Monthly Brief for June 2020: CHAZ/CHOP and Police Reform

It was a rather crazy June

June 5: The Problem of policing

Events in Minneapolis and across the country have placed policy debates over police reform squarely in the spotlight, which is a long overdue conversation. By now, it’s generally acknowledged that there’s an issue with a lack of accountability and perverse incentives that allow bad cops to get off the hook.

This week’s new’s cycle offered a buffet of policy options on how to reform policing in the US, all of which indicate that it’s not for lack of imagination that reform hasn’t happened, but there’s a lack of information and political will. I can’t manufacture political will, but I can get you information, so in no particular order, here’s a list of police reforms being addressed:

• Remove legal protections that prevent victims of police violence from suing officers.

• Ending qualified immunity for police officers.

• Slashing police budgets in favor of investing in minority communities.

• Eliminating or at least limiting the power of police unions.

June 12: Welcome to CHAZ

Protests, and some riots and looting, continue in the wake of the George Floyd murder, but it seems the general narrative has split into two streams: addressing police violence and eliminating America’s remaining vestiges of racism…. After days of protests, riots and conflict with police, the Seattle Police Department deserted a precinct on Capitol Hill (Seattle, not Washington DC) that was immediately taken over by protesters who established an “autonomous zone” around the precinct for an area of about six blocks. This “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” or CHAZ is becoming the Occupy Wall Street of this decade. 

Early reports indicate that the occupiers of Capitol Hill have largely behaved themselves, leading to renewed calls for “defunding” or “abolishing” police departments across the nation. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are already developing opposing police reform bills.

Elsewhere in the country, though, police departments under pressure from all the protests, riots and looting have seen a corresponding spike in crime. There was a 250% spike in homicides in Los Angeles, and Chicago experienced one of its deadliest weekends as well. 

The idea of defunding or abolishing the police still seems to be a fringe position as one poll indicates 80% of Americans are supportive of maintaining police departments and Democratic candidate Joe Biden came out against the idea.

But what does defending the police actually look like? Advocates of what could probably be called “common sense” defunding basically just say it's working to reduce the militarization of the police and redirect funds towards increasing social workers, mental health experts, etc. More radical interpretations of the phrase seem to take it at face value. They want the police gone. 

The argument over police reform isn’t just what to do about police departments that have grown too big for their collective blue britches. The extreme rhetoric surrounding police is also getting them killed. Like so many hot topics in American culture, heated rhetoric without nuance is creating a very wide band of interpretations that give cover to more violent solutions. 

June 19: The Police: Defund? Abolish? Reform?

CHAZ isn’t the only place of ongoing protests calling for social justice and the “end” of the police. Everybody is getting in the cause de jure this week and promoting different policies to “defund/abolish the police.” 

Big cities like LA and New York are already looking to slash police budgets, and Minneapolis, the epicenter of all this, is already moving forward with some unclear disbanding of the police.

At the federal level, I already reported on police reform bills being brought before Congress, but President Trump got in on the action too with an executive order addressing police violence and calling for changes to be made to how policing is done.

Add it all up? Police seem to be voting with their and stepping away from the field. Minneapolis is already reporting higher than normal police resignations…. and crime.

In Atlanta, where yet another police killing of a black man occurred this last week, officers staged a walk out after the officer involved in the shooting was charged with murder.

It's all loud and crazy, but Axios reports that, quietly, community policing (once fairly common) may be making a comeback.

Still, the loud rhetoric surrounding police reform in “defund” and “abolish” terms have some nervous, including truckers, a critical link in domestic supply chains.

The discussion over race and policing that has emerged out of the recent spate of police killings is a worthy discussion and reform seems to be something that all agree on. However, FiveThirtyEight wonders if the shift in perspective will last. 

June 26: On police reform

The raison d’etre for CHAZ/CHOP and ongoing protests, of course, remains a pressing issue: police reform. Senate Republicans and House Democrats both advanced police reform bills this week. Senate Democrats torpedoed the GOP bill earlier in the week, and the Dem-led House passed its bill today. I expect the Senate GOP will not be inclined to be very supportive of it.