Transforming Police: Toward Building on Common Interest Between Police and Communities

Introduction

The United Sates and much of the world became engaged in reexamining policing in the light of demonstrations led by Black Lives Matter protesting the clearly unjustifiable deaths of people of color at the hands of police, following the police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and beyond that, discriminatory policing more broadly. The public debate on proper policing has largely become polarized between those wishing policies to end police discrimination, at times involving unnecessary use of force causing unjustifiable injuries and deaths, and those opposing police reform in order to effectively fight crime. What often has been misunderstood is that both sides of the debate have a common interest. Policing cannot be sufficiently effective without support of the communities where it takes place which requires mutual trust and support between the police and the community. In many instances this can only be achieved with changes in police operation applying what has generally been found to be most effective in practice, as applied to the specific conditions of each community.

Discriminatory policing has been a major concern of Red Lives Matter, and Brown Lives Mater as well as Black Lives Matter, and numerous White and Asian people have also complained of suffering at the hands of law enforcement. Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020 included people of all-American ethnic groups, with the largest number of protesters not people of color. While in absolute numbers, African Americans have suffered the most deaths from police officers, in terms of police killings per capita, Native and African Americans have alternated at first and second place, followed by Latinex, White and Asian Americans, depending on the year. The ethnic bias in police killings are part of a more general racist police behavior in relating to people of color.¹ Classist bias has also persistently been exhibited by police, who often have acted prejudicially against people of any background they are unhappy with for reasons not related to law enforcement, such as anti-war protesters and those demonstrating against police misconduct.

Discrimination in policing has existed in the United States for a very long time and been opposed by people of all backgrounds. For example, Indigenous Americans and organizations, including the American Indian Movement (AIM), have long been concerned about it. As policing has become more militarized, however, the number of deaths that have been involved has increased. This is reflected in a June 2020 article by Kevin Abourezk on Indian participation in the protests against police in Minneapolis after the police killing of George Floyd. Abourezk reported that many Native people went to cities following the passage of the Indian Relocation Act of 1956;

"They went in search of jobs, education and hope. Many found racism and violence, often at the hands of police.

Frank Paro [a leader in the American Indian movement (AIM)] was there [in Minneapolis]. "If you were lucky, police would beat you and then take you to jail, where you might receive medical attention, he said. If you weren’t, they left you by the river."

But times have changed, he said.

"They’re not beating us no more," he said. "They’re killing us. That has to stop."²

Many American Indians joined in the peaceful protests in Minneapolis, and community leaders, including those of the AIM, pressed for protestors to cease destroying local offices and business. In addition,

“The Indian business owners on Franklin Avenue have asked the American Indian Movement to provide security this evening," he [Paro] said. "The last few months a lot of community members asked when we would start the AIM patrol again. Tonight, we’re re starting the American Indian Movement patrol again on Franklin Avenue.'”³

The discriminatory behaviors of police are themselves magnified manifestations of a more general racism, mixed with a less pronounced classism, in U.S. society that ultimately needs to be rooted out to obtain a just, balanced society. While the broader inequitable consciousness and behavior needs to be transformed as part of moving policing to more equitable functioning, a number of steps, I believe, are needed to be taken to ameliorate the policing portion of the broader problem. Related to that, policing as it too often functions in the United States is far less effective than it can, and ought to be, in carrying out its primary functions to serve and protect, to help communities function safely and to uphold the rights of people in its jurisdiction, that they may live well.

Dont Defund Transform

The improper operation of too many police departments and personnel has led to calls to disband them.⁴ The problem with just doing that is that there are some functions that police departments have been created to carry out that are necessary for the protection and wellbeing of all communities and their members. That need can be seen in events where police retreated from certain areas in reaction to anti-police protests following the death of George Floyd. For example, in downtown Seattle, demonstrators created a "no cop zone." During the several days that the area functioned as a protest encampment, although the protesters were peaceful, uncontrolled violence occurred each night including four shootings. The continuing violence led the city to return police to the area to reestablish peace.⁵

Similarly, when during the same period police withdrew from a mostly African American Northside Minneapolis neighborhood, residents who had wanted the police gone because of their misdeeds and numerous instances of failure to respond properly to residents calls for help began to want officers back. In the absence of police, cars sped dangerously through the neighborhood where children were playing, while crime and violence spiked. One resident commented, “It’s good to have good police,” she said. “It’s bad to have bad police.”⁶

The answer to bad policing is not abolition or defunding, but police transformation. The need for policing functions to be carried out would be less in the well balanced, inclusive, equalitarian society that many seek to develop, but policing would still be needed. That need is especially strong for appropriate policing functions to be carried out publicly in our current, unbalanced, divided nation. Some agency needs to carry out these functions, whether it is reconstituted current police, or newly created bodies, such as was undertaken with some degree of success in Camden, NJ.⁷

Camden disbanded its police department in 2012 because it was so alienated from the mostly African American and Latinex community it served that it was ineffective, unable to prevent the people of that city from suffering from extremely high crime over- all, and the highest murder rate in the country in particular. By constructing a county police department on a more proper basis, Camden created a well working - if not perfect - policing operation with community support and cooperation, that lowered the general crime and murder rates for everyone's benefit. The new department employed many of the former Camden city officers, but only after a thorough and careful hiring process, while taking steps to properly train officers, appropriately administer the department, and build trust with community members. When the protests began around the United States, in 2020, over the police killing of George Floyd, in Camden the police chief and some of the officers marched in agreement with the protestors, rather than in violent conflict with them, as occurred in quite a number of municipalities.

The Needed Transformation

What is required is a fundamental transformation of much of the policing in the United States, that ultimately goes beyond Camden. Currently, too many police agencies operate in an overly militarized way with an "us vs. them" mentality - as outside forces suspicious of and alienated from the communities and their citizens, whom they are supposed to serve.⁸ That alienation leaves officers nervous in communities they do not know, and opens them to racial, class and ethnic prejudices - both overt and unconscious. This makes it more likely that officers will act aggressively out of fear, and with militarization, employ deadly force when it is not called for. Improper police actions alienate the community from the police, making community members uncooperative. This mutual mistrust greatly reduces the effectiveness of police. This is especially so when police operate on a patrol and response when called basis, with officers most often arriving on the scene of a crime well after it has occurred, and with the perpetrators long gone.⁹

Outside forces can have some advantages if properly applied in certain situations. As outsiders, they are not involved in the interplay of interests in the community, and if properly directed can act impartially and with relatively little fear of personal reprisals from those against whom they act or whose interests they may threaten. There are cases early in the Twentieth century in American Cities (when police patrolled neighborhoods on foot, and knew their beats fairly well) where local police have been ineffective in quelling riots, because of their relationship with the rioters, where a not much larger force of national guardsman from outside the city were able to swiftly restore order. But the very distance that members of an outside force have from the community undermines their effectiveness in the long run, and in worst cases can make the police more of a problem than an aid to a community. With patrol and response policing, those in the community (e.g. gangs and war lords) who benefit from weakening the policing force can easily exploit the situation to turn people in the community actively against the police. The harder the police try to act proactively through massive raids and hit and run operations, the more they are likely to turn the community against them as innocent community members are likely to be insulted, hassled, injured and even killed with little real effect in reducing crime or maintaining order.

A particularly bad example of this occurred in Detroit, in the 1960s, when a special force of officers was put together to try to act proactively against crime in the inner city. At first the new strike force ("S.T.R.E.S.S") was welcomed by the people in the neighborhoods, as they suffered from a great deal of crime.¹⁰ Very quickly, however, the citizenry began to fear the S.T.R.E.S.S. officers more than the criminals. The officers, almost all white from outside the mostly African American neighborhoods they patrolled – apparently caught up in racial profiling and stereotyping - continually over reacted to calls, hassling people, who had nothing to do with the complaint, and collectively shooting more people than the rest of the Detroit police force combined. Eventually, the unit was disbanded after it mistakenly got into a shootout with fellow officers who were on a stake out.

By contrast, officers who are integrated into the community and work with it, with many of them stationed around the community (and have both sufficient professional training and independent oversight of their actions to keep them honest and impartial) are likely to be knowledgeable of the community and its people, well informed of community developments and concerns and supported by the community. This type of "community service" or "neighborhood patrol" policing tends to be effective both proactively, in ameliorating situations that tend to cause or promote crime, and after the fact in catching perpetrators and retrieving stolen property. The key is that the patrolling officers meet and collaborate with concerned community groups, leaders and people in developing plans and taking action.

A good example is the experience of turning a low income housing project plagued by crime in Indianapolis, IN, which was turned into a relatively secure area.¹¹ The transformation was accomplished by having the police meet with housing project management (which agreed to initiate and work with a tenants association, run by the tenants), the tenants association, and neighborhood organizations in the surrounding area. In addition, the mostly white police officers teamed up with local black ministers to go door to door to survey the largely black tenants on their concerns. Plans were mutually developed with the various participants agreeing to take responsibility for various actions. Management hired a new security service and agreed to evict tenants quickly who were arrested for selling drugs, which was a major part of the crime problem. With the approval of the tenants, the police blocked all but one vehicle accesses to the project to make it easier to monitor activity. This was important because much of the crime was caused by outside drug sellers and buyers coming into the project which had been a convenient place to do business. The police also obtained agreement of the prosecutor's office to take swift action against those charged, and from federal authorities to act quickly against those arrested for gun possession. Tenants took responsibility for informing the authorities of criminal activity and situations which might lead to crime. Within a few months, the housing project had become so crime free that the major concern of the tenants was that the police would consider the area so secure they would stop working with the tenants and crime would return to the project.

