In San Francisco, police (their unions) effectively went on strike when we elected a progressive prosecutor who wasn't good at creating a strong constituency. Now that they've deposed him, they have only sporadically bothered to go back to work. Mostly on serving their political interests by banging on homeless people. Eventually there will be further police atrocities that will drive the next cycle of semi-reform. It gets old on the ground.
ROTWC was pretty foundational for me, and was one of the books that I read as an entry-point into larger thinking about the American carceral state and policing more generally. One thing I will add re Dan Cameron is my understanding from the grand jurors who sued to be able to speak and contradict him is that it was not just that he withheld information from the grand jury, but that he affirmatively told them that they could not consider homicide charges, before going to the press conference and telling the world that the grand jurors agreed with him that homicide charges were not warranted.
Jul 14, 2023·edited Jul 14, 2023Liked by Radley Balko
This book is an excellent read. I purchased my copy shortly after the book hit the market. As I recall from reading "Rise of the Warrior Cop", Daryl Gates was instrumental in transforming police into a paramilitary style force. That fact, I believe, sorely corrupted police departments across the nation. That fact elevated police to believing that not only were (are) they the enforcers of law. They BECAME the law, with reckless abandon and brutal take-downs and enforcement. I grew up in the 1950s, coming of age in the early sixties. I was taught to respect the police. Today, more often, I see them deserving less respect; requiring caution and apprehension. They have a chip on their shoulder, and too often are arrogant with a sense of untethered empowerment over the average citizen.
This statement is bothsiderism: "when conservatives railed against those federal law enforcement interventions at Waco and Ruby Ridge, but excused or even made light of abuses by local police... Democrats, meanwhile, had little to say about ATF or FBI abuses, mostly because they found the people on the receiving end of those abuses to be politically unsavory."
Not remembered is that *Clinton* routinely got blamed for both Waco and Ruby Ridge despite the fact that it was the Bush DoJ that started events in motion for both incidents and Ruby Ridge occurred exclusively under Bush. Janet Reno hadn't even been sworn in as AG when the DoJ disastrously attempted to serve a warrant at Waco and she had been in office a little over a month when the FBI decided to shoot its way into Waco. If there has been less than total sympathy to right-wing complaints about those abuses, it has been because they have told many lies, and those lies were told for political reasons: to hang the blame for these deaths on Clinton and Reno.
Nor has the right been honest about the fact that Randy Weaver and Vernon Howell's acolytes were heavily armed, resisted lawful (even if ridiculous) law enforcement demands and that in the initial service of a warrant, Howell & Co. had ambushed and murdered four federal agents (crimes for which they were never held to account), whereas almost all of the BLM protests have involved unarmed people who had not assaulted officers. In any way equating these incidents with bursting in on a completely innocent couple in the dead of night is...weird.
I don't see judgments on the degree of misconduct by law enforcement in the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents as a partisan matter. We have seen unequal enforcement of the law for generations, but (prior to Ferguson) the only time that disproportionate force has seemed to become an issue is when white people died. So, yes, law enforcement acted irresponsibly in both Waco and Ruby Ridge and innocent people died needlessly. But the lack of reaction probably wasn't because Howell&Co. and the Weavers were "unsavory." It's probably because they used deadly force in resisting law enforcement and especially because so many lies were told to whitewash their roles.
Radley, in the states that have eliminated qualified immunity, has policing changed appreciably because of it? Are cops being personally sued? Are police departments losing officers in droves because they can be sued personally? An update would be great, thanks.
I think it's too early to tell. It's also going to vary a lot by state, depending on what other laws a given state has with respect to civil liability. Some states make it less difficult to sue state employees for constitutional violations than others. Some put a cap on damages, or punish plaintiffs when they lose.
John McWhorter writes about police abuse of white people which parallels the abuse of black people but gets much less attention.
He isn't coming at this from a conservative point of view, more of a human rights point of view. Police impunity isn't just about racism, it's about a lack of decency toward people in general.
1) There are systemic problems in policing with respect to abuse, corruption, accountability, toxic culture, and transparency that can victimize anyone.
2) In many parts of the country, policing is also plagued by systemic bias that causes the problems in (1) to disproportionately harm Black and Latino people.
