Adopt uniform police use-of-force policies
In the span of a week last month, three former police officers tried for killing black men avoided punishment.
The circumstances in each case were different. But one thing was the same: the standard juries must use to evaluate an officer’s use of deadly force, requiring only that his actions were “objectively reasonable” at the time. This poorly defined standard, outlined by the Supreme Court in 1989, makes it nearly impossible to convict a police defendant.
On June 16, Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted in the shooting of Philando Castile, the Minnesota man killed after he was pulled over for a broken taillight. On June 21, Dominique HeagganBrown was found not guilty after shooting Sylville Smith during a foot chase in Milwaukee. Two days later, jurors declared a mistrial for the second time in the prosecution of Ray Tensing, who shot Sam DuBose after pulling him over.
Death-by-cop is a term that has become all too familiar. As of June 30, nearly 600 people were killed this year at the hands of police. That number is on pace to surpass 1,000, the average number of police killings since 2005.
Policing is inherently dangerous and some killings are in selfdefense. But the number of officers charged with trigger-happy behavior is implausibly low. Since 2005, just 80 officers have been arrested for fatal on-duty shootings. Only 28 were convicted.
No federal law governs the use of force by police, so states are free to set their own standards. According to a study by Amnesty International, none requires that officers must attempt non-violent measures first, leaving lethal force only as a last resort. Or that lethal force be used only when an officer is facing an imminent threat of death or serious injury.
As of June 2015, nine states and Washington, D.C., had no laws on the use of lethal force by officers. Among the 41 states that have statutes governing lethal force, many are vague and rely on officers to decide whether using force is “reasonable.”
To avoid conviction and jail time, it seems, all an officer needs to say is that he feared for his life.
Tighter standards are needed and they exist in a few places. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s use-of-force policy, for instance, has been successful in making officers more accountable. The department’s directive tells officers to value the sanctity of life and states that officers must be in “imminent jeopardy” and feel “immediate threat” before using deadly force.
The policy is making a difference. The department’s officerinvolved shootings dropped by nearly 40% from 2015 to 2016.
Widespread adoption of Vegasstyle standards would help assure that officers who use lethal force cavalierly are investigated, tried and punished. The safety of the public — particularly black men, who made up 6% of the population but 40% of the unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015 — depends on it.
Setting and enforcing a national standard won’t be easy at the 18,000 police agencies in the United States. But a minimum standard that ensures the safety of all Americans isn’t too much to ask.
Until the nation can do better, Americans, particularly black Americans, will have a hard time trusting law enforcement.