Tyre Nichols and the enduring problem of police reform: Terry Gilbert
“Police accountability starts at the top, including all levels of government […] to instill professionalism, robust training, and, most importantly, respect for human life.”
By now, many of us have seen the gut-wrenching body-cam videos of the sustained and brutal beating of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop in Memphis. His murderous death, much like the 2020 suffocation of George Floyd, sent shockwaves through the world, with some of the largest mass protests in American history. George Floyd’s eight-minute “I can’t breathe” video evokes similarities to the cries of Nichols’ “Mom, mom, mom.”
Both victims were helpless while trying to deflect the blows, sprays, choking, and tasers. How many times do we have to see these horrific videos, while traumatized parents ask the question: How can this happen to my child?
These violent police incidents continue to breed mistrust, fear, and frustration, particularly in minority communities. And calls for federal legislation and meaningful reforms to rein in police departments through the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act have been blocked by Republicans, with little hope the bill will be passed soon despite the current outcry.
The rise of police brutality incidents has led to only moderate revisions in training and policies, while police unions and their political allies resist more meaningful reforms.
Occasionally, the Justice Department will step in and force consent decrees, as it has done in Cleveland, but already in early 2023, there have been 79 civilian deaths by police nationally. Clearly, we have not tackled the core problem of the American policing culture, which assumes that aggressive traffic stops, and violent street encounters make us safe. They don’t.
For example, the “stop and frisk” program initiated by former New York city Mayor Rudy Giuliani was found by courts to violate the constitutional rights of Blacks and Hispanics without any evidence such aggressive approach works.
As a civil rights lawyer, I have seen a disturbing trend that goes back decades. Policing has evolved into an “us versus them” mentality with hyped-up tactical groups like the SCORPION unit in Memphis, which included the five cops who beat Tyre Nichols to death.
The blame for police aggression and violence does not solely fall on police departments. A major factor has been the failed “War on Drugs” starting in the ‘80s, which turned a public health crisis into a criminal justice problem. Both Democrats and Republicans competed to outdo each other as to who was more tough on crime -- without any data that such rhetoric translates to sound policy. Broader criminal statutes with draconian mandatory sentences created increased arrests and extraordinary levels of mass incarceration -- eclipsing other western democracies. No surprise, these measures often target distressed African American communities suffering from a range of long-ignored economic and social inequities.
Another factor is the curtailment of constitutional rights in favor of law-and-order initiatives. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently redefined the Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches and seizures. One decision, Whren v. United States, allows police to use any traffic stop as a pretext to look for other crimes they may suspect. The proliferation of unnecessary traffic stops has been a recipe for potential disaster, especially when the driver dares to rightfully question or object to the intrusion.
The Memphis PD acted quickly by firing the five officers, who now face murder charges, and immediately disbanded the SCORPION unit. But the chief seems to distance the department from accountability, suggesting these officers were just bad apples, a familiar talking point by police officials.
But the apples don’t fall far from the tree. Police accountability starts at the top, including all levels of government, requiring national mandates and standards to instill professionalism, robust training, and, most importantly, respect for human life.
Cleveland lawyer Terry Gilbert specializes in civil rights and criminal defense and is a partner at the Friedman, Gilbert + Gerhardstein law firm. He is author of “Trying Times: A Lawyer’s 50-Year Struggle Fighting for Rights in a World of Wrongs.”
This article was originally published on cleveland.com.