George Floyd: One Year On - Rob Horowitz

George Floyd: One Year On - Rob Horowitz

Today, marks the one-year anniversary of the cold-blooded killing of George Floyd, an African American man, by, a white police officer, while 3 other police officers stood by. This is a murder we all witnessed on video. As a result, it gave new energy to a long-running debate about the use of excessive force by police officers, especially in incidents involving African Americans and other minorities.

The conviction of the police officer Derek Chauvin on all counts as well as the Justice Department’s recent indictment of Chauvin and the other 3 officers on the scene on federal civil rights charges provides a measure of justice in this case.   There has only been fitful progress, however, on the broader problem.  After an initial wave of overwhelming majority support for police reform, our polarized politics reasserted itself, slowing the momentum for action.

This dissipation of public support is partially a result of self-inflicted wounds by some activists and a few Democratic politicians.  By framing the issue around “defunding the police”---one of the most politically tone-deaf slogans ever devised--these activists alienated a sub-set of supporters and enabled Republicans and their allies in the media to weaponize the phrase, turning it into a potent wedge issue in the 2020 elections.   Only 18% of Americans overall and 28% of African Americans support the “defund the police movement”, according to a recent Ipsos/ USA Today Poll.

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The choice of ‘defund the police” is even more maddening because the actual position of most of the people using the term is the far more popular notion that a portion of police budgets should be re-allocated to create a funding stream to hire social workers and others who might be better suited to handle some tasks now handled by the police, such as responding to incidents involving people with mental illness.  Added to the negative impact of this ill-chosen slogan was the property destruction and violence committed by a small minority of protesters. These actions received outsized media coverage.

There is still, however, solid support for police reform in the American public.  “A 60 percent majority say the country should do more to hold police accountable for mistreatment of Black people, while 33 percent say the country is doing too much to interfere in how police officers do their job,” documents a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll.  Additionally, individual components of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act-- federal police reform legislation, which recently passed the House and is now the subject of what appears to be intense bi-partisan negotiations to arrive at a version that can attract sufficient Senate votes to overcome a filibuster--are very popular. More than 7-in-10 American adults support mandating body cameras for federal officers and outlawing the use of chokeholds by federal officers and more than 8-in-10 Americans back prohibiting racial profiling, according to a Vox/Data Progress poll. Even nearly 6-in-10 Americans support an end to “qualified immunity” for police officers. Qualified immunity remains the sticking point in the ongoing negotiations with both sides searching for an acceptable principled compromise.

The adoption of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act—if it occurs-will be a welcome breakthrough on police reform and include some important first steps. But most of the hard work of reform will still need to be accomplished at the local level in the more than 17,000 state, county and municipal police departments throughout the nation.  Bringing about the culture change required to overcome the often stubborn remnants of a “warrior” culture and create a  “guardian” culture that puts proven de-escalation policies that promote public safety and limit injuries for the community and the police alike at the center of policing requires enlisting police chiefs and line officers, local elected officials and the public at large in these win-win solutions(full disclosure: for one of my clients, The Citizens Campaign, I do work on police reform issues in NJ cities and Philadelphia).  The best way to accomplish this critical goal is to not force people to make a binary choice between supporting the police and combating racism and mistreatment. 

It is both possible and necessary to do both. That is where the overwhelming majority of the public is and there lies the path to the sustained and permanent reforms we need.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services, and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.