Police First Politics Is A Threat To Democracy Part I
Recent high-profile police shootings, reporting on cozy relationships with militias, & vigorous endorsement of a candidate who attempted to overthrow an election all show the extant threat of police
(Photo by Koshu Kunii on Unsplash)
Over the weekend, the body camera footage from the killing of Victoria Lee was released by the state of New Jersey.1 The call and the video serve as yet another reminder of the way deploying police in situations where people are suffering from a mental health crisis is a failure to respond democratically to calls from the U.S. public. You can hear her brother asking for health professionals to intervene, but they are told that the police must come as a matter of policy. Once the police arrive, you can see how they escalate the situation before one officer asks calmly, "Who wants to go less lethal, who wants to go lethal?” Moments later, Victoria Lee was killed for holding a jug of water.
This killing and footage release followed shortly after that of Sonya Massey, who was also experiencing a mental health crisis when she was met by police, who quickly escalated the encounter to one where she was killed.2 In the Illinois shooting, you see the officers asking about her mental health before quickly moving to yell commands and then shooting her for holding boiling water. Both the killings of Victoria Lee and Sonya Massey point to the need for trained medical professionals to attend to people amidst a mental health crisis instead of armed police officers. In both cases, sending the police first was the policy. This police-first policy endures even as we’ve seen an outpouring of research and advocacy calling for mental health professionals to take over the role of responding to people experiencing mental health crises.3 Despite the clear demand from people through protests, petitions, and proposals, the police-first approach endures overwhelmingly as the default approach.
The two shootings have been able to garner national attention and concern, but unfortunately, they aren’t isolated incidents here in the United States. If current trends hold, 2024 will see more police killings here than in 2023, which had more police killings than in 2022.4 Again, despite widespread protests from 2013 on, including the largest such protests in 2020 in response to the killing of George Floyd, the police are on pace to continue killing more people every year than in the year before. This is before we address any issues with misreporting or an outright refusal to report, as we see from many departments in the country.5 This refusal to report is no small thing and points to the sense of impunity under which many police departments operate. In addition to increased police killings and refusing to report federally mandated data, departments and police unions have also grown more comfortable in deploying informal strikes and threatening elected officials.67 Taken together, we get a picture of an institution that is using fatal violence against people at an ever-growing rate actively avoiding scrutiny, while also declining to do their stated jobs and threatening civilian leadership whenever they are faced criticism. This is not a tenable position for a democracy premised on civilian leadership of the state's armed forces. Having a broad culture of impunity for the police without any significant restraint undermines the idea of a government that is responsive and responsible to the people they’re meant to serve.
How do the police maintain such a position in which they can continue to kill people at an alarming and growing rate while dictating terms to elected officials if they don’t receive endless deference and ever-growing budgets?8 Uncritical support from prominent elected officials, media, business, and some community leaders goes a long way towards explaining the confidence police are operating with. Republican leadership and elected officials defended and demanded total defiance in the face of protests against police violence, which provided a floor of support from which police and their allies maneuver.9 Their position has advanced with conservative legislatures and executives overruling elections and the budgeting decisions of liberal municipalities who attempt even mild efforts at reform.1011
In the face of this unified stance of maximum impunity for police, we see Democratic leaders seek something of a middle path. With some election losses being placed on the protests against police violence or calls to defund the police, Biden and others pivoted to calls to support the police even more, although with ostensible strings tied to training and reform measures.12 This domestic application of the bear hug approach to policing working from a theory of training as a key to reducing violence from the police was always dubious, but even this aspect was neglected or fell to the wayside as the media also adopted a stance that favored the police during the COVID pandemic and its immediate aftermath.13 With retailers claiming large losses due to “organized shoplifting,” the police and reporters contributed to a sense of panic, which saw elected officials in both parties working to roll back the gains made in reform just recently passed in the wake of high-profile incidents of police violence.14
This has effectively reset the mainstream national conversation around the status quo, which was held before the protests against police violence, with more punitive laws and increased police surveillance being seen as a cure-all for any urban ills.15 While we’ve seen a better articulated and resilient movement to invest in social supports rather than policing at the local level, the consensus nationally is that the police deserve the deference and funding they’ve traditionally received, with raises, more overtime, and resources being spent on policing being the expectation moving forward.16
This is particularly evident in the recent responses to the protests against administration support for Israel as they continue their genocidal assault on the people of Gaza.17 With students and others across the country exercising their right to protest, we saw a bipartisan call for the police to respond and arrest them for doing so, with recent messaging from Pritzker in anticipation of the Democratic National Convention as just one recent example.18 This approach from leaders in the Democratic Party flows within the long-term trend of support for surveillance and more violent responses to left-wing protests than to conservative counterparts from the police.19 When we look at the difference in response to student protesters or protesters opposing the construction of new police facilities today compared to those who stormed the Capitol to overturn the results of a democratic election, it is impossible to deny the stark difference in approach.20
This shows another and even more immediate threat to democracy in the police-first approach currently favored by our leadership. Institutionally, the police overtly favor one side of the political spectrum over the other. This imbalance raises the cost of protest for anyone opposed to the greater use of state violence or calling for a more equitable distribution of resources. Directly quelling calls from the left also amplifies and normalizes right-wing protest as the most acceptable form, giving an advantage to a movement that is now calling directly for an ethnostate rather than a multiracial democracy.21
This support for the Trumpist position and approach to democracy isn’t one we have to speculate to reach. Major police organizations have supported Trump despite the public attempt to overturn an election and his continued defense of doing so.22 Their endorsements come even as Trump himself has been convicted of multiple crimes and credibly found guilty of sexual assault.2324 These endorsements come even as Trump runs against Kamala Harris, who’s served as a prosecutor and Attorney General in previous roles, making her a candidate who’s worked directly with the police at multiple levels.25 This preference for politics, which holds some Americans as more legitimate than others, fits perfectly with an institutional difference in tolerance for rightwing protest in contrast with a violent approach to the left.
