Recent editorials from Alabama newspapers:
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June 9
The Dothan Eagle on public workers making disparaging comments on social media:
This week, Troy University released its chief of police after investigating some inflammatory remarks the chief made on his personal Facebook page about the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
He’s the second public employee from the area to find himself out of work after airing controversial opinions on social media. Dothan school officials declined to renew a contract for an untenured football coach at Dothan High School who likewise made controversial remarks online. A third public worker, the director of Dale County’s Emergency Management Agency, remains on administrative leave for similarly controversial online posts.
Like the comments that lead to them, the repercussions are regrettable, but not unexpected. Public workers serve the entire public, including people of every ethnicity, religion, social standing and political stripe, and public remarks that some in that constituency may find offensive can make them less effective in their duties.
It’s a cautionary tale for all: You’re free to speak as you like, but you should consider the consequences those words may invite.
Online: https://www.dothaneagle.com/
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June 7
The TimesDaily and Decatur Daily on law enforcement reform:
In the wake of George Floyd’s death at hands of a Minneapolis police officer and the arrest of the officer and three others who were present, the city of Minneapolis appears poised to take what seems a radical step: Council members there are proposing dismantling their police department.
“And when we’re done, we’re not simply gonna glue it back together,” tweeted council member Jeremiah Ellison. “We are going to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response. It’s really past due.”
There is a growing sense in some cities that their police departments are beyond reform, that institutionalized racism runs too deep to be dealt with effectively within the existing bureaucracies, and that those bureaucracies must be torn down and alternative institutions erected in their place. It’s not a call to end policing, but it is a call to end policing as we know it.
And “policing as we know it” is not so old an institution that we should be incapable of imagining or experimenting with alternatives. The first modern police force dates to the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829, in England.
We doubt, however, that a wholesale replacement of modern policing is going to sweep the country. There are, however, many reforms short of that - reforms that have been proposed over the years but which have stalled because of opposition from prosecutors, police unions and their allies in Congress and state legislatures.
Even legislation that would do no more than track incidents in which law enforcement officers use deadly force have gone nowhere. As a result, The Washington Post began tracking such incidents itself in 2015, in the wake of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the unrest that followed.
It’s time to bring back these reform proposals and give them the serious consideration they have been denied in the past.
Congress could start by passing legislation requiring a federal database of deadly force incidents. Next, it can correct one of its own mistakes and repeal the 1033 program, which it passed as part of President Bill Clinton’s National Defense Authorization Act, for which then-Sen. Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, voted. The 1033 program requires the Department of Defense to make some military equipment available to local law enforcement.
President Barack Obama curtailed the program somewhat by executive order, but President Donald Trump reversed that. Biden has called for ending the program, although without fessing up to voting for it in the first place.
At least one study has found a direct correlation between the amount of military equipment transferred under 1033 and the number of police deadly force incidents. Another study found that military equipment at protests made it more likely the protests would escalate into violence.
Another needed reform will require some courage on the part of Democratic politicians: It’s time to break the power of police unions. In large cities, police unions have made it almost impossible to punish bad cops, and the rhetoric coming out of these unions’ leadership indicates at least some in law enforcement think themselves above the law.
Third, in some ways, law enforcement is above the law. That is because of the doctrine of qualified immunity, which has grown from sensible protection against police being sued for every split-second decision to near blanket immunity from civil liability for even the most egregious acts. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has long been a critic of qualified immunity, and ex-Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan has introduced a bill in Congress that would end it. As of Friday, his bill had at least 27 co-sponsors.
Fourth, legislation has been introduced in Congress that would ban chokeholds of the sort a New York City officer used on Eric Garner, resulting in Garner’s death in 2014.
Lastly, localities can take steps to reduce the amount of contact law enforcement must initiate with citizens. That means not having police enforce petty laws as primary infractions. The officer who approached Garner did so because he believed Garner was committing the crime of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. This is hardly the sort of crime anyone should die for.
We can undertake these reforms now, or we can do what we’ve done in the past and go on, businesses as usual, as soon as the protests in the street stop.
And then next time more cities will have to consider the radical route Minneapolis seems ready to chart.
Online: https://www.timesdaily.com/ and https://www.decaturdaily.com/
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