Blog Post: The Problem of Police Authority

The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police has got me thinking - as it should everyone - about what we can do about this problem of homicide not prevented by but perpetrated by police who are supposed to protect us.  It's a problem that has been erupting in America for decades, and caught on video ever since Rodney King was savagely beaten in 1991, which showed it's also a problem of assault and crimes committed by police that are less than murder.  And though African-Americans are all too often murdered and brutalized by cops, Caucasians are also afflicted by life-threatening violence from police, as was the 75-year old man (Martin Gugino, a peace activist) thrown to the ground last night by Buffalo police and now in serious condition in the hospital.

And, actually, I've been thinking about this since the late 1950s, when I was a 12-year-old kid in the Bronx.  I was standing by a Carvel with my friends, a few days before July 4.  A cop car pulled up, and two cops got out of the car, and announced they were looking for kids with firecrackers.   When one of the cops approached me, I told him I didn't have any firecrackers (true).  He asked me to empty my pockets.  I asked him if he had a search warrant.  His response was to shove me up against a wall, and frisk me.  Later, when I got home, I told my father, who was a lawyer.  We went to the police station and filed a complaint.  Although I described the cop, I didn't get his badge number.  The "case" was settled by the police about a week later telling my father that the cops on the mission to reduce illegal firecrackers that night had no recollection of any such incident.

I came to realize something which was repeated years later when I was driving my teenage daughter home and I was pulled over.  "Can I help you?" I asked the officer.  "Can I help you?" he angrily repeated.  He proceeded to give me a ticket for going through a stop sign that wasn't even there. (I never did find out why he pulled me over in the first place - maybe it was the Hillary Clinton for Senate sticker on the bumper.)  I got the ticket dismissed because the cop didn't show up for the hearing, but I didn't appreciate spending my whole evening in town court.

I did appreciate, as in understand, that cops had no tolerance for any challenge to their authority.  And as I heard the news about the murder of black men and women by police across America over the years, I came to understand that I had gotten away lucky.  I was white.  I was pushed up against the wall, I was illegally ticketed.  Had I been black, I might well have been slaughtered.  The common denominator in all of these cases is some challenge to police authority.  The intolerance of police to such challenges pertains to all people.   But when you add racism into the mix, you get police murdering George Floyd and hundreds of unarmed blacks over the years.

What can be done about this?  I'm not a psychologist, but it's obvious that, ironically, people who are insecure about being taken seriously, being respected, seem to line up to become police.  Whether they can be trained to overcome this insecurity, I don't know.  Maybe a more effective approach would be to weed them out in the first place, if possible, though that would no doubt deplete the pool of police candidates.  In the long run, the very long run, and I mean this only semi-sarcastically, perhaps the best solution would be to replace human police with robot police - robots which would be programmed to take challenges to their authority in stride, and which wouldn't be racist.*

But we can't wait for a run that's long, or any length at all.  As the Rev. Al Sharpton said in his eulogy for George Floyd yesterday, in a speech whose power and eloquence was right up there with MLK's, we need change right now.  And that begins with police not only being suspended and fired, but brought up on the maximum charges that can be brought against them for their murder and assault of innocent people.

*Notes added: Over on LinkedIn, where I put a link to this post:

1.  Dan Pesta, whom I hardly knew previously, wondered "Who programs the robot police?" I responded, "Yes, that would be crucial. My initial thoughts would be a broadly representative community of ethicists, lawyers, law enforcement, people from relevant communities, and of course, programmers. And they would appoint a different group to actually implement the code. Such a development would be at least as important as robotic cars. Since the robotic police couldn't be killed, only damaged, that would remove one big motive for police application of violence right there."

2. Madhusudan Mukerjee, whom I do not know at all, then commented, "To add to that: who will program the people who will program the robots? Or shall we replace the people who program the robots with robots? In that case, Dan's question resurfaces... I cannot yet imagine a robot going down on one knee in deference to a crowd and to join a protest that they believe in." I responded, "There are good people in the world, more than enough to program the robots. And if the robot programming were successful, it would't be necessary to go down on one knee any more to protest police brutality, because police brutality would be a thing of the past."

Highlights of Michael Jackson Memorial

Some highlights of the superbly moving Michael Jackson Memorial today at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which I've been tweeting a little about, but wanted to say a little more about here -

.Berry Gordy's eulogy was masterful, and captured the sense that all of us had about Michael Jackson in the late 1960s and early 1970s ... a boy with the soul and depth of someone much older...

.Al Sharpton's speech was brilliant and powerful ... what he said directly to Michael Jackson's children was especially on target ... "there was nothing strange about your Daddy, what was strange was what your Daddy had to deal with" ...

.Brooke Shields' words about how Michael Jackson made her smile were memorable, and segued into what I thought was the best musical performance of the memorial...

.Jermaine Jackson's incandescent performance of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," Michael Jackson's favorite song... (which says something right there about Michael Jackson's universal place in our culture) ...

.Sheila Jackson Lee's announcement that she's introducing a Congressional statement of tribute to Michael Jackson was welcome ... she's a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, from Texas....

.Smokey Robinson, also one of my favorite songwriters and singers, said the most that a singer-songwriter could say to another singer - you, Michael, sang my song better than I ...