At its best, community policing becomes a team effort among police or peace keeping forces, local citizen groups, social institutions and services, and individual citizens.¹² For example, if there is a drug problem around a school, it may be advantageous to take a team problem solving approach to the drug problem by bringing together representatives of, and having ongoing meetings and other communication among, school personnel, parents, students, police, relevant public and private social services and neighborhood residents and organizations. Where violence and/or crime in an area are found to be caused by intergroup hostility or conflict (which is a problem in both domestic and international peacekeeping situations) a variety of conflict resolution and peace building techniques can be employed.¹³ These can be carried out either by the police or peace keepers (if adequately trained both in the techniques and how to apply them in a culturally appropriate ways for the people involved) in collaboration with others or by special facilitators or service organizations. Thus, peacebuilding may be carried out effectively by having peacekeepers collaborate directly with facilitating and peacebuilding groups and the community involved.

Communities, their members and police can support each other with such programs as neighborhood watch and neighborhood patrols.¹⁴ The former are sometimes more passive, with people keeping an eye out from their houses and reporting crime problems to police, while providing safe houses for kids and in some cases others, who may feel endangered. But they may also patrol their neighborhoods. Citizen patrols can walk areas and report crimes and suspicious activity to police. Their presence can be a deterrent to criminal activity. In some instances police have established police auxiliaries, groups of trained unarmed citizens, sometime including former or part time officers, supplied with radios, who patrol in groups wearing uniforms like those of police officer except for the identification patch.¹⁵ Looking like police from a distance increases their deterrence power, though thieves and others engaged in illegal activity, who know or have cased the area, may know who they are. Caution needs to be taken in establishing and monitoring such civilian groups to make sure their members are reliable and that they do not become partisans in disputes between neighbors or groups in the community. In the worst case they could become lawless vigilantes. When functioning properly they may also be observers contributing to community problem- solving, including assisting in the improvement of policing and police behavior. Such civilian patrols are best coordinated at the community level, becoming part of the community's team process in identifying and solving problems. Team process needs to be properly facilitated to function well, and if there are serious divisions among team members, or with those it would be good to include, common ground problem-solving dialoguing needs to be undertaken, perhaps including trust building steps and activities.

Policing is most successful when it functions, not as a totally independent force, seeing its role in isolation from other community functions, but as an integrated participant in community teamwork that empowers community people in all of their peaceful purposes. Police operating in this manner not only help keep the peace, which is a prerequisite to successful community development, but play an important role in helping people take charge of their lives and develop their communities humanely, while encouraging further participation by the citizens involved. Furthermore, the problem solving oriented interagency collaboration with community member involvement in these cases is a good general model for overcoming the overly narrow foci that agencies tend to have when operating isolated from each other in hierarchical systems, causing conflicting policies, duplication of effort, unmet needs and often inadequate and inappropriate service. Moreover, attempts to set up interdepartmental coordinating committees in hierarchically structured and functioning organizations often suffer from organization ego generated turf struggles, and turf protecting influenced compromises that are not the best solutions to problems. When problem solving focused consensus building team process is employed, the results are usually much better holistic courses of action. This is even more the case when each of the participating groups or organizations functions on an inclusive participatory basis, so that the coordinating teams develop synergy from bringing their diverse perspectives, approaches, experiences and talents to bear to create a well working unified solution to problems.¹⁶ It is important to note that this kind of teamwork, when properly carried out, makes organizations of all kinds more effective by virtually every measure. Today, even the U.S. Army uses it between operations to learn from experience, improve performance and enhance the quality of life in the organization.¹⁷ Police Departments ought to employ it also.

The need for team process in police departments was amply demonstrated in the establishment of community policing in Indianapolis.¹⁸ Author Stephen Sachs found in interviewing Indianapolis police officers about the initial launching of the community policing process, discussed above, that the officers were unhappy with its being forced on them from headquarters. As is often the case in hierarchical organizations with top down decision making, the complaint was two-fold. First, the officers did not appreciate a major change in their work being forced on them. Second, they also quickly observed that there were problems in the implementation, that were immediately obvious to them, but not to the top brass who did not work the streets. Among the problems was that the incentives for police officers were not changed with the shift from a rapid response patrol model to a community relations approach. Officers, now ordered to spend time observing the neighborhoods they worked in and talking to residents about crime and safety related issues, were still being evaluated on the basis of how little time they spent on any task, and how quickly they moved on to the next call. It was only when the top officers in charge of the program talked with those carrying it out that the contradictions were removed, and the new program began to function well with a corresponding rise in how the police people involved felt about it.

What is needed today is a transformation to true community policing, with an attitude of "we." This involves a shift from largely control oriented to problem solving and community empowering policing. This means a change in police and community attitudes from "us vs. them," to "we." Getting there entails understanding that doing so is of mutual benefit. Police officers will gain the community support and collaboration they need to operate more effectively and securely in a far better working environment. The community will become more peaceful and secure, with a reduction in crime, aberrant civilian behavior and police misconduct, in the course of an improvement in the quality of life through impowering problem solving

An Overview of What Needs to Be Done

Transformation of the police from "us vs. them" to "we" operations requires several interrelated steps. First is making police accountable to the law and the people they serve. Police need to be overseen by civilian bodies that govern and review operations, and hear complaints against officers and decide what to do about them with due process. This includes both whether or not, and how to deal with individual officers, including supervisors, who may have acted or failed to act improperly, and whether to change policing policy. Punishment needs to be appropriate, if and as necessary, but so far as practicable, a restorative justice approach should be taken, with hearings serving as boards of enquiry aimed at identifying and solving problems.¹⁹ Where officers are teachable, action should be taken to correct their behavior, which may include requiring training and probation, if and as appropriate. Penalties should be part of relearning, if and as, appropriate. Indeed, police units should regularly engage in overview of operations in after action joint discussions to improve performance and help each other behave and function better.

These sessions provide teachable moments that are often one of the most effective training methods. When carried out well, they promote officers finding mutual support in performing better, and impart the idea that learning is a continual process from ongoing experience. Where there is a sufficient focus on issues of profiling and stereotyping in such sessions, they can be an especially good vehicle for overcoming biased attitudes. Former police officer Charles D. Hayes, observes that most police officers are not racist, but develop unconscious biases that need to be overcome by continual reflection and traning.²⁰

Where officers are found not to be able to function properly in the community, they should be transferred to other work, retired early, or fired as is appropriate. Where officers' misbehavior violates the law, they should be prosecuted.

To keep individual officers accountable requires changes in pro- cedure and the law. Among others, some practices, such as choke- holds, should be made illegal, and recently have been in some juris- dictions. No-knock warrants that allow law enforcement personnel to break into residences or other facility without notice ought to be discontinued, as the sometimes violent response of surprised residents, not realizing those entering are the police, has led to the death and injury of officers and people in the facility. ²¹ It may well be that the application of a no-knock warrant led to the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY. Legal bars to prosecution such as "qualified" immunity need to be reduced or eliminated so that officers who act recklessly, as well as clearly willfully illegally, can be punished.²² Similarly, to make much more possible federal action against officers who violate the civil rights of individuals, 18 U.S.C. Section 242 must be changed from only requiring that officers are punishable who do so "willfully" to "willfully or reck- lessly."²³

Other changes in oversight of police may also be needed. For example, there are complaints that in many police departments cases of alleged misconduct by officers go to arbitration, and that too often police officers who should be fired are forced to be kept or rehired with backpay.²⁴ This may be a problem of who hires the arbitrators. It may also be that where it is used, the arbitration process should include restorative justice, so that while firing officers remains an outcome where it is appropriate, officers can be retained, on probation where appropriate, if it appears that they have learned sufficiently from the experience that they can function properly. But this should not allow multiple repeat offenders to remain on the force. There also needs to be licensing of police that can be revoked, or some other means to prevent officers properly fired for cause to keep being rehired repeatedly, after multiple firings for cause, as has occurred on numerous occasions.

Where there is probable cause to prosecute, public pressure needs to be on prosecutors to bring cases. But the most important needed action is to change police culture. This will take time to develop, so that officers and supervisors will see that not preventing or cor- recting abusive policing reduces their relationship with the com- munity and their effectiveness and brings blame upon them, while acting to keep policing proper enhances their community relation- ship, effectiveness and security. The application of participatory group problem-solving can do a great deal to bring about the need- ed culture change when it is combined with community policing.

A shift in attitude will also need to take place in police unions, many of which in recent years have been blockers of needed change, including making it difficult to effectively punish extreme- ly improper behavior by officers.²⁵ Police unions have an import- ant legitimate role to play in giving officers a voice in administra- tion, and with the public, in protecting their legitimate interests and rights, including to due process. But they need to come to see that preventing officers who have acted extremely wrongly from being appropriately disciplined or fired is counter to the interests of the other officers, and the work of the department as a whole. It most likely will take a two-pronged approach to change police and police union attitudes. On the one hand, public pressure in peaceful demonstrations, petition campaigns and lobbying are needed to keep the necessity of police transformation a political issue. On the other, it is important that community leaders, public officials and others dialogue with police and their union leaders with the purpose of undertaking joint problem-solving for mutual advantage. There is plenty of common ground on which to deesca- late police-community tensions, ultimately getting to "we". As of March 2021, there was some indication that as public pressure was bringing police reform measures to the fore in numerous legisla- tive and executive bodies, at least some police union leaders were becoming open to considering compromise.

Appropriate Recruiting and Training

Attitude transformation requires proper recruiting, and training, that in many instances needs not only to be changed to a community policing approach, but also extended sufficiently to create a community-oriented culture. Recruiting needs to be sufficiently thorough and attentive to hiring recruits who are qualified and open to working even-temperedly, collaboratively and evenhandedly in the community.²⁶ It will be helpful if a sufficient percentage of officers on a force come from diverse backgrounds, to assist each other in understanding the variety of people they encounter. Where law enforcement personnel are to work in culturally or ethnically different or diverse neighborhoods, it will be helpful if their numbers include a sufficient number of officers representing the diversity of the community. If appreciated by the department, that can assist its relating well with the community, both in terms of the respectfulness and understanding of community members by the officers and the trust of the community members in the police. People with previous bad behavior records, including officers who were fired from other departments for repeated improper conduct, ought not to be hired without clear indication that they have been rehabilitated.

