CHAUVIN CONVICTION IS NOT THE ONLY EVIDENCE OF PROGRESS IN CURBING POLICE MISCONDUCT

The conviction of Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd clearly has the potential to reduce police killings of unarmed civilians by putting police on notice that they are not immune from punishment.

But, after looking at the Washington Post database from 2015 to the present, which included, after a careful investigation, 402 such cases among the 5821 police killings, it seems some progress has already been made over the period covered.

When, for a 2016 article in Huffington Post, I analyzed the 2015 data, there were 95 unarmed civilians shot by police. When I examined the numbers of unarmed persons killed by police in subsequent years, and compared the data to the first year, I saw a basis for optimism.

2016 58

2017 71

2018 58

2019 54

2020 55

2021 11 (as of April 21)

Interestingly, the decline came during the later Trump years, despite Trump’s indifference, at best, and encouraging police violence, at worst. Under Biden, so far, we’re on pace for what is likely an all-time low, though it might have had more to do with more hibernation during winter months. However, when I looked at the data prior to the third week in April for all the years from 2015, this year’s 11 to date is, by far, an outlier. The range ran from 33 in 2015 to 18 in 2020.

It’s certainly true that the deployment of smartphone cameras to record and widely publicize police behavior hitherto only known to police involved in fatal encounters and those they rendered mute, and subsequently covered up, has been the major contributor to the decline in police killings of unarmed civilians. Fear of bad publicity and soul-searching have undoubtedly led to some level of reform within police departments. Fellow police testifying against Chauvin reflects both factors.

Unfortunately, the other far more common forms of police misconduct than homicide, e.g., discriminatory stops and searches of pedestrians and motorists, rarely are, or can be, perceived as such by bystanders with a camera.

Still, progress should always be acknowledged.