The late Robert Kennedy once said: Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with the sentence: All human beings are born free and equal in human rights.
[image_caption]Frank G. Fernandez[/image_caption]
In the meantime, the Police Department is not going away. Even those who call for dismantling or defunding it now admit there is no roadmap for how we get from here to there. The City Charter Commission appears to be applying the brakes to the City Council proposal to put a resolution on the ballot in November that would establish a new Department of Public Safety, defund the existing Police Department and remove oversight from the mayor and give it to the City Council.
We need an interim plan
The City Council members admit their outline lacks specifics. At the very least we need an interim plan of concrete steps that can be taken. We are presenting one developed by coauthor Frank Fernandez, a longtime police officer, police chief and city manager who has restructured police departments in many places.
[image_caption]James Roth[/image_caption]
The overwhelming majority of law enforcement officer are honest, good-hearted people who are dedicated to helping others even if it means putting themselves in harm’s way to do it. Notwithstanding, the time has come to ask some key questions: What’s working, what’s not, what needs to change?
Concrete steps
We endorse the following recommendations, based on our combined experiences, one as a retired lawyer and longtime human rights advocate and one as a longtime police officer with over three decades of experience across multiple police agencies. From a specific point of view, which is how departments operate, the points below highlight several concrete steps for bringing about substantial and sustainable reforms:
- Gather stakeholder input: Bring people with diverse perspectives and intellectual capital to the table and have the candid conversations required to fully understand and answer the key questions.
- Conduct comprehensive candidate background checks: Applicants must be properly screened through advanced procedures that cannot be compromised. Approved applicants should be reviewed by a diverse panel to validate that the process was followed without deviation. After the occurrence of many critical situations that have put the officer’s actions into question, discrepancies that were overlooked during the review of background at hire have come to light. If it starts wrong, it will end wrong. This is the most crucial point of a career in law enforcement.
- Extend basic academy training: This must be extended to meet the new needs and demands identified. It must highlight the mission of public service and the role of guardians of justice, preservers of peace and protectors of life and property.
- Conduct regular post-academy training: Ensure that officers are receiving continuous training to refocus their mindfulness, skills, and judgment. Training is a perishable skill that must be continuously polished.
- Conduct ongoing policy adherence reviews: The police staff must have robust oversight measures in place to ensure that when the officer(s) makes a mistake, it is quickly identified and addressed through coaching, retraining and accountability. The absence of accountability places our Constitution at risk, our public at risk and our officers at risk of losing their careers.
Most police officers are well intentioned, good citizens. They respond the way they are trained. Systemic racism, long embedded in our culture, including our police forces, must be eliminated. Although critical, police reform alone goes only part way toward combating structural racism. There are some critical first steps that can and must be taken at the local level. Other changes currently being debated in St. Paul and Washington can be made at the state and national levels. Collectively we must find a pathway to sustainable police reforms based on need, common sense and good judgment.
Frank G. Fernandez is the president of Blueprints 4 Safety (B4S) Strategies Group, LLC. in Miami, Florida. As an expert in police practices, he provides consulting services to the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Washington, D.C. He has 30-plus years of experience in law enforcement beginning with the Miami Police Department rising to the rank of deputy chief, and moving on to serve as chief of the Hollywood, Florida, police department. From 2015 to 2019 he served as director of public safety and assistant city manager for the City of Coral Gables, Florida.
James Roth is a longtime Minneapolis resident, retired lawyer and human rights advocate.
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“The overwhelming majority of law enforcement officer are honest, good-hearted people who are dedicated to helping others even if it means putting themselves in harm’s way to do it.”
“Most police officers are well intentioned, good citizens.”
“Systemic racism, long embedded in our culture, including our police forces, must be eliminated. Although critical, police reform alone goes only part way toward combating structural racism.”
I doubt “the DFL activist and the city council” would agree with the first two statements.
However – it is an interesting attempt at triangulation.
I doubt that anyone familiar with how big city police operate would agree. As an attorney who has has a lot of African-American clients over the years, I sure don’t.
Somebody made the observation that most cops are good; however there are quite a few bad ones and the system is set up to allow those bad ones to get away with things. What is interesting about some of the above recommendations is that at least one of them–the back ground check issue was brought up during the federal mediation some years ago and was watered down due to some in the community upset that it may be too harsh in weeding out candidates. I think the recommendation about policy review is also critical and this is where you need council members and a mayor with insight into what they are overseeing. The other piece is having well qualified line supervisors.
As is the case in the private sector, remove qualified immunity and you will end all these bad police actions. Also eliminating the police union so the “blue wall of silence” goes away will help. That’s all you really need to do.
The above will make it so those aggrieved by the police can seek justice in court instead of cops hiding behind QI.
The only problem with all these very nice and thoughtful steps is that one would simply have presumed that such things had already been in practice for the past 30+ years. To find out that the proposed “reform” is to (now) ensure that brutal personalities are not given the job of copper in the first place is rather, um,,,,disconcerting.
The Tsar, too, was always behind the curve in proposing reform(s) that should have been undertaken 30 years earlier. And then his one day his credibility was simply gone with the wind…