Many of us by now have seen the video or heard the reporting about the Memphis officers attacking Tyre Nichols. It seems clear to me that the horrendous actions they displayed that night were not the first time for those officers, and not a surprise to the Memphis Police Department nor the citizens of Memphis. The actions they displayed did not appear to be those of officers fearing for their lives, during a rapidly evolving situation. They appeared to be officers who were too comfortable with their ability to exact punishment.
Like former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, it appeared that those officers had a total lack of concern for anyone watching their actions, or any consequences from reports that would be made about their actions. There was an arrogance and supreme confidence demonstrated when we saw an officer casually walk around the helpless victim then decided to kick Mr. Nichols in the head; arrogance and confidence when an officer walked around the already battered body then decided to use the ASP baton to make well-measured strikes; arrogance and confidence when officers held up Mr. Nichols’ body and threw full blows to his head. All these actions happened without Mr. Nichols offering any resistance. Those officers were clearly comfortable with depravity.
It may be likely that nobody along the way reported their prior misconduct. We know that many citizens rarely report officer misconduct. It is more likely; however, that nobody ever effectively disciplined those officers for prior bad actions when reported or observed. It could have happened to another citizen who experienced their brutality and did not tell or a fellow officer who witnessed it but failed to report their brutal character. Just like every organization and community, people talk, people know, but people may not tell…but if no one tells and no one has the guts to strongly correct the wayward people, they become emboldened. When officers believe that they can get away with bad actions because no one will tell, or no one will act, their arrogance and confidence increases exponentially like many people we see in positions of authority.
One of the most important ways to prevent officers from getting comfortable with their bad actions and becoming emboldened is for citizens to file a formal complaint with their local oversight agency, and in Atlanta, that agency is the Atlanta Citizen Review Board (ACRB) or file a complaint with the police department. The telling and reporting creates the record to hold departments and supervisors accountable for their officers’ actions and for the allowance of a permissive culture that allows misconduct to go unchecked. It blunts the department’s excuse that the officers were rogue, not reflective of the hard-working department officers, nor consistent with the values and expectations of the department. We have heard it before.
The Memphis video did not show the actions of one officer. It showed the actions of several officers, which indicates that their actions were a part of an acceptable culture.
If we want to change the behaviors of officers, we must ensure that officer accountability is the starting point for all conversations involving policing from the recruitment process, through training, and tenure. It must be the first conversation for every increase in officers’ salaries, every police department budget increase, every discussion about adding more officers, every discussion about training, every discussion officer promotion, every discussion of union contracts, every discussion about new crime fighting initiatives, and every discussion about selecting a new chief.
The message must be clear, consistent, impactful, and early. Discussions about officer accountability cannot happen only after the damage has been done as often is the case. Every chief and department must be required to report their officer accountability metrics with their crime metrics when they are providing reports, updates, etc., to the governing bodies. Elected officials should scrutinize the officer accountability metrics with the same diligence as the crime metrics.
Officer accountability is one of the most important aspects of public safety. The erosion of public trust because of a lack of officer and department accountability makes all of us less safe which results in an atmosphere that allowed the actions of those former Memphis police officers to exist and caused the death of a helpless unarmed 29-year-old man who leaves behind a four-year-old son.