felt violated by the actions of the Minneapolis police department. As Harris (2020) points out, “Calls for justice and peace were made against a backdrop of buildings on fire, a police station being stormed and overtaken, stores being looted and chaos spreading from our supposedly peaceful Midwestern city to other parts of the country and even the world” (p. 384).

It is important to note, however, that Floyd’s death was just the fuse being lit on an already smoldering powder keg of racial tension (Crawford, 2018). When the initial response had played out and the Floyd and similar incidents were investigated in more detail, the calls for justice and to address police brutality and systemic racism started coming from a growing number of mainstream organization, including the American Medical Association (AMA) which convened a special meeting of its house of delegates to raise public awareness and formulate potential alternatives for going forward.

The consensus that emerged from the special meeting of the AMA’s house of delegates underscored the fact that systematic racism in the United States is the product of longstanding public and private sector institutional policies as well as a lack of training for law enforcement authorities in this regard. For instance, a recent press release from the AMA concerning the special meeting of delegates noted that, “[The AMA] recognized the detrimental public health consequences of violent law enforcement interactions in adopted policy addressing the need for policing reform [which] recognizes police brutality as a manifestation of structural racism” (AMA policy recognizes policy brutality as product of structural racism, 2020, para. 4).

While the AMA is only one organization, albeit a large and influential one, the calls for action that resulted from this special meeting of delegates (discussed further in the possible solutions section) provide a valuable framework for evaluating the efforts to date to determine whether they are achieving their intended outcomes. As the research that follows will clearly show, the numbers of police shootings of members of American minority groups have steadily escalated in recent years and these trends have exacted a serious toll on the nation’s race relations and social stability as discussed below.

Detailed presentation of the importance of the issue

The calls for greater public education by the AMA have helped to focus greater attention on the severity of the problem of systematic racism in the...…of delegates could do was to “call on stakeholders to make systemic changes to protect public health and combat the detrimental effects that racism and communal violence have on the health of the nation” (as cited in AMA policy, 2020, para. 5).

To their credit, though, the AMA board of trustees did subsequently identify some specific strategies in June 2020 that represent a starting point for action, including the following commitment: “Acknowledging that system-wide bias and institutionalized racism contribute to inequities across the U.S. health care system, the AMA continues to fight for greater health equity by identifying and eliminating inequities through advocacy, community leadership, and education” (AMA policy, 2020, para. 6). Some of the educational initiatives proposed by the AMA board of trustees included:

· Working with interested parties on a public health effort to support the elimination of excessive use of force by law enforcement;

· Advocating against racial and discriminatory profiling by law enforcement through anti-bias training, individual monitoring, and other measures; and,

· Pushing for legislation and regulations that promote trauma-informed, community-based safety practices (AMA policy, 2020, para. 6).

Taken together, these initiatives provide a useful framework for pursuing a viable solution to police brutality and systemic racism, but far more is needed to address these problems on a national level. For example, according to one public administrator, “We need to think about those who are already in the field who clearly need more preparation and development and how we can reach them to ensure that they are getting the development that they need” (Wood, 2020, p. 7). Like the AMA’s possible solutions, Wood (2020) also calls for enhanced training for law enforcement officials and recommends partnering with local colleges and universities for this purpose since many already provide this type of training for their campus police services. Although all of these possible solution have some merit, there are some optimal approaches that can be applied to address the problem of police brutality and systemic racism in the United States as described below.

Recommendations

Besides the foregoing possible solutions concerning additional training and partnering with local public health officials and raising public awareness about the problem of police brutality and systemic racism, there are some other measures that can be included in any initiative to increase its effectiveness. For example, where available, law enforcement organizations should partner with local colleges and universities to provide in-class or virtual coursework using seminal texts such as Griffin's 1964 book Black Like Me that chronicles the events of a white man who darkened his skin chemically and then lived as a black man for several months or Ellison's 1952 book, Invisible Man that likewise describes the U.S. through a black lens. These texts in particular provide first-hand accounts of what it is like to be black in an overwhelmingly white America. In sum, overt racism cannot be trained out of people, but it may be possible to help them understand their unconscious biases that affect their decision-making processes in ways…