In our last episode, we mentioned a short list of videos we compiled showing appalling violence against peaceful protestors. Turns out, someone has done this much better than we did. A lawyer and mathematician are working together to catalogue as many incidences of police brutality as possible. Originally, the authors created a twitter thread, but they received so many responses that they decided to reformat the project. You can read about see the spreadsheet by clicking here.
Many of these events are already infamous. Police arrested a journalist arrested on live, after he calmly requested that the police relocate him and his cameraman (who was also arrested) to wherever was convient for the officers. When he asked why he was being arrested, he was not told, and his Miranda rights were not read to him, a violation of his 5th amendment rights and our 1st amendment rights to a free press. A 76 year old man was thrown to the ground and left on the street**, apparently bleeding from his ears. An officer driving his truck into a crowd of peaceful protestors standing behind a barricade, arguably a violation of our 8th amendment rights (cruel and unusual punishment) and 5th amendment rights (right to not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Senior citizens die regularly from falls – this could reasonably have been expected to seriously injure or kill a man of his age).
Abuse of state power, live on TV
What makes these videos jarring for so many (beyond, you know, the raw violence) is the sheer volume of evidence that has become available in the last week. No longer can a reasonable critic argue that the video of George Floyd’s killing is an outlier. There are now enough examples to empirically demonstrate a systemic willingness to use excessive force in situations that do not warrant them. For the wonks out there: the sample size of demonstrable evidence is now sufficiently large that we can reasonably conclude that the sample is representative of the broader population. Americans’ constitutional rights are being routinely abused by the police, an organ of the state.
One approach: focus on the local
Longtime listeners will know that I have long been wary of government overreach. Following the Snowden leaks in 2013, I co-founded the Los Angeles chapter of Restore the 4th in 2013, a pro-privacy advocacy group that very much opposed what we considered to be an abuse of state power. During this experience I worked alongside some impressive individuals, and had a minor role in lobbying for a California state bill that passed, puttingminor restrictions on the government’s ability to surveil citizens without a warrant. In truth, the final result was watered down and disappointing. Now, I’m no expert activist, but one big takeaway from that experience was that it doesn’t take a lot of people to put pressure on local politicians. At the national level, it could take hundreds, if not thousands, of calls to try to catch House member or Senator’s attention. Local council members, on the other hand, will raise their eyes if 10 people email or contact them.
One way to approach the problem of state abuse of power is to focus on local elections. A relatively small number of people emailing, calling, interacting with on social media, and tuning in to an otherwise obscure election can force a candidate to pivot one way or another. And it turns out, there are elections coming up in five months, and most states have at least some sheriff elections coming up.
Why Sheriff elections?
There’s not a lot of information available on Sheriff elections. They are publicized minimally, if at all. Sometimes information is available on Ballotpedia, and sometimes you can get a sample ballot ahead of time. Few people vote in these elections, so a small group of individuals can make a real difference. Ten people calling a local Sheriff’s office demanding a proposal that lays out comprehensive reform by November will be noticed. We can let them know, that if they do not propose and begin to implement meaningful changes by then (and what this entails is very much the conversation we need to be having right now), that we will vote them out of office.
There’s a distinction worth nothing here. Sheriffs are usually (but not always) elected officials. Police chiefs, on other hand, are usually appointed by council members or mayors, which are elected officials. And sheriff departments are clearly not the only law enforcement agencies that have been called in during the protests. Still, by casting light on local sheriff elections in the coming months, we the people can put an pressure on incumbents to offer comprehensive reform that institutionalizes accountability. By November. In fact, Erik and I put together a guide for just how to do this.
As the old adage goes: “There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.” At this point, we can reasonably say we’ve passed the soapbox, and that merely demanding reform out loud has not worked. Now it’s time for the ballot box.
Footnote & aside on “terrorism”
** Trump later went on to tweet about this. He justified the officers’ actions by calling the old man a potential member of antifa, and therefore, implicitly, a potential terrorist. Trump’s response embodies the problem with the word “terrorism”. A different set of rules apply to terrorists than to “ordinary” criminals. Terrorists don’t have the same rights that a citizen has, so the government can justify use of force against them that may otherwise be excessive. We’ve been slowly walking down this road since 2001. Now we’re beginning to see the long-term consequences. The government can now arbitrarily designate groups to which the normal rules don’t apply.