Changes in the police approach to their work are needed that should begin with training, emphasizing that police are "peace officers." Training needs to include intellectual understanding, but must go beyond it, usually with sufficiently repeated experiential exercises to induce appropriate attitudes and habits. Officers need to be trained to be problem solvers and peace makers, working with communities and their people. They should be educated to be able to interrelate well with a variety of people from different backgrounds and in different conditions and states of mind. Their first step, when possible, in confrontational situations is to deescalate them.²⁷ In addition, police need to be trained in additional techniques between initially speaking to a threatening or disorderly person and shooting them, to make use of deadly force clearly a last resort, for everyone's security, including the officers.

Because an essential part of police training is on the job, with as- signment to a partner after graduating the police academy, care should be taken in pairing rookies with experienced officers. It may be advisable to council the experienced officers on mentor- ing the rookies. The ongoing training that officers receive in many departments needs to reinforce basic norms and procedures, as well as providing updating and corrective learning. Regular prob- lem-solving oriented team meetings are an excellent vehicle to in- clude in continuing training.

Some changes in police function and procedure are needed. The City of Albuquerque, NM for example, has created a separate department of Community Safety (ACS) of trained professionals such as social workers, housing and homelessness specialists, and violence prevention and diversion program experts to act as first responders instead of police, and for police arriving on the scene to call in to handle situations where a social worker, psychologist or other specialist is required.²⁸ Where police backup may be advisable, officers can be asked to be stand in reserve to support, if appropriate. Having police officers working with psychologists and social workers will likely provide good experiential learning for officers when they encounter situations involving people with mental issues and in socially difficult situations. Minneapolis, has also shifted some functions away from police, strengthening the city’s Office of Violence Prevention, establishing a team of mental health professionals enabled to respond to crises without the aid of the police and authorizing city workers outside the Police Department to process minor complaints, including parking violations and property damage.

Similarly, substance abuse should no longer be a crime - law en- forcement matter. The war on drugs has failed to significantly curb drug use, corrupting some law enforcement, contributing to the unfortunate militarization of police and distracting them from oth- er needed work. It has enhanced organized crime at the expense of jailing a great many of otherwise innocent people, dispropor- tionally people of color, but also inequitably targeting low income people.²⁹ Drug use and possession should be decriminalized and treated as health and social problems, not criminal matters. Money and effort largely wasted on the drug war would be put to far more effective prevention and rehabilitation programs.

Limit the Use of SWATT Teams to What Is Necessary

There will be occasions when a SWATT team will be necessary, but swat operations should be minimized, being readily available, but only used in extreme cases. Where a situation threatens to become, but is not yet serious, the SWATT team is best kept nearby, but out of sight.³⁰ If a situation is sufficiently threatening it is best to have the presence of the SWATT team provide a needed show of force, without employing it in action, as a step in restraint, hopefully leading to de-escalation. Only if it is clearly necessary, should the SWATT team be actively employed, and then only until the violence subsides. Police only need a small amount of military equipment in reserve, only for rare extreme occurrences, and should not have large supplies of them. Currently, SWATT teams too often are unnecessarily, and hence improperly deployed, while military equipment is quite often used when it should not be.

Dealing Better with Crowd Control

Better training and procedure for crowd control are also necessary. Much has been written by experts on how to undertake this.³¹ Far too often police do not do this well, too often by mishandling police have created a riot by attacking peaceful citizens and causing some of them to be so angry at the police that they kept fighting them for many hours. This often leads to more and larger protests. In other instances, peaceful protestors have been hemmed in by police, so that the police prevented them from obeying a police order to move, after which the peaceful citizens were attacked and a number of them falsely arrested. In even worse instances, officers have attacked peaceful crowds without provocation or any lawful order to move, sometimes already having surrounded the demonstrators so they could not leave. These are clearly cases of assault by police that should have been prevented by requiring officers to follow proper police procedure. When officers do act this way, they should be disciplined administratively and prosecuted. These illegal actions by police are ultimately against their own interest. They inflame situations that should be calmed, giving officers more difficult work, while reducing the reputation of police. That increases distrust of police, reducing the civilian cooperation that law enforcement needs, and fuels calls to limit the police.

Much of the terribly improper police behavior that occurred in 2020 was the result of their militarization combined with a defensiveness at being publicly denounced. This is a situation that needs defusing with some community and political leaders undertaking dialogues with law enforcement on the large areas that exist of common ground and mutual interest. But the problem of improper crowd control is much older than the current polarization, and stems from a lack of proper procedure and sufficient training in too many instances. I first observed (and heard multiple first- hand reports about) a crowd control incident while a student at the University of Virginia, in 1960. What occurred is illuminating, from noting both the proper and improper things the police did on that occasion.

The incident arose in the Spring of 1960 as a result of students, almost all male, being angry about a University administration de- cision they thought unfair, with the institution's President already unpopular. The word spread that there would be a student protest that evening behind the building where I was attending an outing club meeting. Several hundred students showed up. Local police, supported by some state troopers, were correct to come to make sure that the gathering did not get out of hand. Since it was main- ly a spontaneous event, there was no meeting leadership to talk to, but some friendly police discussion with students might well have set a good tone. A police procedural and tactical mistake was having an officer with a riot gun standing alone at the edge of the crowd. Quite a number of students seeing the officer were upset at his being there with a major weapon. They soon surrounded him expressing their anger. He largely defused the situation, telling the students he was just there to see they had a good time, and they left him alone. But some bad feelings remained.

The gathering let off a lot of steam and broke up just as I was coming out of our meeting. My friend Bob went across the street to sit on the wall and enjoy the fine warm evening, while the rest of our party walked down the street to get a hamburger at the diner. As the crowd was surging across the area in front of the building, we saw some students, apparently still bothered about the armed police presence, pull the hat off a lone policeman's head and play frisbee with it, but soon gave it back without incident. Then, someone yelled, "Let's go in the nurse's dorm," across the way by the University hospital. When the noisy bunch of guys arrived, a dorm mother was at the door, and told them, "You are disturbing the patients, please go away," and they did. A clear communication was all it took. Up to this point, the police were quite correct to just observe.

Then, someone shouted, "let's march downtown." As my friends and I entered the diner, we observed the crowd move in that direction. A few minutes later we saw them come surging back, some entering the diner, with tear gas in the air. I am not sure exactly how the moment unfolded. The police appear to have been correct to have the students "keep the party on campus," especially as going downtown would have had a White crowd going through a Black neighborhood at a time, during the civil rights struggles, when the Charlottesville, VA schools were closed in an attempt to avoid being integrated. Given how easily the dorm mother had redirected the students at the nurses residence, it would have seemed that a clear friendly communication loud enough to be heard a ways back in the advancing line of students, with enough information to make the reason clear, plus some patience to repeat it to deal with a few students trying to push through, would have sent the crowd back to campus amiably. I would guess that did not happen, and the failure of police to establish some rapport with students at the beginning did not help.

What is clear is that many students were angry at being tear gassed and chased by police, with some arrested, when they were just peacefully walking. And the police did chase after them.

That led a fair number of the University youth to fight back against them. A couple of hours later, I heard one student arrive and say to a group of comrades, that the police were struggling with students over across campus, "let's go over there and join in giving them a rough time."

Earlier, Bob, still sitting on the wall across from the building where the initial event had taken place, had seen the crowd move toward downtown, and then come rushing back, some scattering, others passing him. Shortly, a pursing officer came up to him and told him to move. Bob asked, "Why, I've just been sitting here?" The officer clubbed Bob on the head, arrested him, claimed Bob was resisting arrest and tried to bite him. Fortunately, for Bob, several university officials and a local minister had just come out of the building after a meeting and saw what happened. Their testimony prevented Bob from being convicted.

How a Crowd Should Be Handled

Most of the time when there is a demonstration, officers should arrive in normal uniform and make it clear they are there to protect the rights of people to protest. Both before and during a mass event, police and event leaders should communicate with each other to prevent problems, and defuse them if they arise. If one or a few people act violently or destructively, officers should isolate them, seeking assistance from the peaceful people at the scene as appropriate, and avoid attacking the crowd in mass. If it is feared a protest or a large crowd may get out of hand, then a squad of fully equipped riot police can be kept nearby, but out of sight.

The regularly uniformed police by the demonstrators should try to deescalate any movement toward the situation getting violent or otherwise out of hand. If violence occurs on a sufficient scale so the police cannot make individual arrests, then the riot police can come to the scene while the regular officers can withdraw to put on riot gear and return if needed. But officers need to be trained to control their anger and not use force when not, or no longer, necessary, and to return a scene to calm as quickly as possible.

The Mutual Advantage of Body Cameras

Officers should be required to wear body cameras and have them turned on when engaged in policing.³² This is not only to help ensure that officers act properly, but to have sufficient evidence to obtain convictions. This has become important, because in numerous recent cases officers' statements about what happened at an event have been shown to be wrong from filming of the event and reliable witness statements. As a result many juries may not accept officers' testimony without such confirmation. It will be helpful if police personnel can come to see that such practices are helpful to them when they act properly.

