BCS and The Long View on Police Reform

Safe Policing Commentary

BCS AND THE LONG VIEW ON POLICE REFORM

Brattleboro Common Sense is proposing a very simple, cost-free solution for police reform. But it is not a sudden new idea.

Last month Brattleboro Common Sense (BCS) petitioned for a public vote on the budget, in order to expand the debate on police defunding, but we were blocked by legal maneuvers of town government. It wasn’t the first time. Brattleboro Common Sense began fighting to defund the police in 2012, by leading the opposition to an over-the-top expensive police station (the Police-Fire Project). The proponents of the new building received unlimited time for the expression of their views at representative town meeting. After the people voted to reject the budget in 2014, one town official actually proposed that the same budget be returned to the people without changes. At a budget review meeting the selectboard actually gained a ruling to censor any discussion of the expensive project, which was included in that budget. Such resistance is systemic. Nonetheless, we persisted. Our own mistakes allowed the police to move from downtown to their isolated bunker-like headquarters on Black Mountain Road, but three petition drives and a budget controversy finally saved the town $2.7 million.

Besides the defunding efforts BCS began the Safe Policing project in 2017 upon hearing of the killing of Michael Bell. Mr. Bell had been shot and killed, allegedly because an officer panicked when he thought that Bell had grabbed his pistol, while the pistol was only snagged on the mirror of the patrol car. The gun is an obvious part of the problem, protruding from the officer’s hip into peoples’ lives. We thought it should be the focus of a solution.

Brattleboro Common Sense will offer to the selectboard and the new review committee the most simple, obvious and costless solution to prevent hasty and accidental shootings by police: a research-based proposal for weaponless policing. (We will use the term “weaponless” to mean “without fire-arms”.) We propose a new practice, based on foreign models where police do not regularly carry side-arms. We believe this model will fundamentally improve relations between officers and the public. Removing the gun is more than just a solution to the numerous and tragically-stupid horrors like Mr. Bell’s death. To disarm police will be transformative in policing and in our whole society. It will make possible new equality and trust with the people and prevent killings by other means. You may ask, how would this have helped George Floyd ? Mr. Floyd wasn’t killed with a gun. He was killed by a racist officer’s sense of impunity. This is the arrogant mental force that makes any weapon lethal, the mindset of the gun. Removing the gun forces the officer to look beyond that mindset, beyond his ability to take life in the process of protecting it, and see a world full of more than just threats. That mindset is a danger to black men and is impeding police reform here in Brattleboro and elsewhere.

When BCS workers Shela Linton and Kurt Daims met with Brattleboro Police Department (BPD) Chief Fitzgerald in October 2017, Linton pressured the chief to explain the need for fire-arms, and he insisted, “Everyone is a threat”. At an informal question-and-answer session on the Commons, the chief was invited to remove his pistol, but refused to do so. When asked why, he said, “It is part of my profession.” Apparently, without a gun, you’re not a real cop. This will be news to 120,000 police officers in England, and tens of thousands more in New Zealand and other countries who do not normally carry guns on patrol. The fact is, guns are part of policy; they are not essential to the profession. And another fact is, according to BPD, there are not enough violent line-of-duty injuries for the department to keep track of. Brattleboro is not a dangerous place for police. Seeing threats around him, the chief embodies a bunker mindset. He is eager to listen but unable to hear. Having engaged with the chief pleasantly since 2017, we regret that the time has come to rely on a different process. A new police review board is in order.

The gun also affects the way civilians see policemen. Research shows that the visual stimulus of the weapon raises the heart rate of the viewer; the implied threat of lethal force creates a subconscious response. To analyze violent interactions like official shootings psychologists use a theory called the General Aggression Model. This theory posits that aggression happens from real or perceived threats on each side amplifying each other until the situation escalates to physical aggression. This starts with the “Weapons Effect”: the visual stimulus of the weapon. It triggers anxiety that can be perceived by an officer as aggression. Without the weapon, this subliminal stimulus to escalate is removed.

BCS has studied examples of police who do not routinely carry firearms. The most instructive are in the England and New Zealand. In the case of England, a country which has never equipped its officers with firearms for routine patrols, we see policing in a place that is developed, densely-populated, culturally similar to the US, and has considerable gun ownership rates. The result is a country with low rates of officers killed on duty and of officer-involved shootings, high public trust, and a system of policing that is supported by its officers. Meanwhile, New Zealand has changed from arming all officers, to arming no officers, to arming some and keeping weapons in the patrol car for emergencies. This last model may be the best from our perspective, respecting the safety of officers and civilians in a place that is somewhat similar to Vermont, with a rural population and high rates of gun ownership, education, and public trust. Of course, the United States is different from these countries. However, Brattleboro is also different from Chicago. Must we police with the same practices they employ in Chicago? Frankly, we have more in common with New Zealand.

We propose a test program that fits easily with procedures that BPD already has in place: weaponless policing will be practiced during each officer’s usual one-hour weekly downtown patrol. As part of the review of the trial patrols our officers will consult with officers who have done weaponless patrols. BCS worker Heather Urquhart in Scotland has arranged for officers there to talk with us here. These officers are experienced with weaponless policing and eager to help. We have even been contacted directly by a UK constable who heard about the Safe Policing project from a friend. The response has been so favorable that we are considering arranging conversations for police elsewhere in the US, besides ours in Brattleboro.

We all get angrier with each black man dead at the hands of unaccountable police and more cynical at politicians calling for a national conversation. Brattleboro’s conversations have people treating police as enemies. But let’s be real here: they’re NOT ALLIES either: they’re a separate team, and they need help to come out of their bunkers and see things in a new light. Brattleboro is safe for them, and BCS has worked out a simple scientific plan for saving lives, and conversations between our police and other police who want to help. This plan will be easy to start while the selectboard works out the new police review procedures.