With change most likely to come
on the heels of public demand so strong that it can’t be ignored, the public is
encouraged to flood police departments with calls to end police brutality.
By Katie Rucke
Since the advent of social
media, the public’s relationship with law enforcement has evolved into one in
which the public can instantly call out abusive policing techniques and
incidents in the hope that unlawful and inappropriate behavior can be stopped
once and for all.
It may not be glaringly
obvious, but the use of social media channels such as Twitter has been instrumental
in garnering public support for reversing law enforcement’s military-esque and
trigger-happy procedures that have become evident during several events
throughout the years, such as the 2012 shootings in Anaheim, Calif., to the
more recent shootings and calls for reform in Albuquerque, N.M.
While not every call for reform
is answered or even acknowledged, many demanding widespread reform and an end
to police brutality argue that posting concerns on social media and “call
flooding” police departments are important steps in demonstrating to the law
enforcement community that the American public will not tolerate abusive
tactics. It also warns law enforcement that their abusive and unlawful
practices are not going unnoticed.
For example, last month when
the New York Police Department announced a Twitter campaign known as #myNYPD,
asking New Yorkers to post presumably positive photos and interactions with
officers, many police reform advocates used the campaign as an opportunity to
showcase poor police tactics.
The pro-police campaign quickly
turned into a PR nightmare for the department, as thousands of photos of NYPD
officers demonstrating arguably brutal tactics such as beating restrained
individuals, pulling the hair of a handcuffed woman, and shooting and killing
innocent bystanders, flooded the Internet.
The way Internet users turned
the campaign on its head was viewed as such a success that many police reform
advocates took it as a chance to call out other departments for wrongful
behavior. The Los Angeles Police Department, for example, got slammed under the
hashtag #myLAPD.
Although the social media
campaign didn’t go as planned, NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said he
welcomed the bad photos, explaining that sometimes the work police officers do
“isn’t pretty.”
However, Bratton didn’t have
anyone post any of the “bad” photos on the department’s Facebook page, which is
what officials decided to do with some of the “good” photos.
That’s the thing with social
media — although thousands of people may have posted pictures of NYPD officers
engaged in police brutality tactics, none are currently visible, since the
police departments often delete posts that don’t paint them in the finest
light.
Some are outraged to learn the
police department actively deletes these negative posts, but some police reform
advocates argue that deleting the posts is OK because someone at the department
at least had to take the time to read the message and then delete it.
In other words, the message
that it is time for a change was heard loud and clear, even if it was later
deleted.
While not all Americans
exercise their right to call a police department in order to report
inappropriate behavior by officers, it’s completely legal to do so and is
protected under the First Amendment — as is posting one’s grievances on social
media channels.
But it’s important to remember
that an individual is only protected so long as they remain calm. An angry
tirade in which an individual mocks, condemns, accuses or judges officers is
not protected, and it may result in an individual’s concerns not being taken
seriously. A heated exchange with law enforcement that includes profanity and
threats will also likely hurt other people’s attempts to reform law
enforcement’s procedures and policies, as local police departments often report
irate callers using abusive or profane language for harassment to other local
law enforcement agencies and sometimes even the FBI.
Groups such as Cop Block, Honor
Your Oath, the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project and Photography Is
Not A Crime, have spent years educating the American public on a variety of
police-related interactions — from what a driver should do if he or she is
pulled over at a checkpoint, to what a citizen’s rights are when video and audio
recording interactions with police officers.
Acting as a voice for the
public, these groups have called directly for reform, but have also educated
the public on why reform is necessary and how the public can participate. But
like any other political issue, real reform likely won’t come until the public
overwhelmingly demands change.Concerned about the emergence of a growing police
state throughout the United States, groups are now calling for Americans to
flood police departments with calls for police reform.
The public is asked to “call
flood” not only law enforcement officials, but also local elected officials,
such as mayors and city councils, local media outlets and even the local
chamber of commerce, since as police reform advocate Mike Murphy wrote, “[I]f
ever there’s a group sensitive to a community’s public image, it’s the local
chamber of commerce.”