It must be realized, however, that body cameras have both advan- tages and limitations. While they provide a perspective on events that can be useful to check on police behavior and collect evidence for court cases, they do not perceive exactly as the officer does. The camera usually sees things that the officer does not, and the of- ficer's perception most often extends beyond what the camera sees. Thus, what the camera shows must be interpreted according to the context of an event and be taken with other evidence. This is also true of human witnesses. No two people will see and understand an event in exactly the same way, and that needs to be taken into account when hearing their testimony.³³ That difference is both an advantage and disadvantage. On the one hand, the wearing of body cameras usually will not change ingrained behavior of an officer in the middle of an event, particularly if it requires quick decisions. In the moment, those are most often determined by training and other well imbedded habits. But body cameras have been shown to increase the likelihood that officers will follow proper proce- dure, and act respectfully toward people, thus reducing civilian complaints while increasing transparency. Moreover, having the second view of the camera and/or human witnesses can be most useful in after action reviews to improve officers' performance, sometimes leading to prescribing new or additional training.

Overall

The main thrust in police transformation should be toward community policing with officers working regularly in a small area collaborating with and problem-solving with community members. This should be proactive in preventing and solving problems, as well as reactive when an incident occurs. In large municipalities it is usually advisable to have the same officers regularly assigned to a reasonably small neighborhood precinct where they can establish and maintain familiarity and good working relations with the community. They can be supported by specialists, such as homicide and arson investigators, from a central office, who can be called in a needed. To the extent practical, it will be useful if at least some of the officers involved in community policing live in that community.

Team-work among police and community members, institutions and organizations should be ongoing, bringing in public and private social services as team partners as appropriate. For instance, if there is a problem with illegal drugs being sold to minors near a school. Police officers can meet with social workers, parents and teachers to dialogue on how best to solve the problem.

It should be noted, that while some work regularly undertaken by police officers can be turned over to social workers and other professionals, switching from patrol and respond to full community policing usually requires more police officers than were adequate for patrol and respond policing. That raises the financial costs, but the results are well worth it.

Police do not operate in a vacuum. Current problems in policing are largely amplified symptoms of imbalances in the larger society. To be fully successful, police transformation will have to be part of a larger socio-economic political transformation to a more just society, in which it can be an important aspect.

Achieving positive societal transformation requires extended and thoughtful effort. Since 2020, numerous pressures have come together that may be sufficient to begin the process. However, counter pressures have arisen amongst some people and groups fearing that police reform would undermine fighting crime and by police officers who have become defensive feeling themselves attacked. Events have caused people to build up strong emotions on both sides of the issues. But they need to step back enough to dialogue about what actually needs to be done in particular locations and circumstances. The following came to me on the occasion of the nationwide demonstrations against police killings and discriminatory action against people of color, and hearing that much of the violence and destruction of property that occurred was carried out or instigated by those who wished to undermine the protests.³⁴

Prayer for Getting to Peace 6/1/20

I pray that those doing violence and harm will stop,

That those inflaming the violence

And acting viciously and destructively

To undermine peaceful protestors

Will cease or be restrained.

Now that recent events have so magnified

The many imbalances and inequities

In our society

So that they are plain for all to see

May all of us open our eyes

That we may work together to correct the wrongs,

Turning justified anger into collaborative energy

For just social transformation

In our mutual interest,

With the long-term persistence

Of active patience

To continue to take the necessary steps

In the extended process

Of realizing an inclusive, balanced,

Harmonious society,

Recognizing our unity

In the strength of our diversity.

Notes

*This writing is the latest update of the paper, "Red Lives Matter: Transforming Policing by Indigenizing it," given at the American Indigenous Studies Section of the 2021 Western (now World) Social Science Association. It was first revised as a general study on improving policing for the benefit of both police and communities in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and the rise of Black Lives Matter. The current version has been revised to fit the 2025 public concerns about crime and policing.

¹The Guardian data base ("The Counted People Killed by the Police in the U.S. in 2016," accessed October 1, 2020, https:// www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the- counted-police-killings-us-database The Guardian.com) stated that in 2016 the rate of fatal police shootings per million was 10.13 for Native Americans, 6.6 for black people, 3.23 for Hispanics; 2.9 for white people and 1.17 for Asians, with 1093 people killed by the police. Frank Edwards, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito, "Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex," PNAS, August 20, 2019, indicated that from 2013-2018, American Indians were the second most likely people to be killed by police, following African Americans.

The magnitude of the problem of death at the hands of police, and its disproportionate impact of people of color was reflected in a New York Times study of police killings over a three week period in spring 2021. John Eligon and Shawn Hubler, "Throughout Trial Over George Floyd’s Death, Killings by Police Mount: Since testimony in Derek Chauvin’s trial began on March 29, more than three people a day have died at the hands of law enforcement," The New York Times, April 17, 2021, https://www.nytimes. com/2021/04/17/us/police-shootings-killings.html, reported that during the time of the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, "Since testimony began on March 29, at least 64 people have died at the hands of law enforcement nationwide, with Black and Latino people representing more than half of the dead. As of Saturday, the average was more than three killings a day.

The deaths, culled by The New York Times from gun violence databases, news media accounts and law enforcement releases, offer a snapshot of policing in America in this moment. They testify not only to the danger and desperation that police officers confront daily, but also to the split-second choices and missteps by members of law enforcement that can escalate workaday arrests into fatalities.

" A study published in The Lancet, in October 2021, shows that in addition to being racist in impact, killings by police in the United States are underreported, perhaps only half being included in national statistics, "Fatal police violence by race and state in the USA, 1980–2019: a network meta-regression." The Lancet, October 2, 2021, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/ article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01609-3/fulltext,

Summary

Background

The burden of fatal police violence is an urgent public health crisis in the USA. Mounting evidence shows that deaths at the hands of the police disproportionately impact people of certain races and ethnicities, pointing to systemic racism in policing. Recent high-profile killings by police in the USA have prompted calls for more extensive and public data reporting on police violence. This study examines the presence and extent of under-reporting of police violence in US Government-run vital registration data, offers a method for correcting under-reporting in these datasets, and presents revised estimates of deaths due to police violence in the USA."

Findings

Across all races and states in the USA, we estimate 30 800 deaths (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 30 300–31 300) from police violence between 1980 and 2018; this represents 17 100 more deaths (16 600–17 600) than reported by the NVSS. Over this time period, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was highest in non-Hispanic Black people (0·69 [95% UI 0·67– 0·71] per 100 000), followed by Hispanic people of any race (0·35 [0·34–0·36]), non-Hispanic White people (0·20 [0·19–0·20]), and non-Hispanic people of other races (0·15 [0·14– 0·16]). This variation is further affected by the decedent's sex and shows large discrepancies between states. Between 1980 and 2018, the NVSS did not report 55·5% (54·8–56·2) of all deaths attributable to police violence. When aggregating all races, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was 0·25 (0·24–0·26) per 100 000 in the 1980s and 0·34 (0·34–0·35) per 100 000 in the 2010s, an increase of 38·4% (32·4–45·1) over the period of study.

Interpretation

We found that more than half of all deaths due to police violence that we estimated in the USA from 1980 to 2018 were unreported in the NVSS. Compounding this, we found substantial differences in the age-standardized mortality rate due to police violence over time and by racial and ethnic groups within the USA. Proven public health intervention strategies are needed to address these systematic biases. State-level estimates allow for appropriate targeting of these strategies to address police violence and improve its reporting."

It should be noted that as of mid-April 2021, since the police killing of George Floyd, a large number of jurisdictions in the United States have enacted police reform measures. It is important to ask how adequate they are. It is hoped that this paper may assist in such an analysis. On what has unfolded to this point see, Steve Eder, Michael H. Keller and Blacki Migliozzi, "As New Police Reform Laws Sweep Across the U.S., Some Ask: Are They Enough? States have passed over 140 police oversight bills since the killing of George Floyd, increasing accountability and overhauling rules on the use of force. But the calls for change continue," The New York Times April 18, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/18/ us/police-reform-bills.html, reported, "Over 30 states have passed more than 140 new police oversight and reform laws, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Amber Widgery, a policy expert at the organization, said many of the laws — restricting the use of force, overhauling disciplinary systems, installing more civilian oversight and requiring transparency around misconduct cases — give states far more influence over policing practices that have typically been left to local jurisdictions."

In line with numerous other jurisdictions in the U.S. reducing police presence in schools, in February 2015, Los Angeles moved to reduce police in its schools by one-third ("Los Angeles School District Cuts a Third of Police Officers," The New York Times, March 23, 2021). Attempts to have the U.S. Congress legislate police reform had not advanced as of September 22, 2021, with lawmakers involved in a bipartisan effort to reach a compromise on the contents of a police reform bill saying that their attempt had failed (Catie Edmonson, "Negotiation On Reform for Policing Has Failed," The New York Times, September 23, 2021).

²by Kevin Abourezk, "They’re killing us’: Urban Indian community caught at center of police brutality firestorm," Lakota Times (republished from IndianZ.com), June 4, 2020, https:// www.lakotatimes.com/articles/theyre-killing-us-urban-indian- community-caught-at-center-of-police-brutality-firestorm/.

³Ibid.

⁴For example, see, Tamar Lapin, "Minneapolis City Council announces plans to disband police department," The New York Post, June 7, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/06/07/minneapolis- city-council-plans-to-disband-the-police-department/.

⁵Rachel Abrams, "Police Clear Seattle’s Protest ‘Autonomous Zone’: The so-called Capitol Hill Organized Protest area was taken over by protesters after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. It was the site of at least four shootings last month." The New York Times, July 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/us/ seattle-protest-zone-CHOP-CHAZ-unrest.html.

