Briefly, About Good Cops And Bad Cops
Free-Photos / Pixabay
Way back in 2019, in the moments after the Toronto Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors for the NBA title, Masai Ujiri assaulted Alan Strickland, a police officer. Strickland, tasked with guarding the Oracle Arena floor against overly exuberant fans, was simply trying to do his job when Ujiri rushed him, shoving him so hard that Strickland suffered injuries to his “head, jaw, chin, and teeth.” Strickland went on to describe Ujiri as trying to “storm” the court in the aftermath of the Raptors shocking upset of the dominant Warriors.
Strickland, unsurprisingly, sued Ujiri, claiming that Ujiri hit Strickland with “both fists as he attempted to reach the court.” Strickland was seeking at least $75,000, plus:
punitive damages, payment of all medical and incidental expenses, to date and in the future; all proven loss of earnings; and all legal costs of filing the suit.
Strickland also sued the Toronto Raptors, MLSE, and the NBA, alleging that all three had “failed to provide adequate safety and security measures to protect members of the public.” Among the lawsuit’s suggestions were that all three could have posted signs warning arena staff about “the danger of Masai Ujiri.”
Lest anybody doubt Strickland’s version of events – although he is an upstanding police officer, there are still those who criticize our brave boys in blue – he enjoyed the support of his boss Greg Ahern, the Alameda County Sheriff. Ahern insisted that Ujiri be charged with battery of a peace officer. And Strickland also enjoyed the support of his coworkers, none of whom came forward to claim that anything untoward had occurred.
Ujiri, of course, denied all of the accusations, but then, that’s what hardened criminals always do. Instead of taking responsibility for their actions, they shift blame to anywhere but themselves, demanding sympathy where none is warranted.
The District Attorney declined to press charges.
A funny thing happened yesterday: Ujiri’s legal team released bodycam footage of the incident. And, quite unexpectedly, the bodycam footage did not show what Strickland claimed it did.
Masai Ujiri's legal team has released body camera footage of his encounter with a security worker at Oracle Arena after the Raptors won the NBA championship. pic.twitter.com/56XWMpZy0P
— Diamond Leung (@diamond83) August 19, 2020
So perhaps the telling of this story ought to be started over.
Way back in 2019, in the moments after the Toronto Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors for the NBA title, Alan Strickland assaulted Masai Ujiri. Ujiri, the Toronto Raptors team president, was headed onto the floor to celebrate with his team when he ran into Strickland. He showed Strickland his badge giving him floor access. In response, Strickland grabbed Ujiri by the jacket, shoved him backward, and told the team official to, “back the fuck up.” Strickland then shoved Ujiri again; at that point, Ujiri, having had quite enough, shoved back.
And then Strickland’s lying began.
When Black Lives Matters protests roared back to life in the aftermath of Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd, one of the defenses offered of police generally is that although there are bad cops – very few people could claim otherwise after the video of Floyd’s death became widely available – they are few and far between and shouldn’t be used to tarnish police generally. Police, we are insistently told, are good people doing dangerous work; the idea that the few bad apples have spoiled the barrel is criticism gone too far. But here is the Minneapolis Police Department’s initial release following Floyd’s murder. Its description of events is miles removed from what everybody could see on the video.
Two officers arrived and located the suspect, a male believed to be in his 40s, in his car. He was ordered to step from his car. After he got out, he physically resisted officers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later.
None of this is meant to compare Floyd’s murder to Ujiri’s mistreatment. They are separated by chasms. But the police response, in both cases, was to lie about what had happened in the exact same ways as one another, despite indisputable video evidence existing that showed the lies for what they were. So, sure, maybe it is unfair to assume the characteristics of an entire community based upon what its worst members do. At some point though, somebody is going to have to explain why it is exactly that police descriptions of events keep veering off so wildly, and so conveniently, from what actual video shows. And they are going to have to add something about why all of the other officers involved – the allegedly good cops that have not been spoiled by the bad ones – chose to go with the lies rather than the truth.
Update: The Alameda Sheriff’s Office, having seen the released footage (and having presumably seen it since the very start of the story) and facing a mountain of criticism for having claimed that it verified Strickland’s story, has decided to…checks notes…stick with Strickland’s version of events:
#UPDATE – Alameda County Sheriff's office tells @CP24 "We 100% stand by original statement that was released that Mr. Ujiri is the aggressor in this incident…don't be quick to judge based off of what lawyers are saying." @Raptors #Toronto
— Stephanie Smyth (@stephaniesmyth) August 19, 2020
Some cops are assholes. Some will lie to get away with doing stuff. Some cops steal from drug dealers and take their drugs and money. Normal people lie. Black people, knowing that there are bad cops, lie about cops treating them badly when trying to get out of criminal charges.
