Mondays with Mike: Redrawing the thin blue line

During my reading over the past weeks I came across a couple of articles that make clear that our society has not always given police legal carte blanche about what justifies a shooting of a citizen. Right now, in layman’s terms, all a cop has to do is pretty much say (s)he was afraid for their life. (Which, when you think about it, is goofy on its face—as the most skittish officers will be more likely to shoot first and ask questions later.) Any decision deemed “split second” justifies shooting, in essence.

A good read.

That approval by the legal system didn’t always exist. In fact, the standard for justified shooting was higher until 1989 when the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice William Rehnquist,” weighed in.

From “Split-Second Decisions: How a Supreme Court Case Shaped Modern Policing;” in the New York Times:

The officers’ justification for the use of lethal force in each instance differs with the circumstances. But as in almost every other recent case involving questions of police use of force, law enforcement officials defending the officers are relying on a doctrine set forth by the Supreme Court three decades ago and now deeply ingrained in police culture: that judges and juries should not second-guess officers’ split-second decisions, no matter how unnecessary a killing may appear in hindsight.

It’s a meaty but very worthwhile read.

This piece in the National Law Journal explains the legalities even better—also highly recommended.

By my lights, police unions and law-and-order hawks have perverted the Rehnquist court’s decision in a way that even Chief Justice Rehnquist would think produced deadly unintentional consequences.

I think we and the police have to do better. And I think we can. I offer this article, from New Jersey.com, in evidence.

Newark cops, with reform, didn’t fire a single shot in 2020

As is this.

That headline sums it up. Mind you, Newark ain’t Mayberry, so this was a remarkable accomplishment born of afederal consent decree. Diversifying the force, de-escalation training, deploying the Newark Community Street Team to defuse violence in the city’s most violent wards, and an array of other efforts made an enormous difference.

Beyond binary arguments about police being good or bad, beyond blaming the victims of shootings, I see some hope.