⁶John Eligon, "Distrust of the Minneapolis Police, and Also the Effort to Defund Them: Residents on Minneapolis’s North Side, which has a majority Black population, have mixed opinions on the City Council’s effort to significantly reduce the police force," The New York Times, August 4, 2020, https://www.nytimes. com/2020/08/04/us/minneapolis-defund-police.html. Another area of Seattle suffered problems, as well, when police were absent in a neighborhood where anti-police protests were taking place. Among the injuries in the absence of police were the looting and burning of businesses, as well as the harassing of customers, by rampaging groups of men, who witnesses said were right wing militia attempting to inflame violence and discredit the protesters (Nellie Bowles, "Abolish the Police? Those Who Survived the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure: What is it like when a city abandons a neighborhood and the police vanish? Business owners describe a harrowing experience of calling for help and being left all alone," The New York Times, August 7, 2020, https:// www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/defund-police-seattle-protests. html; and The Shalom Report, Theshalomcenter.org, reported by E-mail, June 1, 2020, "Two Reports: Right—wing fascists doing arson in Minneapolis,"

⁷See, Joseph Goldstein and Kevin Armstrong, "Could This City Hold the Key to the Future of Policing in America? As protesters across the country call for police departments to be defunded and dismantled, Camden’s experience offers some lessons," The New York Times, July 12, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/12/ nyregion/camden-police.html?searchResultPosition=1, reported, "As officials across the United States face demands to transform policing, many have turned to a small New Jersey city that did what some activists are calling for elsewhere: dismantled its police force and built a new one that stresses a less confrontational approach toward residents who are mostly Black and Latino." See also, "New Police Force From Scratch: N.J. City Proves It's Possible To Reform The Police," NPR on All Things Considered, June 8, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872470135/new- police-force-from-scratch-n-j-city-proves-its-possible-to-reform- the-police; Sarah Holder, "The City That Remade Its Police Department: Camden, N.J.’s detailed rules on use of force are a model for reform but not a panacea.." Bloomberg News, June 4, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/ how-camden-new-jersey-reformed-its-police-; Stephen Eide, "Camden, NJ, did police reform right — not that radicals will pay attention," The New York Post, June 9, 2020, https://nypost. com/2020/06/09/camden-nj-did-police-reform-right-not-that- radicals-will-pay-attention/; and Kate Sheehy, "What happened after Camden, NJ disbanded its police department," The New York Post, June 9, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/06/09/what- happened-after-camden-nj-disbanded-its-police-department/.

⁸On the militarization of the police and its consequences, see for example, Casey Delehanty, Jack Mewhirter, Ryan Welch, and Jason Wilks, "Militarization and police violence: The case of the 10311033 program," Research and Politics, June 14, 29017 https://doi.or/10.1177/205316807712885; Jonathan Mummolo, "Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation," PNAS, September 11, 2018 115 (37) 9181-9186; first published August 20, 2018, https:// doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805161115; and Peter B. Kraska, ed., Militarizing the American Criminal Justice System: The Changing Roles of the Armed Forces and Police (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2001).

On the problem of centralized hierarchical policing often being ineffective in low income, high crime neighborhoods because of mutual distrust between police and community members, See Stephen M. Sachs, Donna K. Dial, Christina A. Clamp, Amy Fatzinger, Phyllis M. Gagnier, Honoring the Circle: Ongoing Learning from American Indians on Politics and Society, Volume III, What Would Be Good to Continue Learning from Indigenous Peoples in Politics and Economics (Cardiff, CA: Waterside Productions, 2020), chap. V, 91-95.

⁹This is equally true of international peacekeeping efforts as it is in domestic policing. For a good example of how a switch from a respond and patrol policing approach to one of community policing changed the effectiveness of policing and the quality of life in a community outside the United States, see Stephen M. Sachs, "Los Angeles and Somalia: Community Service Policing and Community Empowerment," The COPRED Peace Chronicle, Vl. 1994. Reprinted from Nonviolent Change, VIII, 2-3, Winter- Spring 1994.

¹⁰Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution (New York: St. Martin’s, 1975), chap. 8.

¹¹Stephen M. Sachs, “Los Angeles and Somalia.” The information about this case was obtained in interviews conducted by Stephen M. Sachs.

¹²Veronica Coleman, Walter C. Holton Jr., Kristine Olson, Stephen C. Robinson, and Judith Stewart, “Using Knowledge and Teamwork to Reduce Crime,” National Institute of Justice Journal 88 (October 1999).

¹³Gary Shapiro, “The Neighborhood Facilitators Project in Bosnia Post-War Community Peacebuilding, from the Bottom Up, Excerpts from the Executive Summary,” pt. 1, Nonviolent Change XIII, 3 (1999): 17–20; pt. 2, Nonviolent Change XIV, 1 (1999): 17.

¹⁴Note that "auxiliary police," can also be part time or reserve police officers, who when deployed may be armed. We are concerned here with those police auxiliaries who are civilian volunteers. For a transnational overview, see "Auxiliary Police," Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, August 5, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Auxiliary police. On volunteer auxiliary police in the U.S., see, for example, "Auxiliary Police Officer," NYPD, 2020, https:// www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/human-resources-info/auxiliary- police.page; "The Hazel Park Auxiliary Police Unit," City of Hazel Park Michigan Police Unit, 2007-2008, https://web.archive.org/ web/20100128200321/http://www.hazelparkpd.us/community_ policing/citizen_volunteers.html.

Problems often arise when auxiliary police are un or minimally trained armed civilians. For example, Jared Rutecki and Brett McNeil, "Auxiliary Officers Pose Risks in Illinois Towns: Armed with guns and badges but little training, civilian officers provide a less-expensive alternative for law enforcement agencies. But problems at some local departments help illustrate a controversial issue shaded by nepotism, politics and questionable policing, BGA: Better Government Association, Illinois Nonpartisan Full Service Watchdog, April 17, 2019, https://www.bettergov.org/ news/auxiliary-officers-pose-risks-in-illinois-towns/.

¹⁵"National Neighborhood Watch: A Division of The National Sheriffs' Association, Crime Prevention Through Neighborhood Cohesiveness and Collaboration," The National Sheriffs' Association, 2020, https://www.nnw.org and "Neighborhood Watch Manual USAonWatch - National Neighborhood Watch Program," Bureau of Justice Assistance U.S. Department of Justice, 2005, https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/ Publications/NSA_NW_Manual.pdf.

¹⁶David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, from Schoolhouse to Statehouse, City Hall to the Pentagon (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1992), chap. 9.

¹⁷University of Foreign Military And Cultural Studies, Red Team Handbook (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Author, April 2012), https:// www.act.nato.int/images/stories/events/2011/cde/rr_ufmcs. pdf; Caroline E. Zsambok, Advanced Team Decision Making: A Model and Training Implications, ARI Research Note 95-02 (Fairborn, OH: Klein, 1994) [for the US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences]; Gerald F. Goodwin and Nikki Blacksmith, Meredith R. Coats, "The Science of Teams in the Military: Contributions From Over 60 Years of Research," American Psychologist, 2018, Vol. 73, No. 4, 322–333 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000259.

There is a good fictional description of an analytical decision- making process by a U.S. navy unit in World War II, showing the benefits of participatory group problem solving for improving unit functioning, effectiveness, cohesiveness, and moral (or quality of work life) in P.T. Deutermann, The Hooligans (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2020), chap 11.

¹⁸Stephen M. Sachs, "Expanding the Circle: Developing an American Indian Political Theory for Living Well in the Twenty-First Century," in "Proceedings of The Western Social Science Association 2014 American Indian Studies Section Meeting," in Indigenous Policy, XXV, 2, Fall 2014, http://www. indigenouspolicy.org. An updated and edited version of this paper is in Sachs, Dial, Clamp, Gagnier and Fatzinger, Honoring the Circle, Volume III, chap. 5.

¹⁹For example, see the discussion of restorative justice in Sachs, Dial, Clamp, Gagnier and Fatzinger, Honoring the Circle, Volume III, chap. 5, which contains many further references on restorative justice.

Concerning having police officers intervene to correct improper behavior, George Town Law runs such a training program, Project ABLE (Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement). See, "Georgetown Law’s Innovative Policing Program Launches Project ABLE to Help Police Departments Build a Culture of Active Bystandership," Georgetown Law, July 8, 2020, https:// www.law.georgetown.edu/news/georgetown-laws-innovative- policing-program-launches-project-able/.

²⁰Charles D. Hayes, "Good Cop, Bad Cop," Nonviolent Change, fall 2020, XXXIX, 1, fall 2020, www.nonviolentchangejournal. org, and Blue Bias: An Ex-Cop Turned Philosopher Examines the Learning and Resolve Necessary to End Hidden Prejudice in Policing (Wasilla, AK: Autodidactic Press, 2020).

²¹Kimberly Kindy, Kevin Schaul and Ted Mellnik, "Half of the nation’s largest police departments have banned or limited neck restraints since June: 62% now explicitly prohibit both carotid holds and chokeholds in their use-of-force policies, according to a Post survey," Washington Post, September 6, 2020, reported, "At least 32 of the nation’s 65 largest police departments have banned or strengthened restrictions on the use of neck restraints since the Memorial Day death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer held his knee to Floyd’s neck for more than seven minutes, a Washington Post analysis shows.

The changes come against the backdrop of a national reckoning around race and policing, and are part of an effort to reassure stressed communities as protests continue across the nation."

Concerning no-knock warrants and the Breonna Taylor case, see, Dylan Lovan, Michael Kunzelman and Adrian Sainz, "Deadly police raid fuels call to end ‘no knock’ warrants," AP News, June 1, 2020, https://apnews.com/article/a67df4764f2acc50dcef7bc32506b719.

