A group of police chiefs, activists and policymakers gathered to debate how to reform law enforcement in America in a time of unrest and upheaval.
The topic of police reform became a matter of popular debate, with one phrase in particular inflaming passions. As part of the DealBook D.C. Policy Project, The New York Times convened activists, academics, law enforcement officials and politicians to discuss public safety, racism and the different things people mean when they say “defund the police.”
The participants:
Carmen Best, former chief of police for Seattle
Justin Blake, founder of Black Underground Recycling and uncle of Jacob Blake
Cat Brooks, activist and former Oakland, Calif., mayoral candidate
James E. Craig, chief of police for Detroit
Brandon Dasent, activist and Parkland shooting survivor
Katherine Levine Einstein, associate professor at Boston University
Quinton Lucas, mayor of Kansas City, Mo.
Chris Magnus, chief of police for Tucson, Ariz.
Rod Rosenstein, partner at King & Spalding and former deputy attorney general
Moderated by John Eligon, The Times’s national correspondent covering race
A striking — and strikingly common — theme emerged from formative encounters with the police.
To begin, each panelist described a personal meeting with police that proved influential in their lives. Notably, the police chiefs all recalled formative injustices that would shape their work, revealing a kinship with the activists who are working to change their profession.
Progress requires confronting uncomfortable truths.
Slavery has shaped American policing, and ignorance of U.S. history hinders reform, Chief Magnus noted. (Policing arose from early slave patrols.) He added:
“They take it very personally when someone says police are racist or when they even hear the term ‘systemic racism.’ But part of the problem is they haven’t gotten any education about the history of policing. And they don’t realize what the role of police were, going back as oppressors, and how that carries over even into the modern day.”
Mr. Blake said this history tainted every aspect of African-American lives. But he believes there is a way forward by investing in communities — he called poverty “the elephant in the room” — and changing aspects of policing:
“Just like our Constitution has a lot of things wrong with it, we believe some changes can be made to preserve what we have instead of imploding and trying to build anew. So, for instance, some of the times when there’s family issues, street issues, mental health issues, we should not be calling our police force to respond to that.”
To read more of the DealBook D.C. Policy Project's article, please click here.
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