Support and Fix the Police

Photo of New York Police Department police car, emblematic of supporting the police.

“DEFUND THE POLICE! ABOLISH THE POLICE!” From one end of the country to the other we hear mobs screaming these slogans. This is obviously not the way to support and fix the police.

Defunding and abolishing the police is one of the worst things we can do for a civilized society. Police protection against criminals is one of the three primary functions of a proper government^1,2. Without the police, we do not have a government that protects our precious rights against criminals.

These slogans are straight out of a Marxist playbook, and lead to anarchy and rule by mob violence, making society ripe for a dictator to take over and replace the local police with a federal militarized police force. Do the people chanting these realize what they are advocating? Well, maybe their leaders and handlers know. A Black Lives Matter co-founder describes herself as a “trained Marxist.”

I support the police

Because the police are such a vital part of protecting our rights, I support the police. I support them in their efforts to protect us from criminals. Furthermore, I help the police. I am a member of the city’s Crime Watch Patrol and act as an extra pair of eyes and ears for the Richardson Police Department. I drive the streets and alleys at certain times looking for unusual activities. Most of my reports are about open garage doors that invite theft. I call the house owners to tell them, and when they answer the phone, they are thankful and then close their garage doors. Sometimes all I can do is leave a voice mail.

On the other hand, I do not support criminals, no matter what their occupations. I do not support policies and cultures that encourage or enable criminal behavior by the police.

From Breonna Taylor to George Floyd, and on and on, we see too many examples of flagrant criminal behavior by a small minority of police. They give all police a bad name. Yet they are not prosecuted. There are many reasons for this.

Some reasons for bad police and how to fix them

As with all societal issues that need “fixing,” there are a myriad of interrelated reasons that cause the problem, and as such there is not an easy quick fix. However, there are some steps that will help us go in the right direction. Here is a starter list of reasons and how to address each one.

Reason # 1. Police hide behind “Qualified Immunity.”

Police are not held totally accountable for their actions. One of the primary reasons is the notion of qualified immunity. The Supreme Court created qualified immunity in 1982. With that novel invention, the court granted all government officials immunity for violating constitutional and civil rights unless the victims of those violations can show that the rights were “clearly established.”

This court-invented doctrine excuses police actions.

Here are two examples.

In January 2017, Georgia officer Nicholas Deaton was granted qualified immunity regarding throwing a “flashbang” explosive through a bedroom window, seriously burning Treneshia Dukes, who had been sleeping inside. Because of the lack of similar previous cases, Deaton’s actions were not “clearly established” as violating the plaintiff’s rights, and the case was dropped.
In January 2018, Detroit officer Lowell Phillips was granted immunity for shooting and killing Laszlo Latits. Latits had been chased and cornered by police for possibly having drugs in his car. Although the court unanimously called Phillips’ actions unjustified, they could not cite legal reasons to dispute qualified immunity. The situation was exactly like Deaton’s: there just were not enough similar cases to identify “clearly established” laws.

That doctrine has become one of the chief ways in which law enforcement avoids accountability for misconduct and even proven constitutional violations. Ordinary people—whether they are doctors, lawyers, or construction workers—are expected to follow the law. If they violate someone else’s legal rights, they can be sued and required to personally pay for the injuries they have caused.

Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, public officials are held to a much lower standard. They can be held accountable only insofar as they violate rights that are “clearly established” in light of existing case law. This standard shields law enforcement from innumerable constitutional violations each year.

More explanations are given here.

Qualified immunity eviscerates the very notion of justice, wherein one is held accountable for one’s actions.

The solution: Abolish Qualified Immunity. Everyone should be held accountable for their actions. If police need to buy liability insurance like doctors and other health care professionals do, so be it. That would be a requirement of that profession.

Reason #2. Police unions defend poor and sometimes deadly performance.

In the case of Breonna Taylor who was killed during a botched police raid, there were calls for the officers involved to be fired. The city’s mayor warned that the process would be slow due to the contract with the union.

The city’s police union, meanwhile, expressed outrage that a city council member described Taylor’s boyfriend, who fired on police during the raid, as a hero. This is the union’s focus: not demanding justice for a woman killed by police in her home, but demanding an apology from a local politician who had the temerity to praise a citizen for defending himself and his girlfriend during a botched police operation.