Various jurisdictions have been making a variety of policing reforms. Particularly comprehensive has been the action, April 10, 2021, of the Maryland legislature. Michael Levenson and Bryan Pietsch, "Maryland Passes Sweeping Police Reform Legislation: The measures, enacted over the objections of Gov. Larry Hogan, placed the state at the forefront of a national debate over police brutality and officers’ excessive use of force," The New York Times, April 10, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/us/ maryland-police-reform.html, reported, "Maryland lawmakers voted on Saturday to limit police officers’ use of force, restrict the use of no-knock warrants and repeal the nation’s first Bill of Rights for law enforcement, taking sweeping action to address police violence after nationwide demonstrations following the death of George Floyd."

Provisions in the Police Reform Statute Include:

A new statewide use-of-force policy with the standard, force must be “necessary and proportional,” in contrast to the traditional “reasonableness” standard that has been ineffective in holding officers responsible for clear cases of unwarranted police violence. The standard limits the police use of force to prevent “an imminent threat of physical injury” to a person or to “effectuate a legitimate law enforcement objective.” An officer who violates those standards, causing serious injury or death, can be convicted and sent to prison for up to 10 years.

Law enforcement agencies across Maryland are required to establish a system to identify police officers who are considered likely to use excessive force and to retrain, counsel or, if necessary, reassign them.

Maryland’s Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights was repealed, which gave every officer in the state the right to appeal discipline decisions to a local board, regardless of a municipality’s wishes. At the same time, every county now is required to have a police accountability board to receive complaints of misconduct from the public.

Administrative charging committees that review the findings of law enforcement agencies and recommend discipline for officers now must include citizen unput. Police chiefs will not be able to issue more lenient disciplinary actions than the level recommended by those panels.

The use of “no-knock” warrants was limited.

All law enforcement officers who regularly interact with the public must wear body cameras, by 2025. Officers are prohibited from preventing people from recording them, as long as that person is “acting lawfully and safely.”

Other aspects of the legislation give police officers whistle-blower protections and permit them to engage in off-duty political activity. Officers now have the right to work at second jobs. Loan assistance and scholarship programs were established for officers attending college, while prior marijuana use will not be a disqualification for hiring.

²²Some argue that qualified immunity for police should be revoked. Colin Doyle, "Want To Reform The Police? Get Rid Of Qualified Immunity," Cognoscenti, July 28, 2020, https://www.wbur.org/ cognoscenti/2020/07/28/protests-police-immunity-colin-doyle. But revoking it entirely may be going too far. Currently, as the concept is interpreted, in a great many cases it is almost impossible to prosecute what is clearly illegal action by a police officer. But some reasonable protection is needed to keep police from being held personally criminal responsible for actions that turn out to have bad results, but were the result of following police orders or policy that are not clearly illegal, even if unwise. A better approach may be to reduce the scope of police qualified immunity to an appropriate level so that officers who clearly violate the law, where a reasonable officer should know that is the case, can be prosecuted, while leaving enough protection to prevent officers from being prevented from, or unduly burdened, in doing their job. An example of an attempt at reducing police qualified immunity is discussed in, Jordain Carney "GOP senator to offer measure changing qualified immunity for police," The Hill, June 17, 2020, https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/503195-gop- senator-to-offer-measure-changing-qualified-immunity-for-police. Other proposals to reduce qualified police immunity might also be considered.

Several jurisdictions had begun limiting or repealing qualified immunity as of late March 2021. Jeffery C. Mays and Ashley Southall, "It May Soon Be Easier to Sue the N.Y.P.D. for Misconduct: A year after nationwide protests against police brutality, the City Council passed a bill limiting qualified immunity, a longstanding legal protection officers had against lawsuits," The New York Times, March 25, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/nyregion/ nyc-qualified-immunity-police-reform.html, reported, "A year after nationwide protests against police brutality ignited calls for reform, the New York City Council passed legislation on Thursday aimed at reining in police misconduct by making it far easier to sue officers for conducting illegal searches or using excessive force."

"With the council’s vote, New York City becomes the largest jurisdiction to limit the ability of officers to invoke the defense, joining the states of Colorado and Connecticut. Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference on Thursday that he supported the legislation, suggesting he would not veto it." Other jurisdictions were considering such action.

²³The Editorial Board, "To Hold Police Accountable, Ax the Arbitrators: Communities should have the power to fire abusive officers. But that power often rests with an obscure group of unelected labor arbitrators," The New York Times, October 3, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/opinion/sunday/police- arbitration-reform-unions.html.

²⁴Rukmini Callimachi, "9 Departments and Multiple Infractions for One New Jersey Police Officer: With no licenses that can be revoked and no database tracking their misconduct, officers in New Jersey are able to jump from agency to agency, even after they are fired," The New York Times, June 24, 2020, https://www. nytimes.com/2020/06/24/nyregion/new-jersey-police.html.

²⁵William Finnegan, "How Police Unions Fight Reform: Activists insist that police departments must change. For half a century, New York City’s P.B.A. has successfully resisted such demands, The New Yorker, July 27, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/ magazine/2020/08/03/how-police-unions-fight-reform; and Noam Scheiber, Farah Stockman and J. David Goodman, How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts: Half a decade after a spate of officer-involved deaths inspired widespread protest, many police unions are digging in to defend members," The New York Times, June 20, 2020, https://www. nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapolis-kroll. html.

Concerning signs of shifting police union attitudes, The New York Times reported that in response to public pressure bringing numerous governing bodies across the U.S., national police union leader Ron DeLord, who led police unions to gain power, now thinks that the limits of police union power have been reached, and some compromise is now necessary. There are numerous triggering events, Michael H. Keller and Kim Barke, "Police Unions Won Power Using His Playbook. Now He’s Negotiating the Backlash: As officer perks and protections draw new scrutiny, an architect of longtime police bargaining tactics says unions are at risk of losing it all," The New York Times," March 10, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/us/police-unions. html, reported, "Since the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police last May set off protests nationwide, 27 states and Washington, D.C., have adopted new police oversight and reform laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Officials in Boston, Los Angeles and other cities agreed to limit police spending. In November, voters overwhelmingly approved 17 ballot measures in six states to rein in police officers."

²⁶Proper hiring of police officers has been a concern in a number of cases. For example, it was one of the issues in the complaints against the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) that was one of the areas dealt with in department's reform agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice ("Justice Department Reaches Agreement with the City of Albuquerque to Implement Sweeping Reforms On Use of Force By the Albuquerque Police Department," U.S. Department of Justice, October 31, 2014, https://www.justice.gov/ opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-agreement-city-albuquerque- implement-sweeping-reforms-use-force). In a discussion with Stephen Sachs, a community activist complained that APD made a mistake in hiring former military personnel and some people who had been police officers elsewhere who were not community friendly and too oriented toward use of force.

²⁷"An Integrated Approach to De-Escalation and Minimizing Use of Force," Critical Issues In Policing Series, Police Executive Research Forum," August 2012, https://www.policeforum. org/assets/docs/Critical_Issues_Series/an%20integrated%20 approach%20to%20de-escalation%20and%20minimizing%20 use%20of%20force%202012.pdf; Nichole Gibson "Video shows need for police de-escalation training," Spokesman Review, November 10, 2019, https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/ nov/10/nichole-gibson-video-shows-need-for-police-de-esca/; and Curtis Gilbert, "Not Trained to Not Kill: Most states neglect ordering police to learn de-escalation tactics to avoid shooting: In 34 states, training decisions are left to local agencies. Most, though, conduct no, or very little, de-escalation training. Chiefs cite cost, lack of staff, and a belief that the training isn't needed," APM Reports, May 5, 2017, https://www.apmreports.org/ story/2017/05/05/police-de-escalation-training.

²⁸"Albuquerque Community Safety Department: Information about the Albuquerque Community Safety (ACS) Department," City of Albuquerque, 2020, https://www.cabq.gov/acs. On Minneapolis, see, Jenny Gross and John Eligon, "Minneapolis City Council Votes to Remove $8 Million From Police Budget: The move comes as the city grapples with efforts to overhaul the department after the police killing of George Floyd," The New York Times, December 10, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/us/ minneapolis-police-funding.htm.

²⁹Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000) contains an excellent discussion of how to deal with the problem of drugs. See also, "Four Decades and Counting: The Continued Failure of the War on Drugs," Policy Analysis No. 811, Cato Institute, April 12, 2017, https://www.cato.org/ publications/policy-analysis/four-decades-counting-continued- failure-war-drugs; and Betsy Pearl, "Ending the War on Drugs: By the Numbers," Center for American Progress, June 27, 2018, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/ reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war-drugs-numbers/.

³⁰David A. Klinger, Jeff Rojek. "Multi-Method Study Of Special Weapons and Tactics Teams," NCJRS, August 2008, https://www. ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/223855.pdf, a report funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, states that it was undertaken because very little study had been made of police employment of SWATT teams as of 2008. The researchers were only able to study a limited number of SWATT teams. They reported that those they studied underwent extensive training for the special incidents for which they were intended to be deployed, and that the training included restraint on the use of deadly force to be used only when necessary, deescalating dangerous situations when possible. Those teams were reportedly only deployed when it appeared necessary, acted consistently with their training and only fired weapons a limited number of times when the situation wanted their opening fire. They have appeared to have had appropriate training and proper limitation of their role. This should be the norm. A manual for SWATT teams has been published, the latest edition of which is, "Tactical Response and Operations Standard for Law Enforcement Agencies," National Tactical Officers Association, April 2018, https://ntoa.org/pdf/swatstandards.pdf.

There are reports, however, that continuing police militarization has included an extensive and growing number of inappropriate applications of SWATT by police Departments in the U.S. "This is how SWAT teams are overused in America — with dangerous results," Rare, December 21, 2016, reported, "Police use of SWAT teams in non-emergency situations has been on the rise for years, with troubling implications. As I’ve written here and at The Week ("The troubling rise of SWAT teams," https://theweek.com/ articles/531458/troubling-rise-swat-teams), SWAT teams were originally conceived of as a way to deal with extremely dangerous confrontations with violent criminals. Today, they’re used for stuff like killing backyard chickens, capturing Twitter trolls and shutting down unlicensed barber shops.

