Lack of Discernment when Cops are Afraid

-- By TaleahTyrell - 16 Apr 2021

Suspicion and Fear Damages Ability to Discern

Police Officers Discernment: De-Funding is Insufficient

The unnecessary killing of George Floyd in 2020 re-sparked a movement with millions of Americans united against police brutality. This movement propelled citywide changes across the U.S. Efforts to "defund the police" spurred throughout the country as a way to eliminate the problem altogether. The main goal consisted of allocating police resources to other services such as mental health counselors, community vigilante groups, and social workers, arguing that there should be alternative numbers accessible to citizens to call for help during situations. Though this effort sound ideal on paper, these plans will largely fail because police officers hold a valuable role in our society. They are trained to protect, serve, and keep law and order in communities. They cannot be fully replaced by mental health counselors as evidenced by similar approaches that have failed in the past. Thus since eliminating officers altogether is not a solution, the key is to train officers have better discernment in situations so that they respond with minimal fear and bias. Identifying why many police officers fail to discern when policing Black communities and then actively helping officers to strengthen discernment in those situations may provide a route to the goal of not unjustly killing people of color.

Discernment: A Police Officers Greatest Tool

According to Merriam Webster, "discernment" means "the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure" or "an act of perceiving." Police officers are tasked with this role daily. They drive around neighborhoods examining individuals and situations, making quick decisions based on human dispositions, activities, clothing, demeanor, etc. With this input of information they must make quick judgments about whether to arrest, interfere, assist, help, or interrupt. Quality discernment becomes an officers most valued skill and a method to success in their field. This ability to comprehend is not necessarily always a conscious decision. A good discern-er couples conscious thoughts with quick subconscious judgments that analyze those thoughts. For officers, after many successful arrests, de-escalations, or detainments, these subconscious judgments are inevitably trusted more and more, leading to a confidence that a good officer should have. As such, the valued skill of discernment can become diluted or weakened when its only source is derived from a subconscious experience. In these times, fear or anxiety may be confused as discernment and result in unjustifiable and unnecessary use of force.

False Discernment: A Police Officers Greatest Weakness

Though a common narrative now is that there as some "bad apples" that contribute to racism in the police forces, what is more likely is that many regular apples have adopted false discernment, which is a mix of fear, anxiety, and rash actions. False discernment is evidenced by the officer who shot 13-year old Adam Toledo. In the video, Toledo drops a handgun then turns to the police raising his hands. The cop immediately shoots him. As graphic as the video is to watch, more telling are the officers words of desperation as he chases Toledo down the alley "Hey! Don't F**move! Stop, STOP!"

An eerily similar sheer desperation is also reflected in the voices of the cops that scrambled to stop Daunte Wright. This time, the officer mistakenly shot her gun thinking it was a taser, killing the 20-year-old.

Eliminating False Discernment is Necessary to Properly Police those that look Suspiciously Different

To have equal justice under the law with respect to and from police officers we need to train officers to re-wire the disproportionate risk perception unconsciously attributed to Black people. The current response to situations may seem justifiable to officers because they have consciously and unconsciously been taught to view Black people as a higher risk. Because of deep bias that has grown from years of portrayals of Black people in the media, the amount of Black people in prison, and the differences in cultures and experience all lend to an appropriately heightened state when they encounter Black people. Years of using discernment to identify tangible evidence such as guns, knives, age, and intangible evidence such as perception and attitude of potential threats must also be modified through a different lens that adequately accounts for bias so that officers may have an appropriate response to a situation.

Strengthening Discernment in Police Officers

Instincts are very hard to eliminate because they become automatic, however, the power of the human mind is that when one recognizes tendencies, they can re-learn a new way of addressing a problem. Unlearning this bias has to begin by acknowledging the fight or flight the emerges within officers when encountered in these situations. Through race consciousness training, good officers will slowly learn what their tendencies are. After indoor training, exposure to situations needs to occur. Officers should have field exercises that involve driving around Black neighborhoods, visiting predominantly low-income Black Schools and churches, and most of all meeting people in those communities. For officers, discernment calls for identifying irregularities because they warrant further investigation. However, if they are so unaware or unconnected with the people they police, they will perceive most situations as irregularities. By learning the peoples cultures, tendencies, and how they differ from policing perhaps a white community, their discernment will slowly grow to be in tune to identify when an actual problem is involved.

The line between their fear based bias and discernment is very thin.

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