Tuesday 2 June 2020

A Simple Plan


I've (intentionally) kept quiet about the unfolding story that has been able to move COVID-19 off the front pages. Off the back page, and all the pages in the middle, to be honest.

On it's face, it's a really simple story. An old one.

About a week ago, the police in Minneapolis, Minnesota were called in to deal with what has been alleged as an incident where a middle-aged man - one not far away from my own age in fact - tried to buy some cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. What happened in the time between the call and the terrible outcome is at this point, lost. But we all know how the encounter ended.

The video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sitting with his knee on the back of a prone George Floyd in the last minutes are difficult to watch. Floyd can be heard gasping and begging for his life, at one point calling out to his mother. The officer's expressionless face stares ahead. His eyes - dead eyes - glare at the camera.

Officer Chauvin killed George Floyd with what can, at best, be described as a casual indifference.

Over the past week, protests have erupted across the country, many of them violent. Stores have been destroyed. People hurt - some killed - in spasms of violence.

I haven't had too much to say because, quite frankly, what is there to say?

The bottom line is that Chauvin killed Floyd. Floyd did not lose his life; it was taken from him.

I *really* have zero interest in debating the propriety of the destruction, and less interest in arguing about the looting. Whether it is local people, or left-wing "antifascist" (sic) actvitsts or "white nationalists," it's all the same to me.

I do not condone violence and crime. I live in central San Francisco, which has seen significant violence over the past couple of days. Helicopters buzzed overhead last night, and businesses on my street were boarded up. So I really am in absolutely no mood to be lectured by people living in suburban sinecures about "understanding" crime. I am just interested that my home and family remain safe. I do not have the luxury of social media preening the way many do.

With respect to politics, I will make a simple plea - I think politicians want to try to smear their political opponents rather than own up to their own guilt. That's what they do. Sorry. So I'm not here to argue whether the president is a fascist or the governor of Minnesota is weak. Pretty much everyone is going to retreat to their own priors on this one, as they always do.

What I want to say is this very simple thing.

I don't like a lot of rules; I never had. As a kid, I got into a lot of trouble because it was not in my nature to do something because "I told you so." I spent a fair amount of time in the principal's office because of it.

But I have most of my life been a supporter of law and order. The laws should be few; they should be clear. And they should be enforced fairly.

This goes especially for the police, and what happened in Minnesota was not just. It was not fair. And the cops who participated need to be held to account.

I think that there is simply no way one can watch what happened and not come away with the conclusion that the killing of George Floyd by four police officers (and they are all guilty in my book) was a crime. And our law officers if nothing else must uphold the law. There are just no two ways about it.

I've heard more than one argument about how many white men are killed by police, how many black men are killed by other black men. I am a mathematician; I know what an odds ratio is. It's beside the point. I have very, very little doubt that in this case, if George Floyd were white, he would likely be alive. This needs to be acknowledged. Our police are just not doing a good job enforcing the laws fairly. I know it. You know it. Yes, you do.

Let me tell you a little story. Many, many years ago, I got caught by the CHP speeding on the 280 freeway (a highway that runs south from San Francisco to San Jose, California). I was at the time living in Cupertino, so I must have been 25 or 26 years old at the time. I was late coming home to meet a friend for dinner, so my eye was not really on the speedometer so much as it was on the clock. A motorcycle cop hiding under the CA-87 flyover appeared and pulled me over. In those days, the speed limit in California was still 55, and I was easily going about 80. He wrote me the ticket, and I had a date with the dreaded "traffic offender school." Yes; it's a real thing in California.

So I got up at 6.30 in the morning one Saturday and headed off to 8 hours at Mission College in Santa Clara to make amends. One of the things we all were forced to do at the outset was stand and confess our crimes. I was guilty as hell, which I think everyone else in the room was. Most were for speeding (and if memory serves, the average infraction was at least 20 miles over the limit). We had a few red light violations. One kid who looked and sounded like Jeff Spicoli confessed not only to being caught speeding, but to not quite remembering just how fast he was going because he was "sort of, you know, stoned at the time."

We all laughed, including the "teacher."

But one of the guilty that day was a middle-aged black man; from his accent, a Nigerian I would guess. When it was his turn, his crime was driving 40 in a 35 mph zone on Alma Street in Palo Alto. Now, at the time, I worked in downtown Palo Alto, an upscale town filled to the brim with limousine liberals, so I drove on that stretch of road virtually every day on my way to and from work. If I did 40 on the road, I would be passed by just about everyone, police cruisers included.

All of us in the room looked at each other sheepishly, because we instinctively knew that he had gotten a black guy driving in Palo Alto ticket.

The bottom line is this - the term "law enforcement" has always struck me as a bit of a misnomer. There is no amount of policing that can "enforce" law upon a society that is unwilling to accept the law. Period. Paragraph. The police are not an occupying force. They should not be seen as one, and they ought not to see themselves in that way.

In order for people to respect the laws, those enforcing the laws must be respectable.

I know people who are cops. I have friends who are in law enforcement. It's an incredibly difficult job. If I am being totally honest, it's a line of work that I lack the physical courage from engaging in because I know that it's dangerous and largely thankless. I live in San Francisco, and I see, everyday, police officers dealing with shit that I - and I suspect that if you're reading this - you would never accept to have to put up with. Police are, as the saying goes, a thin blue line behind which those of us who obey the laws reside behind and rely upon.

And I understand that a lot of the problems cops are forced to deal with is due to the reality that our "leaders" - either because of incompetence, venality, or just a denial of reality - have allowed social problems to fester because it's easier to pander and to mug for the cameras than it is to address real problems. So the cops get to pick up the broken pieces of a broken society that our leaders, and we, have broken.

But that's the job. The job of an officer is to serve and protect. And when one of the officers colours outside the lines, he needs to be held to account. For too long, that's not happened. Derek Chauvin had been reported 18 times in the past 20 years for abuse of power. The leadership in his city did literally nothing about it. The mayor of Minneapolis. The DA. The governor of Minnesota. Nobody acted.

And so here we are, with another man killed by police, and still others killed by violence in our streets.

Qui custodiet ipsos custodes - who will guard the guards?

Again, I have long harboured libertarian tendencies; I despise state-sanctioned abuse of power. I have no interest in preening for social media, to get "likes" from "woke" friends and acquaintances. Long ago, I stopped caring much about what people think, and ceased seeking approval. I simply think that the state has awesome powers, and that it is all too easy to go beyond what is 'just.' I think that it is important to say that the power to enforce the law is too frequently confused with the power to abuse it.

I hate to say it, but it's down to the officers themselves to hold one another to a higher standard of professionalism. I *get* that maybe it's one bad apple in the barrel, but this particular barrel cannot afford to have any bad apples in it.