On the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, one is tempted to consider a sense progress. Perhaps if you’re hopeful and optimistic. For the realists, any report card of progress would have to be a bit delusional.

    Yes, within a year, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin– who placed his knee on the back of the neck of George Floyd long enough to cause asphyxiation–has been convicted on all three counts of murder.

    As expected, it’s on appeal while he’s imprisoned.  But Chauvin was not defended by his chief, let alone the ranks of those upholding police standards and training in the Minneapolis Police Dept. And that was a big deal. To me, it was the reason the perp, a cop, was convicted.

    That’s a lot in one year.

    But does it herald a sustainable difference in policing anywhere, let alone Minneapolis?  Will it radiate justice, or is it just a one-off?

    It can’t be a one-off if indeed #BLM. But that’s where we appear to be one year after George Floyd.

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    We are still taking baby steps towards the promised land.

    If you don’t think so, consider the history of policing in Oakland in just the last 20 years.

    Consider the notorious Riders case around the turn of the millennium, where some Oakland cops were accused of kidnapping, planting evidence, kicking down doors, searching without a warrant. And all against East and West Oakland residents who posed no threat to the arresting officers.

   There was a class action lawsuit against the police that ended in the largest negotiated settlement agreement (NSA) in Oakland municipal history on March 14,  2003.

   It called for the city to pay $10.9 million to the class members. And it included 31 reforms to be made by the department, included policies on use of force, racial profiling, and updating technology like wearing cam-recorders.

    Simple, right? Obtainable within a year or two, of course….not.

    To this day, Oakland has had a new chief every two years, and many of the NSA’s reforms have not been fulfilled.

    One chief, brought in from the internal affairs division, looked like he would make a breakthrough, but in 2006, a sex scandal within the department involving a victim of sex-trafficking snared 12 officers.

   The real scandal, however, was that chief’s failure to disclose the scandal to the court’s monitor. That was his undoing.

    This accounting all comes from the honorable Thelton Henderson, the now retired federal judge who oversaw that NSA. In a lecture given this Spring at Berkeley Law School, Henderson expressed his frustration that the NSA he oversaw had been passed on to a new judge.

But the fact that we are now 18 years trying to bring about police reform, show how near impossible it is.

    “Herculean,” said Henderson. He believes it’s because policing has taken the “war on crime” idea literally, turning police into “soldiers, or an occupying force with battle armor and tanks and assault weapons ready to do battle with the communities they have vowed to protect and serve.”

   Add to that the labor unions, who constantly remind the public of the dangerousness of the job.

    But no one understands the danger the unions play in public safety.

    “We know something is wrong, when one side in the bargaining process eventually amasses such an imbalance of power that it seems to operate as an autonomous unit, almost independent of its employer,” said Henderson.

    This is from the judge who oversaw the negotiated settlement in the Riders case. Henderson’s indicating the real power that unions have to put the needs of the police above the city and its people.  

  The police unions have taken collective bargaining to the point where they harm our democratic society.

    You see why to assess where we are one year after George Floyd is way too soon.

    Police reform? America is hamstrung by labor policy.

    Without labor reform we’ll be inching along toward the policing we deserve.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. Twitter @emilamok; Watch his vlog on Facebook @emilguillermo.media ; Or on www.amok.com

Mia Lane

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