Taylor’s case is anecdotal, but a study “The Police Union Contract Project,” which collects and compares police union contracts across the country, notes that the agreements are generally designed to make it difficult to hold police accountable, in part by giving them privileges that are not afforded to the broader public. For example, the contracts often prevent officers from being questioned quickly after incidents and often give them access to information not available to private citizens. Cities are often required to shoulder the financial burdens of officer misconduct, and disciplinary measures are often restricted.

Police are public servants granted enormous power over the citizens. Their job is to protect and serve the public. Police unions, in contrast, are tasked with protecting police and serving their interests – even if it means going against serving the public. If eliminating police unions is what it takes to reduce their harmful influence on policing, then it is time to eliminate police unions.

The solution: Eliminate police unions. Don’t continue to have self-serving roadblocks that make it hard to achieve justice.

Reason #3. “No-knock” warrants and SWAT raids violate the sanctity of the home and the individual’s right to protect it.

“No-knock” raids like the Breonna Taylor example have also resulted in horror stories like a flash-bang grenade being thrown into the crib of a 19-month-old toddler and the shooting of a 7-year-old child.

Taylor’s death is not as unique as one might think. Law enforcement officers conduct 20,000 “no-knock” raids a year.

Fortunately these raids usually do not end in violence. But every single “no-knock” warrant violates the sanctity of the home, the privacy of the individual, and fundamental property rights, all of which are longstanding tenets in the western tradition of liberty and in the founding ideas of America. They violate the Fourth Amendment, which recognizes Americans’ right to be free from “unreasonable searches and seizures” of their homes. It is hard to imagine any search less “reasonable” than one where armed-to-the-teeth police officers burst into your home in the dead of night—and don’t even announce themselves as law enforcement.

The solution: End all “no-knock” warrants and searches. Honor the spirit and letter of the Fourth Amendment.

Reason # 4. Civil Asset Forfeiture encourages theft by police.

Asset forfeiture is the confiscating of one’s assets by the government. Civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize and keep private property, even if the owner has never been charged with a crime. In other words, civil asset forfeiture is theft by the government.

Picture this: You are driving home from the casino and you have absolutely cleaned up – to the tune of $50,000. You see a police car pull up behind you, but you cannot figure out why. Not only have you not broken any laws, you are not even speeding. But the police officer doesn’t appear to be interested in charging you with a crime. Instead, he takes your gambling winnings, warns you not to say anything to anyone unless you want to be charged as a drug kingpin, then drives off into the sunset.

This actually happened to Tan Nguyen, and his story is far from unique. It’s called civil asset forfeiture and it’s a multi-billion dollar piggybank for state, local and federal police departments to fund all sorts of pet projects.

Civil forfeiture laws pose some of the greatest threats to property rights in the nation today, too often making it easy and lucrative for law enforcement to take and keep property—regardless of the owner’s guilt or innocence.

To see the pervasiveness of this activity, see the report Policing For Profit: How Civil Asset Forfeiture Has Perverted American Law Enforcement by the Institute for Justice.

Many municipalities use civil asset forfeiture as part of their budgeted income, so there is an incentive for police to seize people’s assets, whether it be cash, cars (which they sell), or other assets. It is a very perverse system and one ripe for abuse.

Furthermore, if you want to recover your stolen assets, it costs you money to do so, and fundamentally you must prove that you are innocent regarding the property that was seized. The government does not have to prove that your assets were ill-gotten gain. Rather, for example, you must prove that the cash that was taken from your car was not obtained illegally. This is a total inversion of justice, where you have to prove your innocence rather than the government having to prove your guilt.

The solution: Ban all civil asset forfeiture. Stop theft by the police and end this inversion of justice.

Reason #5. The War on Drugs turns police into adversaries rather than helpers.

First, and primarily, the War on Drugs violates your right to put into your body what you wish, such right existing because you own your own body and your own life. It is an immoral anti-life “war.” The neighbors don’t own you and your body; the government doesn’t own you and your body; only you own it.

Second, the War on Drugs gives the police more victimless crimes to arrest people for. Where there is no victim, there is no crime. The police should focus on protecting peoples’ rights, rather than violating them.

Third, the War on Drugs spreads the police’s focus and resources so thin that they are unable to concentrate on protecting us from crimes with victims, such as murder, arson, theft, etc.

See my blog on why the War on Drugs should not exist. It is also the original cause of the no-knock SWAT searches as well as Civil Asset Forfeiture.

The solution: Abolish the War on Drugs, release all non-violent drug offenders, and purge their records.