Violent police put democracy at risk
George Floyd was killed. The knee of a police officer on his neck. The knee blocks George Floyd’s breathing. It all lasts an eternity. An eternity; 8 minutes and 46 seconds. George Floyd’s body gives up; the officer continues kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. Three other officers observe the scene. They do not intervene. As a result, George Floyd dies.
We saw this scene on video, again. Just like Breonna Taylor in Louisville. Again, a black person dies at the hands of a white police officer, after Eric Garner, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Michelle Cusseaux… A few names on a long list. We should #SayTheirNames. According to The Washington Post Fatal Force project, 1,022 people have been shot and killed by police in 2019 in the United States of America.
As we hear about the events in the USA, I remember my work with a group of friends, when we published a report on the behaviour of the police in Geneva, Switzerland. This was back in May 2001. As members of a youth consultative body, we undertook to investigate repeated acts of violence by police towards minors and young adults in Geneva, especially against young people of colour or from the Balkans.
Young people we interviewed in Geneva told us they do not trust institutions, they will not take a complaint forward to the prosecutor general against a police agent, they do not want to stand in court to defend their rights. They said at the time they did not trust the institutions because the police officers whom they were dealing with were the only representation of the institutions they had. To them, the institution was carrying out verbal insults, coarse gestures, theft of cigarettes and other goods, violence; minor ‘police blunders’ the Minister of Justice of the Republic and Canton of Geneva at the time, Gérard Ramseyer, told us when we interviewed him.
For these young people in Geneva, just like for those chanting Black Lives Matter at demonstrations there is no rule of law and their only hope is to avoid the police.
What we learned at the time resonates with me today and indicates that our action should lead to responses everywhere, not believe that the problem is solely in the USA.
In this sense, millions of people took the streets around the world to demand justice following George Floyd’s killing. Libération calls it a ‘global anger’ (picture of the front page on the left). These demonstrations echo across the globe because too often ‘tough on crime’ politicians compared acts of violence by police to a ‘blunder’ due to provocation, adrenaline and exasperation. Gérard Ramseyer said so two decades ago, but the leader of the conservative in France said so, again, yesterday.
Police needs to become a civilian and legitimate force of the state contributing to shape safe societies again. For years now, law enforcement has been militarised, in the USA and elsewhere. We got used to see police officers armed, with bullet proof vests, in boots and wearing a combat uniform. We need a force distinguishing itself clearly from military, through its mission, through its behaviour, through its appearance, through its code of conduct and its operational doctrine.
Police forces must demonstrate their ability to use force as the only legitimate civilian body in society allowed to do so. Continued excessive use of force and disproportionate recourse to firearms, in violation of international standards, do not for the time being create the necessary conditions to trust police reform. The Minister of Interior of France announced today that the police arrest method by choking would be abandoned; other similar announcements were made in the USA. It is however truly exasperating that strangulation would even be tolerated in operational doctrines.
Police has to be helpful when needed but not instrumentalised by ‘tolerance zero’ criminal policies and penal populism. It is time that we stop using police to arrest the poorest or socially disadvantaged of our societies, including homeless people or Aboriginal Australians. It is time that we ask police to protect those vulnerable to violence and crime, and show respect to those in conflict with the law.
Police must be able to stand as a proud actor of the criminal justice system and build trust with those it comes in contact with. Impunity must hence stop; police hierarchy and prosecutors have a responsibility to hold officers accountable for their acts. We must work on changing the organisational culture and ensure that peers hold it other accountable, too. Three officers watching another one kneeling on the neck of a man repeating that he cannot breath, until he dies, should simply not happen.
George Floyd’s killing is only the visible part of the iceberg. Continued police misconduct, violence and brutality is a global issue and presents a true threat to democracy. It should trigger international reaction, activate institutions to support states in reforming their police, and it must end.
