Consider This from NPR - In the Wake of Tyre Nichols' Death, Does Diversity Make A Difference In Policing?

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Five police officers have been charged with murder and other crimes in the wake of Tyre Nichols' death this month in Memphis. Nichols, who was Black, died after a traffic stop. All five of the officers facing charges are Black.Since the deaths of George Floyd in 2020 and so many others, many police departments have vowed to diversify their forces as a way to help end police brutality and racism within their ranks. But does diversity in a police force make a difference? And what more can be done to reduce police violence?We speak with Phillip Goff of the Center for Policing Equity about how the Tyre Nichols case speaks to larger issues with police department culture and diversity.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. Rodney Wells says that his stepson, Tyree Nichols, loved to watch the sunset. Every day at lunch, if he didn't come home for lunch, he was at Shelby Farms watching the sunset, taking pictures. That was his passion. Nichols also loved to skateboard ever since he was six years old. Wells remembers joking with him about it recently.

I said, son, you got to put that skateboard down. You're getting too old. You have a full-time job now. You have to come to work every day. And he looked at me like, you're right. Because that was his passion. That's what he liked to do. Nichols had recently moved to Memphis, Tennessee to work at FedEx alongside his stepdad.

The 29-year-old was also a father himself to a four-year-old son. On the evening of January 7th, Tyree Nichols was stopped by police while driving. And according to the Memphis Police Department, Nichols first tried to flee on foot. And then there were two confrontations as officers tried to take him into custody. Following his arrest, Nichols complained of shortness of breath, and an ambulance was called to the scene. He was transported in critical condition to a nearby hospital, where he died three days later. Video footage of the incident is due to be publicly released Friday evening. This episode is being recorded before that happens. But Nichols' family members

and their legal team, who have already seen the video, have said the footage is horrific. At a press conference, attorney Antonio Ramanucci said the images show Nichols being severely beaten by the officers. He was defenseless the entire time. He was a human piñata for those police officers. It was an unadulterated, unabashed, nonstop beating of this young boy for three minutes. Oh, my God. That is what we saw in that video. Ben told you what we saw. Not only was it violent, it was savage.

Ben Crump is another lawyer representing the family. The last words on the video, he's only about 80 to 100 yards from his house, and he calls for his mom. Three times, mom. He's called for his mom and said, where's the humanity? Where's the humanity? All five of the officers in this case have been fired and are facing several charges, including second-degree murder, assault, and kidnapping. But authorities in Memphis and elsewhere are worried the video footage will be so upsetting when it goes public that it could spark violent protests around the country. Ahead of the video's release, Nichols' mother, Rovon Wells, urged anyone who protests to remain calm. But I want each and every one of you to protest in peace.

I don't want us burning up our cities, tearing up the streets, because that's not what my son stood for. Tyree Nichols' death is a reminder of the police brutality that keeps happening in this country. Brutality that disproportionately claims the lives of black people. One of the complexities in this case is that all of the officers facing charges are the same race as Nichols. They're black, too. Here's attorney Ben Crump again. It doesn't matter if the officer is a black officer, a Hispanic officer, or a white officer.

It is the culture that allows them to think they can do this to Tyree. Black or white, Crump said no officer gets a pass when it comes to respecting a person's constitutional rights and their humanity. That's what hurts so bad, because you want them to see the humanity in us, and you keep thinking to yourself, these officers got to understand that, you know, that could have been your brother, your little brother. Tyree could have been your little brother. Would you want anybody to do what you were doing to Tyree to your little brother? Consider this. Since the deaths of George Floyd in 2020 and of so many others, many police departments have vowed to diversify their forces as a way to help end

police brutality and racism within their ranks. But does diversity in a police force make a difference? And what more can be done to reduce police violence? From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Friday, January 27th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Philip Atiba Goff is CEO of the Center for Policing Equity and chair of African American Studies at Yale University. He's also a psychology professor there.