All told, more than 80,000 SWAT raids are conducted nationwide each year, mostly to fight the failed war on drugs and frequently in low-risk situations where military-level force is blatantly unnecessary. This is all happening as the official need for SWAT continues to shrink: Violent crime is way down and only 7 percent of SWAT team raids occur in the dangerous contexts where the use of such force actually make sense."

Similarly, Erik Kain, "The Overuse of S.W.A.T. Teams," Forbes, June 20, 2011, https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/06/20/ the-overuse-of-s-w-a-t-teams/#7fc63217dc86, reported, "The point really isn’t that SWAT teams have no role to play in law enforcement. The problem is that their mission has expanded to serving warrants for non-violent offenders or deploying tanks to raid people suspected of raising chickens. Meanwhile police firepower has grown exponentially even while SWAT officers receive less and less specialized training. The problem isn’t that we have SWAT teams to begin with, it’s that they are overused, carelessly deployed, and poorly trained."

³¹For example, see, POST Guidelines — Crowd Management, Intervention, and Control, California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, March 2012, http://www2. oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/police/documents/webcontent/ oak034615.pdf; Sacramento Police Department Crowd & Riot Control Manual, December 1998, https://www.cityofsacramento. org/-/media/Corporate/Files/Police/Transparency/RMs/RM- 53211-Crowd-and-Riot-as-of-1298.pdf?la=en;

But police too often act improperly in dealing with crowds. This has increased with militarization, and in the face of anti- police protests, in too many instances, officers have not acted professionally, but have attacked protestors, committing assaults as they violate the right of free expression they are supposed to be protecting. For example, during the protests following the police killing of George Floyd, in May 2020, Shaila Dewan and Mike Baker, "Facing Protests Over Use of Force, Police Respond With More Force:

Videos showed officers using batons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on protesters and bystanders," The New York Times, June 2, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/ us/police-tactics-floyd-protests.html, reported, "Demonstrations continued across the United States on Sunday as the nation braced for another grueling night of unrest over police shootings and the death of George Floyd, amid growing concern that aggressive law enforcement tactics intended to impose order were instead inflaming tensions. Videos showed police officers in recent nights using batons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on protesters, bystanders and journalists, often without warning or seemingly unprovoked. The footage, which has been shared widely online, highlighted the very complaints over police behavior that have drawn protests in at least 75 cities across the United States."

Examples of the police rioting included: officers in riot gear shoved a man with a cane to the ground in Salt Lake City; Two police S.U.V.s drove into a large group of protesters in Brooklyn; In Minneapolis a video appeared to depict officers shouting at residents on their porches to get inside, followed by firing paint canisters at them, as on officer said, "Light them up" while police enforcing a curfew in Atlanta stopped two college students in a vehicle, fired Tasers at them, and dragged them out of the car.

And Again in July 2020, Allison McCann, Blacki Migliozzi, Andy Newman, Larry Buchanan and Aaron Byrd, "N.Y.P.D. Says It Used Restraint During Protests. Here’s What the Videos Show," The New York Times, July 14, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/ interactive/2020/07/14/nyregion/nypd-george-floyd-protests. html, reported on police misconduct during and after peaceful demonstrations in New York City. In one instance, an officer first pushed a protestor so hard she fell backward on the ground, then shoved a bicyclist, followed by body-slamming another person to the street. In another episode, a group of officers chased down an individual who, when he fell, they beat with batons. A white- shirted more senior officer then rushed in, stepping on the downed person's neck. "All of it was caught on video. In fact, the New York Times found more than 60 videos that show the police using force on protesters during the first 10 days of demonstrations in the city after the death of George Floyd.

A review of the videos, shot by protesters and journalists, suggests that many of the police attacks, often led by high-ranking officers, were not warranted." Many of those videos are available on the website of this article.

Moreover, an 111-page report by the New York City Department of Investigation, reviewing the New York City Police Departments handling of the George Floyd demonstrations over the summer of 2020, found that the “excessive enforcement,” partially described above and below, only heightened tensions with demonstrators. The report concluded that police were unprepared, improperly trained, and employed inappropriate and overly aggressive tactics that in many instances violated First Amendment rights (Ali Watkins, "An Unprepared N.Y.P.D. Badly Mishandled Floyd Protests, Watchdog Says: “I look back with remorse,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said after a city oversight agency found the department’s tactics “produced excessive enforcement," The New York Times, December 18, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/nyregion/nypd-george- floyd-protests.html).

One example of police surrounding protestors, 'kettling," so they could not leave, and in this case attacking and arresting them, rather than dispersing them is discussed in, "After Curfew, Protesters Are Again Met With Strong Police Response in New York City: Officers were forceful in dispersing demonstrators who stayed out past curfew in the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn," The New York Times, July 17, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/ nyregion/nyc-protests-george-floyd.html. In this instance one could argue that since the protestors were illegally out after curfew, the police had the authority to kettle them, so they could cite all them for curfew violation. But officers were clearly acting criminally in attacking peaceful people. There are numerous instances over many years of protesters having been ordered to leave the scene, being blocked by police from doing so, and then being arrested for refusing to obey the order. That is clearly entrapment.

Similar problems were reported in Los Angeles, Nicholas Bogel- Burroughs, John Eligon and Will Wright, "Floyd Protests, Report Finds: An independent report commissioned by the Los Angeles City Council faulted the department for its lack of planning and chaotic response," The New York Times, March 11, 2021, https:// www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/lapd-george-floyd-protests. html, reported, "The Los Angeles Police Department severely mishandled protests last summer in the wake of George Floyd’s death, illegally detaining protesters, issuing conflicting orders to its rank-and-file officers and striking people who had committed no crimes with rubber bullets, bean bags and batons, according to a scathing report released on Thursday."

A report cited by The New York Times in March 2021 (Some of the surveyed reports are: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/ newyork-policing-DOI/e209aaff5e65fda8/full.pdf; https:// int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/los-angeles-report-on- floyd-2/1bcecda5846437f4/full.pdf; https://int.nyt.com/data/ documenttools/chicago-pd/49904aa3e73b9ea0/full.pdf) shows how wide spread the problem was. Kim Barker, Mike Baker and Ali Watkins, "In City After City, Police Mishandled Black Lives Matter Protests: Inquiries into law enforcement’s handling of the George Floyd protests last summer found insufficient training and militarized responses — a widespread failure in policing nationwide,” The New York Times, March 20, 2021, https://www. nytimes.com/2021/03/20/us/protests-policing-george-floyd. html, reported, including details not included here, "For many long weeks last summer, protesters in American cities faced off against their own police forces in what proved to be, for major law enforcement agencies across the country, a startling display of violence and disarray.

In Philadelphia, police sprayed tear gas on a crowd of mainly peaceful protesters trapped on an interstate who had nowhere to go and no way to breathe. In Chicago, officers were given arrest kits so old that the plastic handcuffs were decayed or broken. Los Angeles officers were issued highly technical foam-projectile launchers for crowd control, but many of them had only two hours of training; one of the projectiles bloodied the eye of a homeless man in a wheelchair. Nationally, at least eight people were blinded after being hit with police projectiles."

A report reviewing more than a dozen after action reports of police operations at post-George Floyd demonstrations found that, "In city after city, the reports are a damning indictment of police forces that were poorly trained, heavily militarized and stunningly unprepared for the possibility that large numbers of people would surge into the streets, moved by the graphic images of Mr. Floyd’s death under a police officer’s knee."

And the problem continues to be general, not just in anti-police protests. For instance, in late March 2021, police in Miami Beach, FL enforced a curfew against thousands of largely peaceful partiers on a beach with a first action, "a military-style armored vehicle and police officers in riot gear moved down Ocean Drive, blaring sound cannons and firing pepper balls to disperse the crowds and enforce the newly declared curfew" (Michael Majchrowicz and Audra D. S. Burch, Miami Beach Opened Up and the Revelers Flocked In. Then Came the Crackdown. After the city struggled to contain large crowds with its police force, Black leaders questioned the tactics," The New York Times, March 24, 2021, https://www. nytimes.com/2021/03/24/us/miami-covid-19-spring-break.html).

³²"Police Body Cameras: Top 3 Pros and Cons," ProCon. org, 8/14/2020, https://www.procon.org/headlines/police-body- cameras-top-3-pros-and-cons/; Jessica Macari, "Body-Worn Cameras: Concerns and Considerations," Bureau of Justice Assistance, April 2015, https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/ files/media/document/north-carolina-district-attorneys_best- practices-committee_body-worn-cameras-concerns-and- considerations.pdf; Connect US Editor in Chief, "18 Major Pros and Cons of Police Body Cameras," Connect US October 16, 2019, https://connectusfund.org/18-major-pros-and-cons-of-police- body-cameras; and Ashley Southall, "Police Body Cameras Cited as ‘Powerful Tool’ Against Stop-and-Frisk Abuses: City police officers who were assigned body cameras documented more stops than officers who did not wear the devices during a yearlong pilot program," The New York Times, November 30, 2020, https://www. nytimes.com/2020/11/30/nyregion/nypd-body-cameras.html.

³³People perceive the world through the lens of their experience. Because everyone's experience is unique, perceptions will vary. A brief discussion of this is in, "Why Two People See the Same Thing but Have Different Memories," NeuroscienceNews.com, January 1, 2019, https://neurosciencenews.com/same-event- different-memory-10405/.

