CHARLES OCHIE: Individual Constitutional rights should be focus of police reform

Every student of the subject would agree that policing in any open and democratic society is extremely challenging and difficult, even more so in a democratic and extremely diverse open society like the United States whose philosophy of policing is more local and decentralized as opposed systems found in some European, Asian and African countries.

If we wish to understand and improve police service, we must first recognize that limitations and abuses in law enforcement that alarm and challenge us are neither novel nor peculiarly American. These limitations and abuses have a deep, dark and long history. If you ask a few Americans their thoughts about what police functions should be, you will get as varied responses as there are different brands of cheese. Responses would be based on one’s socio-economic, racial and ethnic background.

Textbook definitions would describe police function as responsible for maintaining public order and safety, enforcing the law, and preventing, detecting and investigating criminal activities. Others would describe police duties as protecting the lives and property of citizens, maintaining order, catching lawbreakers and working to prevent crimes. Yet others may postulate that police are tasked with maintaining order and keeping their community safe.

In capturing the complexity of modern policing in America, the recent hearing in the U.S. Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations pointed to domestic terrorism, gangs, illegal narcotics, gun violence, cybercrimes, social media, behavioral health and highway safety issues. In addition to these widely recognized challenges, the hearing also called attention and highlighted other pressing policing matters that demand urgent attention and resources at the local levels such as community-police relations, recruitment and retention, and budgetary restraints. In broadly reviewing these challenges, one can identify the following as the five greatest challenges facing the American police officers today: active shooter response, police transparency, officer recruitment, immigration and sanctuary laws, use of deadly force and de-escalation policies.

The last challenge, police brutality and use of deadly force against citizens and de-escalation policies, is the one that is getting everyone’s attention today. The recent widespread use of lethal force by police officers in several American cities, but more recently the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer, have created huge attention and massive demonstrations across the nation and the world. The focus has been on what has become the routine killing of black men/women and other minorities by police officers whose primary professional duty is to protect those lives, even while trying to enforce laws and use force as the last resort.

From citizens’ videos and even police cameras that have exposed such brutality, police have been seen to quickly resort to the use of force. In most cases, no de-escalation efforts are applied. Increasingly, citizens of all races and backgrounds have become highly interested in how police departments operate and the decisions made by law enforcement practitioners. More than ever, questions about police accountability, police training, use of force or deadly force, organizational structure, and implicit bias or racial profiling are common.

While policing in America has evolved considerably over the past 15 years – from who becomes an officer to how relations with civilian are managed — other serious and more existential issues have surfaced, such as defunding of police departments, functionality, the roles and duties of police. These questions are likely to continue and gain more traction as the nation mulls appropriate police reforms that are overdue.

The Minneapolis City Council is reportedly considering dismantling its police department as currently constituted. Fortunately or unfortunately, these proposed actions and pronouncements are not new and are girded by the fact that there have been precedents of such actions in other cities. It is noted that the mayors of both Los Angeles and New York have already pledged/proposed to cut significant portions of their respective police departments’ budgets and redirect funds to reinforce and boost social services areas. Many other municipalities are contemplating the same action.

There are, however, others who narrow the fundamental issue of police brutality to who is qualified to be hired as a police officer in a modern democratic and diverse society. According to this view, today’s ideal policing is “democratic policing,” which broadly means a police force that is publicly accountable, subject to the rule of law, respectful of human dignity and that intrudes into citizens’ lives under certain limited circumstances.

The best description that I have come across, from an unknown author, says “As a law enforcement officer, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, the peaceful against violence and disorder, and to protect the Constitutional rights of all people to liberty, equity and justice.” This definition, I believe, captures the essence of what it means to be a police officer in an open, diverse and a democratic society.

As there is almost a consensus of opinion among Americans that the most important element of policing is to “protect the Constitutional rights of all people to liberty, equality and justice,” it may appear that the police profession sometimes loses sight of that. Given what is happening today regarding police issues, and what appears to be close to a consensus by the American people of the urgent need for police reform, police leaders must ensure that their officers fully understand the nature and significance of this commitment. Selection and training of a fit police officer is critical in modern policing. If police officers are trained and fully imbibe the ardent policing philosophy that his/her main duty is to protect the Constitutional rights of all people to liberty, equality and justice and having it in their thoughts as they approach every situation, perhaps, we would not be where we are today.

Another important policing issue directly tied to use of deadly force is escalation and de-escalation in police encounters. The question a lot of people often ask is, why are police always in a hurry to arrest, subdue, handcuff, and in the process, trash the constitutional rights of that suspect? George Floyd was killed by choking within a few minutes of an encounter, and there have been similar occurrences in other places. Doesn’t the American Constitution still subscribe to presumption of innocence: innocent until proven guilty?

Realizing that police officers are not trained as psychologists or may not be skilled in de-escalation techniques, sound policy in escalation and de-escalation should form a significant part of police reform being contemplated today. Advocates of current police reforms must look at police budgets to determine what percentage of their budgets are used to train officers on how to handle fellow citizens, even when they break the law.

Finally, we all know that police work is hard and, yes, sometimes dangerous, even more so in an open, diverse and democratic society. There ought to be a fundamental uniformity in policing philosophy nationwide that every sworn police officer must strictly adhere to such as the protection of Constitutional rights of all people. If nothing within the American policing profession is uniform, the protection of the Constitutional rights of all people ought to be.

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