In Part II, I will discuss the direct links between the antidemocratic militia movement and the increasing extremism and collaboration between sheriffs and the antidemocratic right, which dovetails with their approach to Trump.
Wallace, A., Morel, K., & Frau, L. (2024, August 16). State releases Bodycam footage of police officer who shot woman in Fort Lee. North Jersey Media Group. https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/fort-lee/2024/08/16/fort-lee-nj-shooting-police-body-camera-footage-released/74832809007/
Levenson, E. (2024a, July 24). A step-by-step look at how law enforcement’s visit to Sonya Massey’s home went so wrong. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/23/us/sonya-massey-police-shooting-what-went-wrong/index.html
Thompson, C. (2024, July 25). Sending unarmed responders instead of police: What we’ve learned. The Marshall Project. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/07/25/police-mental-health-alternative-911
Danbury, M. (2024, August 9). How data on police killings has changed 10 years after Ferguson. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/data-police-killings-changed-10-years-ferguson-rcna163847
Tran, A. B., Iati, M., & Healy, C. (2022, December 6). Fatal police shootings are increasing, but fewer are being reported - washington post. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/fatal-police-shootings-unreported/
MacGillis, A. (2020, September 3). What can mayors do when the police stop doing their jobs?. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/what-can-mayors-do-when-the-police-stop-doing-their-jobs
NBC Chicago. (2023, March 28). Chicago police union leader warns of resignations, “blood in the streets” if Brandon Johnson is elected mayor. NBC Chicago. https://www.nbcchicago.com/chicago-mayoral-election-2023/chicago-police-union-leader-warns-of-resignations-blood-in-the-streets-if-brandon-johnson-is-elected-mayor/3106162/
Quig, A. D., & Charles, S. (2023, October 20). FOP and city reach tentative contract deal that provides 20% raises over four years. Chicago Tribune. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2023/10/20/fop-and-city-reach-tentative-contract-deal-that-provides-20-raises-over-four-years/
Rogers, A. (2020, June 1). Trump’s response to police killing threatens to further deepen unrest in America, Democrats and Republicans say | CNN politics. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/31/politics/trump-george-floyd-protests/index.html
Medina, D. (2024, August 7). Voters across Missouri approve amendment 4, increase in funding for KCPD. KSHB 41 Kansas City News. https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/voters-across-missouri-approve-amendment-4-increase-in-funding-for-kcpd
Rogers, N. (2024, January 12). Suspended state attorney Andrew Warren wins appeal, hopes to get case expedited. WFLA. https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/suspended-state-attorney-andrew-warren-wins-appeal-hopes-to-get-case-expedited/
Leonard, B. (2022, March 1). Biden draws bipartisan applause for calls to ‘fund the police’ - politico. Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/01/state-of-the-union-2022-fund-police-00013065
Fayyad, A. (2024, January 7). The shoplifting scare might not have been real - but its effects are. Vox. https://www.vox.com/politics/24025691/shoplifting-scare-criminal-justice-reform
Medina, E. (2023, December 8). Retail Group retracts startling claim about “organized” shoplifting. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/organized-shoplifting-retail-crime-theft-retraction.html
Fonrouge, G. (2023, August 11). Retailers are shaping a wave of laws to crack down on organized theft - here’s how they do it. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/11/organized-retail-crime-nine-states-pass-laws-to-crack-down-on-theft.html
Cherone, H., & Rutecki, J. (2023, July 25). Chicago spent $126.5m on police overtime in 6 months, an almost 50% jump over last year: Records. WTTW News. https://news.wttw.com/2023/07/24/chicago-spent-1265m-police-overtime-6-months-almost-50-jump-over-last-year-records
Stanton, C. (2024, July 26). Week Ender - July 26, 2024. The Optimist. https://chadstanton.substack.com/p/week-ender-july-26-2024
Bolies, C. (2024, August 18). Illinois gov. JB Pritzker promises to arrest ’troublemaker’ DNC protesters. The Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/illinois-gov-jb-pritzker-promises-to-arrest-troublemaker-dnc-protesters
Greene, R. A. (2021, January 16). Police respond differently when it’s a left-wing protest, study finds. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/us/protest-disparity-study-trnd/index.html
Li, D., & Romero, D. (2023, April 20). “cop city” protestor Manuel Páez Terán was shot at least 57 times, autopsy reveals. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cop-city-protestor-manuel-paez-teran-was-shot-least-57-autopsy-reveals-rcna80624
Stanton, C. (2024b, July 29). The slavers vision for the US held by Republicans. The Optimist. https://chadstanton.substack.com/p/the-slavers-vision-for-the-us-held
Moran, L. (2024, July 25). Trump was endorsed by a major police coalition and you know what happened. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-endorsement-irony_n_66a20799e4b0ac6125bd6772
Bustillo, X., & Fung, H. (2024, May 30). Trump is found guilty on 34 felony counts. read the counts here. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-trial-34-counts
Neumeister, L., Sisak, M. R., & Peltz, J. (2023, May 11). Jury finds Trump liable for sexual abuse, awards accuser $5M. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db
Lartey, J. (2024, July 27). Unpacking kamala harris’ complex record as prosecutor. The Marshall Project. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/07/27/kamala-harris-prosecutor-california-police-election-crime