To enhance law enforcement's image, don't equip them to treat citizens as combatants | Weathersbee

Years before Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin snuffed out George Floyd’s life enraging onlookers and igniting protests in Memphis and other cities last summer, relations between many of Shelby County’s citizens and law enforcement were shaky.

In 2015, a Memphis police officer, Connor Shilling, shot and killed an unarmed Black man, Darrius Stewart. A grand jury’s failure to indict him and Shilling being allowed to retire with a pension led Black Lives Matter protesters to shut down the Hernando DeSoto bridge during a 2016 march.

And those protests led the Memphis Police Department to spy on some of those activists until a federal judge told them they were breaking the law.

All of that makes many Black people see all law enforcement entities as intimidators and not protectors. One way to begin to fix that, though, is to limit the means for that mistrust to worsen.

That’s what Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and some Shelby County Commissioners are trying to do. They want to start by limiting the county’s law enforcement agencies’ ability to easily obtain military grade equipment and weaponry which has, in some cities, been used against protesters.

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Commissioners Van Turner Jr., Tami Sawyer, Mickell Lowery and Reginald Milton are sponsoring an ordinance that would require the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, the Shelby County Division of Corrections and the Shelby County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security to seek authorization from the commission before accepting any transfers of any such equipment.

The ordinance wouldn’t require those agencies to seek authorization for protective gear, such as shields and helmets. It would, however, require authorization from the commission for stuff like grenade launchers, armored vehicles or any items that might make it seem as if they are at war with the citizens whose taxes pay their salaries.

The commission will consider the ordinance Monday. It should approve it — if for no other reason than to make a preemptive step toward showing the community that law enforcement exists to work with them, not react to them.

“I will say to you today that what you do here sets the tone for what we do in Nashville… the militarization of law enforcement has many nuances to it,” said Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, who recently drove from Nashville to voice his support for the ordinance to the commission’s law enforcement, corrections and court committee.

“I think the one that strikes me as most dangerous is that it sets the tactics and the strategies of the military organization as opposed to a policing organization. The military is designed to take property and lives, law enforcement and local police are charged with protecting property and protecting lives.”

Shelby County Chief Public Defender Phyllis Aluko also spoke in favor of the ordinance.

“This would improve community relations by treating the community as a respected partner in law enforcement’s efforts to protect and to serve,” said Aluko, who also serves on the legislative committee of Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s Reimagining Policing Advisory Council.

But if law enforcement agencies are able to mimic a military operation, that alone defeats the purpose of boosting community relations.

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And seeing that most of the protests and activism have been in response to police brutality, militarization piles onto the idea that law enforcement is primed to perpetuate such abuses.

We know this not because of how supporters of this ordinance feel, but because of what research reveals.

According to a 2017 study titled, “Militarization and police violence: The case of the 1033 program,” found that police officer-involved shootings and fatalities increased in police departments that had become more militarized under that program.

While the 1033 program — the program in which the Department of Defense provides surplus weaponry and equipment to law enforcement agencies — initially was aimed at fighting heavily armed drug cartels and terrorists, it has also caused many of those officers to view themselves as combatants.

Radley Balko, author of the book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces,” told National Public Radio that besides the tear gas and militaristic gear, the warrior mindset is a menace in and of itself.

“…It’s the way police view themselves, the way they view protesters and how they view their job at a protest,” Balko said.

 “…What we’ve seen…in way too many cities is this very sort of confrontational, us versus them kind of approach to protests, which, you know, is not normally the kind of approach — or shouldn’t be the kind of approach that we associate with a free society.”

Hopefully, the commission — which has failed at a number of attempts at law enforcement reform — will see this issue differently.

It should — especially since all the commission would require is that law enforcement agencies simply seek its approval before accepting military-grade equipment and weaponry that might cost too much to maintain — at a cost of further diminishing its relations with the community.

It should — especially since unarmed protesters aren’t enemy combatants. They are citizens using their rights to right the wrongs that led Chauvin, undeterred by the outrage of the crowd, to crush the life out of Floyd, or that put Shilling, who was once investigated for excessive force and arrested for a DUI, in a position to unleash lethal force on Stewart.

To head off this practice, at least when it comes to the Shelby County law enforcement agencies, would jumpstart the idea of reimagining police.

And one way to do that is to not allow police to acquire equipment that could cause them to see themselves as warriors when they’re supposed to be protectors.

Even when it means protecting people’s rights to protest them.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Tonyaa Weathersbee at 901-568-3281, tonyaa.weathersbee@commercialappeal.com or follow her on Twitter @tonyaajw.