Kia Kids
I understand the frustration of cities and police departments. In many places crime, particularly high visibility crimes like homicides, are increasing. Gun violence is also growing: mass shootings seems to be daily, but even worse, it is commonplace to hear of seemingly random shootings. A thirteen year-old was shot in his bed in a drive-by shooting here in Columbus this weekend. A six year-old shot his teacher in Virginia. The violence and crime seems out of control.
An example of this frustration is the “Kia Kids” of Columbus, Ohio (sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon). Social media app Tik Tok showed them how to steal Kia’s, a simple computer hack. And throughout the summer, a group of young teenagers terrorized the town, stealing Kia’s (and Hyundai’s), and madly driving them through the streets to ultimately crash. The thieves were apprehended over and over again, so many times that some of their parents begged the Courts to hold them in custody. But in our current system, they didn’t “qualify” for juvenile detention, only a location-tracking ankle band, easily removed. It seemed fruitless for the Police to arrest them – they would be back on the streets in hours, some in casts from their last stolen crash.
Revolving Door
In the midst of all this, many are also demanding reforms in our cash bail system. A person charged with a crime might be held for months and even years before their trial, where they might well be found not-guilty. That incarceration is determined not by “risk”, but by money. If the accused could afford bail, they got out. If not, that sat in local jails, losing jobs and families. I am completely in favor of reforming a system that so favors the wealthy over the poor. But current reforms have an unintended consequence.
Between bail reforms and the changes brought by the Covid pandemic, fewer accused criminals are incarcerated before trial. From the police perspective, the demands to get criminals “off the streets” are followed by a revolving door of appearance in Court and release, just like the “Kia Kids”. So police officers are frustrated, unable to satisfy the demands of their communities. Some, perhaps many, are now hesitant to “go the extra mile” to do their jobs. They are huddling behind the “Blue wall”.
Flying Squad
Some cities searched for other ways to control crime. They develop “flying squads” of picked officers, to sweep into neighborhoods and “take control”. The idea is to fight “fire with fire”, gang violence with a group willing to use gang-like tactics against them. The unspoken goal: do whatever it takes and “take the streets”. If gangs want to bully people into submission; perhaps the police should be the “biggest” bully on the block, behind a uniform, badge and gun.
Our culture is steeped in cops who go “beyond” the law from Dirty Harry to Chicago PD. They offer simple solutions to the complex problems created in our urban environments. It’s satisfying in an Old Testament, “eye for an eye” way. But that too has unintended consequences.
A group of chosen officers, mandated to go “beyond the law” to gain control, are sent into the streets. It’s completely foreseeable what will occur – a Lord of the Flies kind of overwhelming violence. In Memphis they called it the “Scorpion Unit”: even that name anticipates the need to strike, to sting, and to kill. It sounds like a special forces unit from the Vietnam War era; dressed in their dark blue hoodies and unmarked fast cars to roam the streets. And we now know what happens – they lost their way. When a twenty-nine year old black man named Tyre Nichols failed from abject terror to “submit” in the way they wanted, then panicked and ran: they did what bullies do to enforce their authority. They beat him, so badly that he died.
Frustration
It’s like all the frustration of the today’s policing came out in one hour, on the body of that one man. They can’t do the job they’re asked to do, the job they want to do, that they became police officers to do. The leaders of our cities desperately turned to more “aggressive” law enforcement tactics. I guess this outcome should really be no surprise.
Those officers, themselves young men in the twenties and early thirties, are completely responsible for their own actions. The Memphis authorities immediately responded to their violence, firing them from the force, then charging them with the maximum offenses. The five officers, and ultimately several more, will be held accountable for their individual actions in the death of Tyre Nichols.
But in a larger sense, our society put them in that position. The possibility that those men, mandated to “control”; would lose their way was apparent from the beginning. Memphis, and lots of other cities, are searching for simple solutions to complex problems. If police officers are their only tool, the “hammer”; then every societal “problem” must be a nail. Instead, America needs to gain the knowledge and resources to discover the “hard” solutions to our societal failures. Solutions that are real, not just violence countering violence.
Because more violence, clearly, is not the answer.
