All of us lose when police kill unarmed Black people
Sadly, and tragically, young Donovan Lewis is the city’s latest unarmed victim of an avoidable and senseless police shooting, but likely won’t be the last.
How many lives will get snuffed out before the American people say, “OK, enough is enough.”
Isn’t it obvious by now that when an unarmed person who poses no threat is killed at the hands of the police, we all lose, including the police?
Over the past few years, the American peoples’ confidence in the police seems to have plummeted.
Historically, Black, and brown peoples’ feelings about the police have, in the main, ranged from resentful to disdain. What is relatively new however, is the seemingly sizable number of whites (that is, if the number of white protesters we see on the nightly news is any indication) that harbor an unprecedented level of dislike for the police.
How in the world can police work be carried out effectively in communities where large sectors of residents are mistrustful of the police?
People who distrust the police aren’t likely to call on the police in time of need or cooperate with the police when asked to do so. We all lose under these conditions.
When will the American people wake up and realize that we have, for years, been footing the bill for police misconduct? Those huge settlements that the survivors of the victims’ families receive as well as the monies from those successful civil suits are our tax dollars at work.
And get this: police killings are so widespread, that many mid-major and small cities with police departments have taken to purchasing insurance policies that pay money to people who have been subjected to police abuse.
By contrast, major cities self-insure, which means they allocate a certain amount of money to be used for that purpose. Paul Butler, author of the 2017 book “Chokehold: Policing Black Men” points out that such a development raises an issue academics refer to as moral hazard, as police officials may be less likely to encourage their officers to exercise restraint when dealing with motorists and pedestrians, for paying for brutality and shooting deaths is already accounted for in the budget.
Over the years, unjustified police killings of citizens have (understandably so) sparked massive uprisings and/or demonstrations that have, in some cases, adversely impacted a city’s economic development. We all lose when this happens, just ask the residents of Los Angeles, and the policy experts there, if that city’s infrastructure has fully recovered from the rebellion that unfolded thirty years ago.
I would hope that police departments endeavor to employ the very best and brightest its city has to offer. But how does an agency expect to recruit the area’s best young people when its department is constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons.
What smart and up-and-coming young person who envisions law enforcement as a potential vehicle to positively impact peoples’ lives, wants to join a department around which controversy constantly swirls?
More specifically, what intelligent person of color would want to join an agency with that kind of soiled public image? When, the pool of applicants consists of those for whom the police department is their only career option, we all lose.
When the 20-year old Donovan Lewis was killed, the loss was and is greater in some quarters than in others, but make no mistake, we all lost.
Judson L. Jeffries is a professor of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University.