³⁴In some protests, provocateurs wishing to discredit the protest or to escalate the violence, and non-protestors at the scene wishing to commit illegal acts, which have included theft, arson and murder, are a major problem. Protestors should, and often have, attempt to restrain such law breakers, when possible. Police should collaborate with protestors to restrain and arrest the lawbreakers. Law enforcement should not attack or arrest peaceful protestors in such circumstances. If the situation becomes serious enough officers, might ask the crowd to move or disperse, at least until the dangerous or illegal activity can be stopped. At times, including recently, counter protestors arrive at demonstrations. To keep the peace, it is often best for police to keep the opposing groups separated, allowing each to express its views.

Some recent examples of non-protestors coming to the scene of a demonstration to carry out illegal acts are: The Shalom Report, Theshalomcenter.org, reported by E-mail, June 1, 2020, "Two Reports: Right—wing fascists doing arson in Minneapolis," "First: An eyewitness report from trusted synagogue member in Mpls; Second: a journalist's report

By a Synagogue Member Eyewitness in Minneapolis:

On Friday EVERY BUSINESS on Lake Street and adjoining commercial districts, was boarded up.

Many sprays painted murals on the plywood - let folks know they were a local or minority owned business. Essential businesses.

Last night was by far the worst night. Protests during the day were peaceful. There was an 8:00pm curfew. Everything changed when the sun went down. There are roving and highly organized bands of anti-government neo-Nazi white men cruising the city, breaking off plywood, looting stores, and then setting fire to the buildings.

On the Northside, which is predominately African American, the situation was much the same. Local civic groups were trying to protect local businesses and homes. there were many fires. The violence and destruction are NOT being driven by local people. The cars on the streets have either removed their license plates, or have out of state plates.

Here is a post from a neighbor, 'Everybody! We need to get our heads around what’s happening, Mpls and St Paul are being attacked by fascist 'accelerationist' white crazies. Trying to divide & destroy us.'

Accelerationism: the idea inspiring white supremacist killers around the world -Vox"

Expect these same types to infiltrate all of the legitimate protests happening in other cities in America. We are fighting an enemy within.

These 'accelerationists' burned down the 5th Police Precinct, our post office, every pharmacy. The Walgreens and CVS within a few blocks of our house are still burning this morning. The grocery stores were all hit. Every bank has been hit. Every liquor store, every gas station. They have guns and accelerants.

When National Guard show up, they disappear into the neighborhoods and have been setting fires. It is a violent game of arsonist wack-a-mole. There is no longer any firefighting service available - overwhelmed. So, neighbors are using garden hoses to put out the fires and save homes. Pictures neighbors are sharing - these are young white men, heavily armed.

According to authorities there are over 10,000 of these 'accelerationists' in the city. St. Paul arrested over 50 people last night. ALL OF THEM were from out of state. The authorities are checking phones of the people they have arrested, doing contact tracing of sorts on these people. These people are connected to right wing militia style groups with a civil/race war fantasy. They are opportunistically using the legitimate, peaceful George Floyd protests as a cover to actualize their neo-Nazi fever dream.

Gov. Walz just said, 'If you know where these people are sleeping today, let us know and we will execute warrants.' Xxxxx and I were helping the owner of a commercial building up the street - a friend, and two of these guys came up to us. Wanted to know where the free food was being distributed. He gave them an address that was three blocks away. Had no idea what we were talking about - not from here.

[Xxxxx], the girls and I are fine and safe. Exhausted. Angry. We have not really slept in three days. Everyone in Minneapolis/St. Paul is the same.

So, what to do? Our neighborhood group is meeting at the park this afternoon. I think that they will organize our neighborhood watch to patrol, try to spot fires and get them out ASAP.

Major protests are planned for today. They want the other three police officers involved in George Floyd's murder arrested, they want the MN Attorney General, not the Hennepin County Attorney to manage the case. They want the MPD disbanded and reformed with many alternative public safety and law enforcement strategies used. But the legitimate protests will end at 8:00 pm.

The Gov. and the mayor are calling in thousands more National Guard Troops. We already had more National Guard troops in the city than ever before. They are doing a good job but were overwhelmed last night by sheer numbers. Gov. Walz is the highest ranking soldier to have ever served in Congress and led the National Guard - 347. He clearly sees this for what it is and will fight it. This is now a military operation by the State of Minnesota against alt-right, white nationalists and anarchists that have come into Minneapolis to use the protests against police brutality as cover for their death fantasy.

They are trying to force authorities to use deadly force and 'accelerate' the violence.

It is dark friends.

The other side - this morning the neighborhood is out in force helping with the clean up, re-securing businesses. Massive food distribution at community centers. People taking in neighbors whose homes were destroyed or whose neighborhood was so impacted that it is no longer habitable. Allie was in contact with students, many of whom are refugees from war torn countries, that were hearing explosions and fire and sirens - they were calling her to make sure she was okay.

Today I will garden. My flowers are starting to really come into bloom. Vegetables coming in strong. New raised bed being built. Eat some good food. Feel grateful. Train our new puppy Ruth, who is just a pip. Take her to the lake and give her a swimming lesson. Then I'll take a nap. I think tonight will be a long one."

*** ***

'Far-Right Extremists Are Hoping to Turn the George Floyd Protests Into a New Civil War armed extremists are showing up to protests and urging a 'boogaloo' —code for civil war — online, by Tess Owen, May 29, 2020, 5:57 pm, Far-right extremists are showing up, with guns, to the protests against police brutality that have exploded across the country.

Others are egging on the violence from behind their computers, urging followers to carry out acts of violence against black protesters with the goal of sparking a 'race war.'

Their presence makes an uneasy addition to the escalating unrest, which was triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who was choked to death by a white Minneapolis police officer earlier this week.

But there’s a range of motivations that’s driving far-right interest toward the protests, which are being led by community members and Black Lives Matter, and bolstered by antifascists.

For example, the so-called Boogaloo Bois — a group of armed anti-government extremists made visible by their Hawaiian shirts — have reportedly shown up to some of the protests.

The 'boogaloo' is code for impending civil war or violent confrontation with law enforcement, and that's what they're hoping to get out of the protests. Their main reason for being there is their antipathy toward law enforcement, and so they're trying to position themselves as allies of Black Lives Matter protesters. They've made police brutality one of their central issues, which was explored at length in a Bellingcat article this week.

Their approach to police brutality links the victims of the deadly standoff with federal agents at Ruby Ridge in 1992, to the victims of modern police brutality, including Floyd. But unlike the vast majority of protesters, they refuse to acknowledge the fact that police brutality is an issue that disproportionately impacts people of color.

There have been some scattered reports of Boogaloo Bois' presence at the protests which were compiled by a Bellingcat investigative journalist in a thread. He includes an audio clip (stripped of video per activists' requests) of protesters saying they'd wrestled a handgun from a 'white nationalist' agitator - whom he describes as Boogaloo Boi who became overly rowdy.

Another photo, shared across private Boogaloo Facebook pages, showed one of their own unfurling their trademark flag during the Minneapolis protests.

And one protester posted a picture of himself wearing a gas mask to Instagram, under the hashtag #Boogaloo.

While some Boogaloo Bois say they're just libertarians, others will, on occasion, veer into racism — and make no secret of their desire for violence. In addition to their physical presence at the protests, the #boogaloo hashtag on social media has been flooded with memes in the last couple days egging on violence, and talking about how they hope this is the beginning of a civil war.

While more established militia types sometimes share those perspectives, they often view themselves as intermediaries between law enforcement and civilians. For example, two armed white men were interviewed by the Minnesota Reformer, a local independent news organization, outside a tobacco store in Minneapolis this week. They said they were protecting businesses from looters, but were also there to defend civilians should they need to.

['Cops are less likely to tread on people's rights when there's other armed people around then,' one of the men told the interviewer.]

Local activists identified another group in Minneapolis as members of the III% militia, one of the largest militia networks in the U.S.

But perhaps the most troubling of all are the hardcore 'accelerationists' who are encouraging their neo-Nazi followers to go to the protests and carry out acts of violence against black people — _all with the goal of 'exacerbating the ethnic tensions' and sparking a 'race war.'

Accelerationists promote violence to speed up the collapse of society. An eco-fascist Telegram channel wrote to its nearly 2,500 subscribers on Thursday that 'a riot would be the perfect place to commit a murder.' Accelerationists often seek to exploit moments of political or civil unrest, and the widespread protests that have unfolded across the country fit the bill. Similarly, 4chan is full of racists cheering the violence and saying that they hope it's all the beginning of a 'race war'"

Mike Baker, Julie Bosman and Richard A. Oppel Jr., "As Guns Get Drawn at Protest Sites, Demonstrators Fear a Volatile New Phase: As right-wing groups increasingly move to confront unrest in cities, clashes are breaking out between demonstrators with starkly different views on how to keep cities safe," The New York Times, September 2, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/ us/portland-kenosha-protests-clashes.html, reported, "For months, as protests by Black Lives Matter and other groups have erupted across the country, the persistent confrontations have been largely between protesters and the police, with the conflict playing out in tear gas volleys and lobbed projectiles. But in recent days the protests in Portland and in Kenosha, Wis., have taken a more perilous turn — right-wing activists have arrived, many carrying firearms, and they are bent on countering the racial justice protests with an opposing vision of America.

Violent street clashes between the two sides have broken out over the past two weeks, leaving three people dead.

The arrival of firearms, including some in the hands of left-wing protesters, has escalated the political debate over policing into precarious new territory."

Radio discussions on the Thom Hartmann, Program, August 30, 2020, and NPR, All Things Considered, August 31, 2020, discussed reports that right-wing groups have been reaching out to police as supporters, while in most cases, Black Lives Matter people, are not interested in talking with police. In increasing cases, police see right-wing groups as allies, and in some instances police have not interfered in violent clashes between right-wing groups and protesters, as long as the right-wing people have been doing well.

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