If this isn’t understood, you don’t have an open mind. The point to to minimize all of this. It’ll never truly end, but it can be minimized…..but not on the current path it won’t.Report
As Sam gets at downthread, it’s about the institution backing the bad cop when they have to know s/he is bad.
The Sheriff, at the very least, had access to the bodycam video. He had to know it contradicted Strickland’s version of events, yet he still backed his officer. This isn’t some ‘certain point of view’ kind of case.
When the military has a bad apple, they don’t make public statements supporting the service member, and especially not when the facts are uncertain. And if the bad apple is truly bad, they get him/her out as fast as they can.
PDs can never just A) shut the hell up, and b) because they can never admit that they have shite humans in the ranks who shouldn’t be, because that would require them to actually purge said shite humans from the ranks.
Now, one could argue that doing so means exposing criminal prosecutions to judicial review. If Strickland, for example, had a habit of beating on folks and lying about it after the fact, then perhaps a number of convictions for resisting arrest or assault of an officer would get tossed.
But is that really such a bad thing?Report
I totally agree. The police institution should be as follows: if you in the right, we’ll back you to the hilt. If you’re lying to cover up shitty behavior, we’re gonna expose you and crush you. If you made a mistaken, we’re going to work to fix the problem and help you not make that mistake again…..Report
Which is how the military does it . . . which I find ironic given how militarized many police forces have become.Report
The “oh, you think it’s just some bad apples? Well here’s another bad apple! See? See? [smug, hands-on-hips conclusion]” style needs to die.Report
The thing with bad apples is you have to remove them from the bushel immediately because they can change the ph balance on all of the other apples fairly quickly.Report
So the metaphor people misconstrue as “don’t worry, it’s just a few” is more like corruption infects everyone in the group if not rooted out.Report
Well, the full saying is a “A few bad apples quickly spoil the bunch”.
Which makes it strange to hear defenses of cops as “It’s just a few bad apples”. So you’re agreeing that a few bad cops, unchecked, will soon corrupt the entire force?
But then they conclude that no attempts be made to find and remove the bad apples.Report
Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering too. See also: molesting priests.Report
Every cop that stands with a bad apple – either through action (as the sheriff in Alameda County did) or inaction (as all of his coworkers did) – are themselves bad apples worsening the problem. That’s the point.Report
More police cameras. More footage being released quickly.
You want to argue that we can’t release the footage to the public for privacy concerns? Snort. Okay, fine. Let’s put together a civilian task force that receives special privacy training and put them in charge of watching the footage immediately. Hell, hire someone with digital experience and have them be in charge of putting a blur filter over every face in the footage that is not the Person of Interest and then release that footage to the public.
Body Cameras did their job here. A bad apple was demonstrated to have been a bad apple by his body camera. The cop who was in charge of backing him up now gets to answer questions about why he did and whether he knew about the body camera footage. His answers to those questions can help us determine whether he is a bad apple too.
And then, from there, sanction accordingly.
Police Cameras did their job in this case and did them admirably.
They appear to be a solution to the problem with cops like Alan Strickland.Report
Except his boss is perfectly willing to lie for him so he doesn’t expose his department to all sorts of . . . something. That Sheriff has no intention of sanctioning his deputy, nor does he even acknowledge that his deputy might have done something wrong. SO there’s not yet a solution, and that tweet is probably a clear indication that unless the sheriff is removed from office somehow, he intends to continue backing his deputy.Report
Maybe there ain’t nothin’ that can be done about that.
We will certainly find out in the coming months, won’t we?
The tool that is good, though… the tool that works? It’s the body cam. It’s the making the footage public.
We need more of that. Even if the Sheriff has no intention of sanctioning his deputy.Report
Since the Floyd protests have begun Greg Doucette has a twitter thread with over 800 (last I looked) videos of police whacking on various people in the street. The police keep doing it, knowing there are dozens of cameras catching them in the act. Maybe cameras aren’t the panacea we thought they’d be.Report
I submit: If you’re hoping for a silver bullet that will bring us to a good system, I’m not sure I have one.
Unfortunately, most of the stuff I have to suggest pretty much only works in synergy with other stuff. So, like, X is meh. X and Y are eh… X and Y and Z are okay, I guess. X and Y and Z and Aleph might get us to measurably better.
But it’s like ending Prohibition. Did letting people drink beer again, legally, shoot a magic bullet into the werewolves plaguing society?
No, it did not.