I think McWhorter's basic conservatism shines through if you compare his writing on the subject with actual leftwing scholars/activists who also stress the fundamental threat of the carceral state to people of every race and ethnicity and who call for a broad based, multiracial coalition to oppose police violence. I'm thinking of people like Marie Gottschalk, Barbara Fields, and Cedric Johnson. If you're interested sampling what they have to say about the matter and how it differs from McWhorter, a great place to start is with the Fields co-authored 2020 piece in Dissent, The Death of Hannnah Fizer (https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-death-of-hannah-fizer/). You might also check out Gottschalk's Caught (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017I2M8SO/) and Johnson's After Black Lives Matter (https://www.amazon.com/After-Black-Matter-Cedric-Johnson/dp/1804291676/).
Thank you for this... I wonder though, how does this analysis apply to an institution like the NYPD? A small town cop in a red state is, I think, more likely to be disciplined than some asshole NYPD detective. As a lefty I hate to say it, but I think it's because of the history of union power in blue states, that never really existed in red states, so the police unions don't own every Mayor in the same way ...
Good points! These are of course generalizations. But my very broad read on this is that big city departments tend to have better *policy* when it comes to use of force, deescalation, profiling etc. NYPD and LAPD, for example, both have relatively decent policies when it comes to the use of SWAT teams. They're well-trained, professional, and generally governed by a threat matrix that limits their use. (Although Chicago is a notable counter-example.)
In small town departments and sheriff's offices, the SWAT teams tend to be much more cowboyish, part-time, untrained, and used inappropriately.
But as you say, because of union power, when cops in big city departments do violate those policies, it can be difficult to hold them accountable. Which of course undermines the whole point of having those policies in the first place.
But I also think we probably hear more about problem officers in big cities because there are more media outlets in those places to report them, and because those outlets tend to me more skeptical than small town newspapers and local TV news.
Oh I didn't know that about NYPD and SWAT, that's interesting. I think you're totally right about media location bias. But also it feels like you come across a story that's like I don't know, "Florida officer fired after making racist statements" and I'm like, hmm, ok, because NYPD detectives can break a teenager's arm and the only repurcussions are to taxpayers from the resulting lawsuit. idk, maybe too NYC obsessed and as I discovered personally Tennessee cops are no joke! I do think there's a really interesting dynamic is blue cities in red states.
In San Francisco, police (their unions) effectively went on strike when we elected a progressive prosecutor who wasn't good at creating a strong constituency. Now that they've deposed him, they have only sporadically bothered to go back to work. Mostly on serving their political interests by banging on homeless people. Eventually there will be further police atrocities that will drive the next cycle of semi-reform. It gets old on the ground.
ROTWC was pretty foundational for me, and was one of the books that I read as an entry-point into larger thinking about the American carceral state and policing more generally. One thing I will add re Dan Cameron is my understanding from the grand jurors who sued to be able to speak and contradict him is that it was not just that he withheld information from the grand jury, but that he affirmatively told them that they could not consider homicide charges, before going to the press conference and telling the world that the grand jurors agreed with him that homicide charges were not warranted.
This book is an excellent read. I purchased my copy shortly after the book hit the market. As I recall from reading "Rise of the Warrior Cop", Daryl Gates was instrumental in transforming police into a paramilitary style force. That fact, I believe, sorely corrupted police departments across the nation. That fact elevated police to believing that not only were (are) they the enforcers of law. They BECAME the law, with reckless abandon and brutal take-downs and enforcement. I grew up in the 1950s, coming of age in the early sixties. I was taught to respect the police. Today, more often, I see them deserving less respect; requiring caution and apprehension. They have a chip on their shoulder, and too often are arrogant with a sense of untethered empowerment over the average citizen.
Excellent review. Now, if I can only get my copy of your first edition of Warrior Cop back from whomever the mayor gave it to....
It's a good article except...
This statement is bothsiderism: "when conservatives railed against those federal law enforcement interventions at Waco and Ruby Ridge, but excused or even made light of abuses by local police... Democrats, meanwhile, had little to say about ATF or FBI abuses, mostly because they found the people on the receiving end of those abuses to be politically unsavory."
Not remembered is that *Clinton* routinely got blamed for both Waco and Ruby Ridge despite the fact that it was the Bush DoJ that started events in motion for both incidents and Ruby Ridge occurred exclusively under Bush. Janet Reno hadn't even been sworn in as AG when the DoJ disastrously attempted to serve a warrant at Waco and she had been in office a little over a month when the FBI decided to shoot its way into Waco. If there has been less than total sympathy to right-wing complaints about those abuses, it has been because they have told many lies, and those lies were told for political reasons: to hang the blame for these deaths on Clinton and Reno.