And for years, he's been studying what can be done to reduce police violence. He says one option is to turn to police officers less often. Police are not the solution to crime. Police are what we do when we have run out of care for vulnerable people in our society. In fact, many cities and states have been relying more on social workers to address challenges such as homelessness or mental health crises. Another solution we've seen from some police departments across the country is recruiting a more diverse pool of officers to join their ranks, making sure their departments look more like the communities they serve. As we said in Tyree Nichols' case in Memphis, all five of the officers now facing murder and other charges are black, just like

Nichols. My colleague Ari Shapiro asked Goff whether diversity has been shown to make a difference when it comes to police brutality cases. Here's how Goff answered that. So prior to 2021, I would have said that there's not strong evidence one way or the other. And my mind got changed by a piece of science by a book or bar that looked at data in Chicago that were just stronger data, um, than any other place that we've had. Did an apples to apples comparison and showed that black officers and women officers of any race were far less likely to use force than were white male officers. Um, that tells me that there is some benefit that's possible in diversifying police. But I want to be really clear. It is not the number one suggestion, the number two, the number three. It doesn't rate in the top 10 of things that I would tell a police department to

do. I'm not going to ask you to go through every number of the top 10 list, but what's the number one recommendation? Use police for less. Well, does that mean police are inherently going to be violent no matter what? And the only way to reduce violence is to reduce the presence of police? Well, there are a number of people who would say yes to that, but I don't think you need to answer that question with an affirmative to understand this. If my problem is I'm considering suicide, why is it that in so many communities, the only person who can show up is someone with a badge and a gun at best eight hours of training in mental health emergencies and whose decisions are, I'm going to maybe lock this person up. I'm going to

maybe restrain this person. I might have to use force on this person if I feel threatened. That does not seem like the best solution to it. Better yet, someone whose major problem is that they live outdoors because they don't have a home, why are we sending badges and guns to respond to that? I would think that the problem with being unhoused is housing and possibly substance abuse and mental health issues because they so often co-occur. So recommendation number one is use police less. Are there recommendations for how to use police in ways that are not likely to result in violence? Give police more tools so that when they are not the right tool, they can lean on them. So for instance, I would tell you if someone's in a mental health crisis,

send a social worker, send a mental health professional. In the specific instance of Tyree Nichols, he stopped for a traffic violation, allegedly. What could have gone differently there? I'll tell you that in Ithaca and Tompkins County, New York, in St. Louis, Missouri, in Berkeley, California, we're very happy to have encouraged local leaders to end low-level traffic enforcement by law enforcement and to stop sending police when there's a non-fatal accident. It turns out when you do that, you can just send the ticket via mail. That, by the way, makes officers safer.

You don't know what's going to happen when you go up to the side of a window. If you ever go through police training, that is a very scary moment. Or if you're on the side of a highway with cars zooming by. Absolutely. There are always downsides of that. I don't love all the electronic surveillance that comes with it, but for sure, not introducing a badge and a gun to those situations does not mean we cannot enforce the rules, does not mean that we're going to see more traffic accidents. And in fact, it's going to inspire more trust in those same systems because they're going to end with fewer unnecessary deadly elements. Do you think police in this country are getting better despite these horrific, high-profile acts of violence that we see every few years or so?

So you asked a tricky question because are police getting better? That's asking about the individuals. And I can tell you that the individuals who we have recruited to be police, as terrible as certain individuals in high profile situations have proven to be, absolutely they are better than the folks who were attracted to the force that knew their job was to enforce segregation.

For sure, we have better individuals than we had two generations ago. Is policing getting better? I think it depends on what your definition of policing is and your definition of better. I have seen departments professionalize and drive down racial disparities. And I have seen that the number of folks who police kill has stayed constant for the seven years, eight years that we've been collecting the data publicly and for my 15 years of doing the analysis. Policing is set up to do a set of things. It does that with ruthless efficiency. It is not set up ideally for community safety because to do that, you need to

do investment. And so there are people who would say policing hasn't gotten better, but it hasn't gotten worse because it continues to do those things efficiently. And there I talk about both activists and the chiefs with whom I work. When you talk to police chiefs about the steps that have been shown to improve outcomes for communities and reduce violence, do they generally endorse the ideas that you're describing? Do they push back? What kind of reaction do you get? There are very few major city police chiefs who should be taken seriously who won't tell you that we have failed to invest in certain communities. And those are the communities that they get called to. And they get blamed for what they do. And no one is at the same time blaming the corporations or the white flight or the banking investment in any of that. While it's fair for law enforcement to be held accountable for what they're doing, it is incredibly short-sighted of us to think that

fixing law enforcement prevents the death. Because as much as there is incredible violence from policing and incredible violence within these communities, all of that is within the context of the violence of poverty and deprivation. And those are policy choices usually made by people who never have to see that violence up close. That was Philip Atiba Goff at the Center for Policing Equity speaking with my colleague Ari Shapiro. It's Consider This from NPR.

I'm Elsa Chang. This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu.