Arkansas Police Fight: Warranted or Unwarranted? Are we Really Thinking of Reform?

I'm a big believer in improving all systems as much as possible because that creates greater strength as a people, nation, and collective of institutions. This is somewhat of a disturbing video of a police encounter with a suspected violent criminal. We can learn from these situations and improve where improvement is warranted.

Notice that from the surface this doesn't appear to be a race issue (That is why we need to see things from different vantage points and perspectives. I believe race and religion are still big issues but its not the only issue as it pertains to positive reform.). The story isn't fully out so we should always be patient and just sort recognize what we see and some of the potential explanations. Just don't lock yourself into an unsupported position.

The video indicates a fairly severe beating of a suspect. The suspect, according to the video, made threats and acted in a violent manner. The video also indicates that it started in a certain civil discussion when officers confronted the suspect and then got out of hand when the suspect attacked an officer (The goal is to remove violent criminals from the street, help those who have situational issues, and create a sense of order in society. I do not support bad behavior but instead encourage stakeholders to find the most likely solutions to long stemming problems. Sometimes we have to give up our assumptions.) 

First, I'm 100% for police and 100% for civil rights (Politics often picks an arguments and sticks with is for political gain until it can't be support at all without detriment to the political influencers. In many cases there is a lack of divergency in thinking. Its like grabbing at the first solution offered based on social-political influence and then forcing it as an explanation even when its not a full solution. Politicians should be evidence based and change when strategies don't work. I believe this problem could have been resolved a long time ago and we could have avoided current social turmoil. Ask the right questions, generate a hypothesis and work to support and disprove that hypothesis at the same time. If its not working find another or explore multiples. ). There is a way that we can balance these issues. 

Let us think about how people can become highly aggressive in group situations. When the body's fight and flight mechanisms kick in there is a high does of adrenaline that moves through the body. You can read a study on adrenalin and aggression HERE. Group behavior often limits the perceived validity of such behaviors (If it was one officer that acted that way the other two could have stepped in and said "Let the courts figure it out.". That isn't what happened. I'm a little curious if the officer holding someone down but not engaging is from a different department. That would indicate some misgivings but fearful of confronting the two other officers.)

Once these fight and flight systems kick in it can be difficult to turn them off. So training, department culture, recruitment, and support are important to mitigate natural human mechanisms. In this case anger and prior history seem to have taken over but effective tactics seem to be missing.

1.) Train officers on how to deal with high levels of adrenaline. There are ways to avoid tunnel vision, loss of environmental awareness (Notice it took them a while to notice the video), and the blood changes that force certain physiological responses. 

2.) Enhance department culture away from the use of aggression and more toward tactics. There could have been a history so the culture could impact i.e. "The Code" whether or not problems could have been realized prior to incidents. Culture prompts people how to act in certain situations and part of a general programming of societal behaviors (Some of the problems are not exclusive to policing but to society that is more easily seen/spot lighted in policing. The anchor points of perspective need to be switched around to sort of see the possibility of that.)

3.) Make sure departments are recruiting from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, and thinking patterns (i.e. mental/cognitive diversity. Again...don't listen to me I have a Muslim sounding name. 😏). Part of the issue is related to the type of people we recruit. While that is fairly normal that certain personalities are going to be attracted to certain occupations the diversity issue is an important one (Remember the human capital thing I'm talking about and the need to draw talent on a universal level which will lead to a universal outcomes and better national, economic and institutional performance.)

4. Supporting officers that may be struggling with PTSD, anger, misperceptions, etc. is helpful. Destigmatizing can help along with rotating officers in and out of the street may be helpful (I often thought allowing 6months to 1 year swaps with other departments would create positive change and adaptation of departments.  i.e. small town and city. I know a great department that would benefit from exposing their younger officers to the big city and in turn allowing big city officers to work in small towns for short periods of time. Just saying. 💁)

I think in terms of positive reform. How to build on what we are doing well and create learning systems that changes and adjusts as new knowledge, information, and opportunities arise. Business often changes faster for profit reasons (i.e. Schumpeter.) but sometimes institutions that are not universalized are slow to change because they don't have that daily pressure to adapt. Something big like massive protest, loss of officers, and general societal mayhem force a "correction". We should be making changes on a smaller and more manageable time frame to create easier incremental adjustments. We would also have the leeway to step back adjustments that are not working. (Maybe a police-community-expert panels on incorporating new information and turning that into implemented policy might be helpful? Maybe not...just something to think about. 🤔)

(Like I said I'm 100% in support of police and civil rights. I have seen officers do great things and I have seen a minority of officers intentionally do the wrong thing. Thus, rewarding good officers is helpful and removing bad apples is a necessity to ensure proper functioning. While current recruitment is part of the problem, it has been a long stemming problem. Poor PR can also have an impact on recruitment and candidate quality. Yet that is only part of the story. There are solutions to every problem but we need our leaders to look at the big picture of democracy and then work in a bi-partisan manner to find solutions. They must be willing to listen to each other 2X more than they talk and consult with experts on potential solutions. Or maybe not? Perhaps what were doing right now is perfectly fine but I'm not sure everyone agrees. 🤷)