(Though I’ve got to say, the last few years here have done a good job of getting me to not see “that’s not a silver bullet!” as a particularly strong criticism of any given policy to move things in the right direction.)Report
“If you’re hoping for a silver bullet that will bring us to a good system, I’m not sure I have one.”
I gotta say, though, one thing that for sure seems like an anti-silver bullet is telling people how situations like this don’t actually represent progress. “Oh, well, how was he even on the force“. “Oh, well, the department covered for him“. “Oh, well, they insisted on an investigation.” People are so addicted to the comforts of misery that they want to turn this into something negative, into a platform for pissing their cynical defeatism onto the rest of us. They don’t want this to be an example of what’s possible, they want this to be an example of how everything’s bad and always will be.Report
Yeah, it doesn’t *FIX* the problem. But it *ADDRESSES* it. It addresses it meaningfully.
Are there additional things that need to be done?
Of course.
But in the list of 17 things that need to be done, this is one of them.Report
This feels a lot like the Church’s sex scandals. Or Michigan State’s.
I think the same reasoning and the same solution applies.
Your institution needs to be fined enough so that you see the benefit of doing the right thing. If people like you are still doing the wrong thing, then another zero needs to be added to the fine. After the fine gets large enough that you, personally, are viewed as a failed manager because of how you handled this then we’ll know the fine was large enough.
If we want to be clever here we can say, a million dollars because of what the cop did but we’ll increase that by 50x because of his leaderships’ actions.
And if that’s not enough then put a zero on it, and if that’s still not enough add another zero.
These organizations are not changing because the ORGANIZATION is not in enough pain. Even getting rid of the Sheriff wouldn’t be enough because odds are very good he’ll be replaced by a clone.Report
That makes an even worse game, “Frame a cop for $50 million!”
All that will produce is criminals who sue cities into bankruptcy and then steal everything else that isn’t nailed down.Report
It’s a fine, you don’t get $50M for framing a cop. Also, the fine doesn’t kick in unless the department chooses to stand by their man despite clear evidence that their man is shite.Report
Given how amazingly hard it is to convict even the clearly guilty, I have a feeling this won’t be an issue.Report
The trick is getting the fines imposed.Report
This is where a federal law could be useful.Report
I’m not convinced that fines are even an incentive, since the taxpayers are the ones paying.
Question for the people reading this;
Which terrifies you more, losing a lot of money and your job, or going to jail?Report
The point is to push the pain of this onto their political masters.
Mr. Mayor, do you want to do something about the police or do you want to pay another Billion dollars in fines?
This is an organizational issue, so punish the organizations which have issues.Report
The LAPD budget itself is over 1 Billion dollars just for this year alone. And they just finished paying out 300 Million, or nearly 1/3 of their budget in judgements.
Yet…I had to look this up because it was not headline news, it wasn’t (until VERY recently) even an issue in local politics.
It remains pretty rare to see any elected officials losing their jobs over this.Report
I don’t want elected officials to lose their jobs. I want them to have to choose between giving promotions to teachers (etc) and paying fines.
When that happens it will be in their best interest to do something. LA’s total budget is 10B a year. Very clearly 3% in fines is simply not enough… and that assumes that 300 Million was in one year.
For the Church it took judgements which were a LOT higher than 3%.Report
RE: promotions
I meant “raises”.Report
Point of order – in most local jurisdictions the locals who control those budgets are two different sets of politicians. At the state level they are the same legislators, but at that level they are too far removed for this scheme to work.Report
Are you claiming the local Mayor has no influence over the local police?
And big picture if we’re going to think that this is a system thing, then this is an effort to punish the system.Report
I know of no mayor who has the legal authority to redirect police salaries to schools, thus making a choice between teacher raises and police fines. And not all mayors control the PD’s budgets – city councils may, but not all mayors.Report
This is missing the forest for the trees.
Michigan State’s fiscal issues have made it change it’s act. The Church is seeing something similar (although I’ll wait a decade before deciding they’ve really changed).
This is one of the few ways to put a lot of pressure on a large organization, and if the police don’t care then the city and it’s taxpayers will.Report
Hardly. Your example is flawed – local school budgets and local police budgets re not generally controlled by the same groups of politicians. A city may indeed suffer if its police are repeatedly and severely fined for their actions – but few cities, towns, or counties will off set that with school funds. There is no choice to be had between paying police fines and paying teachers.Report
From the front page of the weekly paper in my population 120K suburb:
The program started in 2016. The department reports substantial increases in de-escalation and reductions in arrests. Internal surveys indicate ~90% of the officers really like the program because it makes their jobs simpler.Report
Has anyone told those officers this is Defunding The Police?Report