Police Leaders Must Abandon Three Destructive and Undermining Terms
Law enforcement leaders must use their own words, not the language of activists, to maintain public trust and integrity
Law enforcement leaders must not adopt the language of the critics and self-proclaimed reformers. It legitimizes and amplifies the opposing viewpoint, undermining their own message and authority. Leaders must focus on articulating their perspectives and values confidently and consistently. Here are three frequently used terms to start with, but there are certainly dozens more that need to be eliminated.
Implicit Bias
Implicit bias is an illegitimate concept. First, there is no reliability in the tests to detect the supposedly buried bias. The main test, the Implicit Association Test, fails the scientific process of being able to replicate results. Second, the explanation of supposed implicit bias requires successful leaps over hurdles of reason. Precious few law enforcement officers I worked with had a sufficient filter in expressing their (explicit) bias in contact with the public, in the office or even at lunch.
Most law enforcement professionals, current and former command staff, who speak to me about implicit bias have it confused with explicit bias that has been knowingly and consciously concealed. I don’t make a habit of correcting those friends and colleagues; however it is the greatest ghost story ever told.
Third, a respected commentator said it best when he said it would never work in court specifically meaning using implicit bias as a defense. Consider that legal theory, that this evil demon residing silently inside my subconscious arose outside of my control and committed these Title VI violations, on a person of an obviously opposite the qualifying trait (race, color, or national origin) than the officer accused, so how can I be held responsible? This leads to the assumption that implicit bias is an immutable trait, rather than a dynamic aspect of cognition influenced by external factors. This theory, implicit bias, which remains scientifically unproven, is defeated by logic and reason on every approach. It’s time for every law enforcement leader to reject it and retire it to the dustbin of disproven concepts.
Police Violence
The term ‘Police Violence’ was in the vernacular prior to 2014. Instigators with video cameras would conduct outrageous conduct to evoke a police response and create their ‘cop watch’ clips to portray law enforcement in a negative light.
Several protesters without a cause became united in Ferguson in 2014 and started the Mapping Police Violence project. Your own possible definition of what could possibly be defined as ‘police violence’ likely will not match their understanding.
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine displays the following from the ‘About Us’ page on their website in 2015:
“They include information on 1175 known police killings - including unintentional and off-duty killings as well as in-custody deaths - that occurred in 2014 (There may be killings that did not get reported by the media and, as a result, did not get included in this database). Of these, over 90 percent of the killings occurred while a police officer was acting in a law enforcement capacity.”
To activists, police violence includes an intoxicated person of color walking in the path of a vehicle, and if that vehicle is a police car not responding to an emergency, then that counts as police violence. “An on-duty officer struck Justin Sullivan and Quentin Byrd as the two were crossing a highway around 1 a.m.”
Dominique Franklin Jr., committed a robbery in Chicago stealing a bottle of vodka and resisted officers. He had a warrant, but the officers didn’t know that at the time. The second time he was stunned by an electronic control device he fell headfirst into a light pole and died weeks later.
George V. King was combative in the hospital and officers needed to use tasers to subdue him in the struggle. He went into cardiac arrest and lifesaving measured revived him but he remained in a coma until he died days later. Officers were cleared as death was determined to be caused by an abscess in the spine and meningitis.
Wally Flex, a 16-year-old passenger in a vehicle fleeing a traffic stop in Chicago died of injuries sustained when the vehicle crashed. Two other vehicle occupants were hospitalized, and two handguns were recovered in the vehicle.
All were listed as victims of police violence by the ministry of propaganda for Black Lives Matter. When they were united, they were also the voice of Campaign Zero which rose to national prominence in 2020 with their ‘Eight Can’t Wait’ list of demands that included banning chokeholds, no-knock warrants, shooting into vehicles and demanding layers of de-escalation.
It only takes a moment’s contemplation to recognize how the very term ‘police violence’ is an illegitimate term that can’t exist in constitutional policing. In fact, an officer exercising ‘police violence’ is acting outside the scope of policy, regulations and law, and therefore are not acting as the police and instead committing a criminal act. There is no reason why any police leader would employ this toxic term in their vocabulary.
Excessive Force
Necessary force is never pretty. The majority of employees have never been at work, where as a requirement of their employment they must, take a criminal suspect somewhere they absolutely don’t want go to face charges. Statistically, when police officers make the arrest it happens peacefully in large cities almost 98% of the time.
Excessive force is not clearly defined in law. Literally, there is no law specifying what it is or what its limit are. There is a danger in presuming that common sense provides enough discernment to properly interpret an application of force in response to resistance absent of practical experience. Unlike police violence, I don’t deny that excessive force exists. I oppose theories that it is prevalent. But here is a key challenge in addressing excessive force: the cities where police are accused of being heavy-handed are the most violent cities either on DOJ consent decrees or future settlement cities.
Decisive action is key for both arrestee and officer safety. It’s entertaining to see Jackie Gleason kick a suspect in the seat of the pants in Smokey and the Bandit, but the reason it was comedy 47 years ago is that it was accepted as inappropriate and outrageous even in those days.
A testament to the professionalism of law enforcement in our nation is that since 2009 the anti-police and police abolitionist movement have been tensed ready to pounce on any account of valid excessive force by the police. There have been numerous swings and misses, notably in 2012 and 2014, where both individuals and the profession have been on trial and exonerated.
When high profile events happen, and too often they are unremarkable events whose only merit is media overexposure, the first words from police leaders to the press is that they will explore if excessive force was used. Echoing the deceptive terminology of their detractors, law enforcement leaders confuse their supporters and dilute the clarity of their vision and policies. Speaking that into existence is one of the greatest betrayals an officer or deputy can experience during the most stressful time of their life.
Let’s strengthen the profession by eliminating these terms for good.
Please keep all peace officers in your prayers.
Roland Clee served a major Florida police department as a Community Service Officer for more than 26 years. His career included uniformed patrol, training, media relations, intelligence, criminal investigations, and chief’s staff. He writes the American Peace Officer newsletter, speaks at public safety, recruiting and leadership conferences and helps local governments and public safety agencies through his business, CommandStaffConsulting.com. His work is frequently featured on LawOfficer.com, the only law enforcement owned major media player in the public safety realm.
References:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150304094225/http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/aboutthedata/
Need to abandon another destructive phrase: Gun Violence. Guns don't kill with a human activating it. People kill other people... gun are inanimate objects that do nothing on their own. Gun Violence is strictly political anti-gun rhetoric.
Chief Sharris won't be happy about not being able to say Police Violence or Implicit Bias 🤣