.the We Are the World wrap-up was just right ... as were the words from Michael's brother Marlon, and-

.those words by Michael's daughter Paris ... I doubt there was a dry eye in the house, and in much of the world ... anyone with a heart couldn't help but be moved...

Don Lemon, Al Sharpton, and the Media's Reporting of Michael Jackson

I just saw Don Lemon defending CNN's coverage of Michael Jackson, in response to Al Sharpton's criticism that the media have been much more negative in their reporting of Jackson's death than they were in coverage of Elvis and Frank Sinatra's passing.

Lemon's response that the media covered controversial aspects of Elvis and Sinatra may be be true, but they were more along the lines of footnotes to the lives of the great singers, rather than the questions about Jackson's life that have been trumpeted in just about every report I've seen about him. The fact is that we do not yet know if drugs caused his death - the autopsy report has not yet come in - and Jackson was acquitted of child molestation charges in his 2005 trial. Sharpton is right that these issues are receiving undue attention.

More important, the media should not be in the business of defending itself against criticism of its coverage. We look to the media for news and information, not self-righteous defense of what it chooses to cover. If Sharpton has a critique of the media's coverage of Michael Jackson's life and death, and CNN wants to report that critique, fine. But we don't need to see Don Lemon then say, hey, I don't know if Sharpton was talking about CNN or other media, but CNN has been reporting just fine about Michael Jackson.

In short, the media should report on the world, not report on its reporting, and certainly not give us report cards on its reporting.

Michael Jackson, Barack Obama, Al Sharpton, and David Gregory

David Gregory asked Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod a question near the end of their interview on Meet the Press yesterday that bothered me for two reasons. Why, Gregory asked Axelrod, did President Obama not say anything publicly about the death of Michael Jackson, given that "some African-American leaders say the significance of this popular cultural icon was significant. I mean, before there was Barack Obama, before Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey there was Michael Jackson crossing over, breaking barriers."

First, I'm wondering why Gregory chose to attribute this astute obervation to "some African-American leaders," when it was first said by the Rev. Al Sharpton, in a powerful, impromptu statement in front of the Apollo Theater on Thursday, shortly after Jackson's death had been announced. "Way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama, Michael did with music what they later did in sports and in politics and in television," Sharpton said to the crowd in front of him and watching on television.

At best, Gregory's attribution of the statement was needlessly vague. At worst, it verges on plagiarism, implying, with the "I mean," that Gregory came up with the specific names in the analysis. I don't like this kind of fuzzy attribution in student papers or on national news shows. Gregory should have clearly identified the statement as by its author, Al Sharpton.

But, more important, why indeed did Barack Obama not publicly and directly say something to the nation and the world about the impact of Michael Jackson? Axelrod's answer - that Obama had "written the family and has shared his feelings with the family" privately - did not really address Gregory's question. There is a world of difference between condolences privately given and a statement to the world about one of the people primarily responsible for "We Are the World," and so many other towering things in our popular culture.

Few things happen by accident in any White House, least of all this one. Obama and his advisors clearly thought it not appropriate for the President to comment publicly about Michael Jackson.

Why not?

I suspect this is another expression of the odd Puritanical streak we sometimes glimpse in Obama, related to his attack on television in favor of books for children, and perhaps his refusal to support gay marriage. Michael Jackson was no doubt a complex and controversial figure, accused of a serious crime. But he was acquitted, no further civil actions were brought against him, and this was not a time to cold shoulder his extraordinary accomplishments.

A President of the United States is a Chief Executive of many things. One of them is talking to the world about events in America of such significant cultural importance that they dominate world news for days. Obama loses points for not stepping up to this job and saying the right thing about Michael Jackson.

Roland Burris to Be Seated in Senate: Winners and Losers

Politico and everyone broke the news a few hours ago that the Democratic leadership in the Senate is now prepared to seat Roland Burris.

Good for the rule of law.

Here are the winners and losers in this little saga:

Winners

1. The American people, whose only protection from the abuses of government is the law, which needs to be followed, even in the case of a governor accused of a crime, who still has the legal authority to make an appointment.

2. Senator Roland Burris (D-IL), who bravely went to Washington, DC to claim his seat, to which he had been legally appointed.

3. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who last week broke ranks with the Democratic leadership, and said she saw no reason that Burris should not be seated.

4. Rod Blagojevich, who also stood up for the rule of law in making this appointment, whatever his motives. (This has no bearing on whether Blago is guilty or not of the charges which have been brought against him, and for which he has still not been tried.)

Losers

1. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who at first outrageously said that the Senate would seat no one appointed by Blagojevich. Frankly, he should be brought up on charges of impeachment for this himself, or at least voted out as Senate Majority leader.

2. President-Elect Barack Obama, who first said on December 30, 2008 said that "Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat. I agree with their decision..." Obama later changed his mind, but, as Al Sharpton observed after Obama's initial statement, Obama should have stayed out of this. All in all, a misstep for the President-elect. On the bright side, this, along with Obama's invitation to Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Inauguration next week, are about the only serious mistakes Obama has made as President-elect.

3. All Americans who said Burris should not be seated. Wake up folks - the law, whether we like the actors or not, is the bedrock of our democracy.