Nor has the right been honest about the fact that Randy Weaver and Vernon Howell's acolytes were heavily armed, resisted lawful (even if ridiculous) law enforcement demands and that in the initial service of a warrant, Howell & Co. had ambushed and murdered four federal agents (crimes for which they were never held to account), whereas almost all of the BLM protests have involved unarmed people who had not assaulted officers. In any way equating these incidents with bursting in on a completely innocent couple in the dead of night is...weird.
I don't see judgments on the degree of misconduct by law enforcement in the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents as a partisan matter. We have seen unequal enforcement of the law for generations, but (prior to Ferguson) the only time that disproportionate force has seemed to become an issue is when white people died. So, yes, law enforcement acted irresponsibly in both Waco and Ruby Ridge and innocent people died needlessly. But the lack of reaction probably wasn't because Howell&Co. and the Weavers were "unsavory." It's probably because they used deadly force in resisting law enforcement and especially because so many lies were told to whitewash their roles.
Radley, in the states that have eliminated qualified immunity, has policing changed appreciably because of it? Are cops being personally sued? Are police departments losing officers in droves because they can be sued personally? An update would be great, thanks.
I think it's too early to tell. It's also going to vary a lot by state, depending on what other laws a given state has with respect to civil liability. Some states make it less difficult to sue state employees for constitutional violations than others. Some put a cap on damages, or punish plaintiffs when they lose.
Thank you, sir.
https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2021/nov/15/racist-police-violence-reconsidered/
John McWhorter writes about police abuse of white people which parallels the abuse of black people but gets much less attention.
He isn't coming at this from a conservative point of view, more of a human rights point of view. Police impunity isn't just about racism, it's about a lack of decency toward people in general.
I think two things can be true at the same time:
1) There are systemic problems in policing with respect to abuse, corruption, accountability, toxic culture, and transparency that can victimize anyone.
2) In many parts of the country, policing is also plagued by systemic bias that causes the problems in (1) to disproportionately harm Black and Latino people.
I agree that both are true. I'm not sure how possible it is to emphasize both at the same time.
Nancy,
I think McWhorter's basic conservatism shines through if you compare his writing on the subject with actual leftwing scholars/activists who also stress the fundamental threat of the carceral state to people of every race and ethnicity and who call for a broad based, multiracial coalition to oppose police violence. I'm thinking of people like Marie Gottschalk, Barbara Fields, and Cedric Johnson. If you're interested sampling what they have to say about the matter and how it differs from McWhorter, a great place to start is with the Fields co-authored 2020 piece in Dissent, The Death of Hannnah Fizer (https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-death-of-hannah-fizer/). You might also check out Gottschalk's Caught (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017I2M8SO/) and Johnson's After Black Lives Matter (https://www.amazon.com/After-Black-Matter-Cedric-Johnson/dp/1804291676/).
Thank you. I've read the Rothman/Fields essay and I agree.
Thank you for this... I wonder though, how does this analysis apply to an institution like the NYPD? A small town cop in a red state is, I think, more likely to be disciplined than some asshole NYPD detective. As a lefty I hate to say it, but I think it's because of the history of union power in blue states, that never really existed in red states, so the police unions don't own every Mayor in the same way ...
Good points! These are of course generalizations. But my very broad read on this is that big city departments tend to have better *policy* when it comes to use of force, deescalation, profiling etc. NYPD and LAPD, for example, both have relatively decent policies when it comes to the use of SWAT teams. They're well-trained, professional, and generally governed by a threat matrix that limits their use. (Although Chicago is a notable counter-example.)
In small town departments and sheriff's offices, the SWAT teams tend to be much more cowboyish, part-time, untrained, and used inappropriately.
But as you say, because of union power, when cops in big city departments do violate those policies, it can be difficult to hold them accountable. Which of course undermines the whole point of having those policies in the first place.
But I also think we probably hear more about problem officers in big cities because there are more media outlets in those places to report them, and because those outlets tend to me more skeptical than small town newspapers and local TV news.
Oh I didn't know that about NYPD and SWAT, that's interesting. I think you're totally right about media location bias. But also it feels like you come across a story that's like I don't know, "Florida officer fired after making racist statements" and I'm like, hmm, ok, because NYPD detectives can break a teenager's arm and the only repurcussions are to taxpayers from the resulting lawsuit. idk, maybe too NYC obsessed and as I discovered personally Tennessee cops are no joke! I do think there's a really interesting dynamic is blue cities in red states.