Post 2: Bad apples, social justice, and George Floyd. Are we seeing progress? Or chaos?

Over the past two years, the climate of law enforcement has felt like a category five hurricane. For the first time in many years, this controversial climate did not only impact law enforcement, but society overall. When an incident creates national crisis, all are affected by the aftermath. In 2020, almost every part of the United States felt some type of ripple affect. Frankly stated, unless you were living on Pluto, it was impossible not to.

I’ve heard the term “the pendulum is swinging” more in the past 600 or so days than I ever have in my entire life, and I couldn’t disagree more. It is no longer a pendulum we are watching, but rather a wrecking ball that has lost control. A pendulum would imply accuracy and precision, and a true return to its equilibrium position when gravity ultimately wins the war of physics. For the first time in a long time however, accuracy and precision are nowhere to be found. Some would argue that chaos in the realm of social justice would be a good thing. We can all agree that change is healthy, and reform after all is ultimately what they were fighting for. In the bigger picture however, is change and reform always the best post incident option in the realm of proactive policing within the United States?

For us to understand the policing pendulum in the United States, we must first understand why it moves. Any movement is brought on by an incident. That incident can vary in nature and action, but ultimately it would be safe for us to assume that something bad happened. A shooting, an in-custody death, a major policy change, a terror attack, the list is infinite and almost exclusively negative. To this day, I have yet to see any aggressive reformation efforts based on something positive.

When we are presented with any type of social justice reform, it’s important for all of us to look to the past and ask ourselves one very important question: has this happened before? If the answer is yes, what was the long-term outcome? In my own findings, many of the critical incidents in the past that have caused national movements are almost repeated in identical fashion every time. That fashion is: incident, reaction, sustained reaction, resolve, and no follow through. The lack of follow through is very important, and we will circle back to that issue later in the reading.

For the current law enforcement generation, George Floyd’s death will probably be the most pivotal point of their careers in terms of overall aftermath and reformation of policing overall within the United States. The incident itself gained national notoriety within hours and international notoriety within days. The world was focused on one man, and one man only. That man was ultimately identified as Minneapolis Police Department Officer, Derek Chauvin. One man, in a matter of minutes would change the course of history forever.

In the months following the incident, the United States would see a year of sustained protests and riots across the nation. Within that same year, most law enforcement agencies would also lose any type of positive connection they once had with the public. The concept of law enforcement being a positive entity among any community was quickly fading nationwide. The average person in the United States who may have once been neutral in their opinion of law enforcement would now side with the likely possibility that most cops were in fact corrupt, racist, cruel, or otherwise completely untrustworthy. The pendulum was moving in all directions, and quite quickly.

While the mission of the social justice movement was to prevent an incident like George Floyd from ever happening again, their mission came with a cost, and that cost was paid for in a currency that unfortunately cannot be counted. We can tally the cost of damages and the loss of human life for the year 2020, but the numbers we can’t put on a spread sheet are the costs of rebuilding a relationship between the community and those sworn to protect it. That relationship is priceless and often completely overlooked when emotions are running high. Rather than the future, the majority of those involved with any cause will be focused on the immediate present.

In the realm of law enforcement, we face the same issues as any other business or entity in terms of employees and employee behavior. Simply stated, no employee is ever going to be perfect. Mistakes will be made and hopefully they are corrected, and proper recourse is provided. Sinister employees do exist, they are however, extremely rare. There are bad doctors, bad lawyers, bad teachers, bad firefighters, bad contractors, bad plumbers, the list goes on. Simply stated, there are bad apples within any profession. Within the arena of public service however, those bad apples seem to gain the most notoriety when they are discovered. The important thing to understand is where the bad apples come from. More importantly, with the current climate of law enforcement, will there be more bad apples on the streets than ever before? Some would ask how that’s even possible; I assure you; it is more of a possibility now than ever before.

In the year 2019, there were hundreds of thousands of applicants all over the nation ready to begin their career in law enforcement. Some would be first generation cops, some were following in their parents’ footsteps, some were from challenging backgrounds, some were first generation Americans. All walks of life. All sexes. All races. All of them ready to do their part to make this world a safer place. All of them, good apples. In the realm of fruit, it’s important for the reader to understand that bad apples are in fact not bad from day one. There is something that happens to them along the way that makes them rotten. The reasoning behind their spoiled core can vary in cause and nature, but once they are mixed in with the bunch, it’s very difficult to tell them apart. Sometimes someone simply takes a bite, and the course of history is changed forever.

Derek Chauvin was a bad apple, and what happened on May 25th, 2020, was a big bite. As this new generation of would-be great cops watched all of it unfold on live television, most of them decided to pursue other career interests. Background investigators were getting phone calls left and right from applicants explaining that they were “no longer interested in the position.” They were about to get offered their dream job, what happened? This became so common among agencies that background investigators started asking the applicants follow-up questions during these phone calls. “Was it another agency? Did you find somewhere else that paid better? Too long of a commute?” The answer was almost linear across the board- “I decided that I didn’t want to become a cop anymore.” They didn’t need to ask anymore questions, the writing was on the wall, along with every news network across America. All the future great cops were going to instead become great members of society doing something else to make a difference. For a time when the very best was needed for the future of law enforcement, there wasn’t a lot to choose from. When there’s slim pickings from the orchards, spoiled fruit can make its way to the market.

As we slowly approach the two-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death, I wonder what the future will look like. With all the social justice reform that occurred over the past 600 days, I saw very little that would make society safer, and even more concerning, very little that would prevent another incident from occurring like the one that did on May 25th, 2020. In law enforcement, there are retirements and promotions every day. Even more recently so because of the last year and a half. Cops all over the country have either retired early or moved on to another career field. Vacant positions must be filled. There is an expectation from the public that when they ask for help, someone will come. When the hiring pool becomes as shallow as it is, agencies will be forced to take what they can get, and those new cops come with a very large question mark looming over their heads as they walk out onto the street. Rather than the confidence and conviction that they used to hold, many agencies feel as if they are simply rolling the dice with this next generation.
​
I previously mentioned the concern of follow through after any critical incident that creates distrust between society and law enforcement, specifically George Floyds death. In the arena of preparation and prevention for future incidents, the only real tool we have is good cops outnumbering the bad in conjunction with criminals being held accountable for their actions. There is no other alternative, and we are seeing the results in real time today. Violent criminal activity, to include homicides, are at an all-time high while staffing and overall retention among local law enforcement agencies are at all time lows. The social justice movement was so hell bent on getting rid of cops entirely that they did not consider the long-term ramifications of those actions. Before we can identify the solution, we must first understand that there is more than one problem, and those problems do not fall entirely on the backs of law enforcement. If we truly wish to see change, change must come in the form of a collective. In the fight against evil, nothing of value will ever be achieved alone. 

Mac Rollins