The Derek Chauvin trial appears to be going well, but I'm not celebrating. Given the countless times police have killed Black people and not been charged, it is frustrating but true that even having a trial for a gruesome murder witnessed around the world is a small victory. But while Chauvin's trial represents the possibility of police accountability within the legal system, his prosecution is an example of the system that produced him protecting itself.
When we are accustomed to seeing police departments defend egregious behavior, it is at first encouraging to see the system finally call out a bad cop. But read the subtext. The prosecutors are proceeding on the bad apple theory, painting Chauvin as a uniquely bad officer who engaged in anomalously violent actions. Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo — the city's first Black police chief — led several of his officers in testifying that Chauvin's treatment of George Floyd "in no way shape or form is anything that is by policy. ... It is not part of our training, and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values." The narrative offered by the prosecutor and the police department appears designed to convict Chauvin while exonerating the department of any responsibility for Floyd's death.
In fact, Chauvin cannot be separated from the complicity of his department or the racist and violent legacy of American policing. We must not ignore the three uniformed officers who stood by and watched Floyd's murder, the four days of protest before Chauvin was arrested, and the eight days it took for the other officers to be charged. Chauvin did not act alone and was empowered by the silence of his peers, revealing the true culture of the department. Then, every facet of the criminal justice system dragged its feet, only acting under the pressure of national scrutiny.
Chauvin may still be acquitted, continuing America's long history of publicly lynching Black people without legal repercussions. If Chauvin is convicted, justice will be served. But if we are able to celebrate this victory — and we should — we cannot allow it to distract us from how it was achieved, or the social change we must pursue. For me, this change is nothing short of the abolition of the police.
Many people only know "Abolish the Police" as a slogan that has ignited fierce debate since the stirrings of racial reckoning in the summer of 2020. But its origins are much deeper and summarize an extensive social theory that includes the abolition of state violence and the carceral state. It's the work of activists and academics like the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, Tony Platt, Sydney Harris and many others. I stumbled into it years ago while learning about my own communities' histories.
I had to take college electives to find my place in the American narrative, classes with titles like "African American History" and "Intro to Queer Literature." It was in these classes that I learned about the MOVE bombing; the Tulsa and Rosewood massacres; COINTELPRO and the systematic destabilization of anti-war, anti-poverty and Black empowerment movements by the government; the pink barracks of World War II; the systemic rape and assault of gender nonconforming people by police from the 1950s through 1980s; and more state violence that had been hidden from me. And as contemporary examples of violence against my communities filled my newsfeeds, I was forced to draw a painful conclusion: The state has rarely protected me or my people and frequently targets us, and the police — empowered by the state to enforce its interests with violence — make me and those like me less safe. This is a feature, not a bug.
In northern states, police first developed as a response to urbanization and the desire of land-owning men to protect private property. In southern states, the first police were slave patrols. These types of policing eventually merged in the form of municipally funded agents of state-sponsored violence and law enforcement. The policing of Black and poor bodies — either as property or threats to property — are baked into the origins of American policing.
These functions have adapted to the times but have not fundamentally changed. Incarceration has replaced slavery, cash bail has replaced debtor's prison, and contemporary police continue to fulfill their historical function. But now they are also responsible for an impossible variety of public services better performed by others. Policing has become a stop-gap solution to under-resourced social services and neglected root causes of crime such as poverty, lack of health care and over-criminalization. There is no positive social function the police serve that isn't better served by an existing agency, decriminalization, a holistic justice system and a compassionate approach to social ills.
This is not to say that police should be Thanos-snapped out of existence. I want to abolish the police by building a more just society where our social problems are addressed by those equipped to handle them. I want social workers and doctors to deal with mental health and medical crises. I want automation to handle traffic citations. I want forensic specialists to handle violent crime scenes, and civil infractions to be handled with tickets. I want to see drug use and sex work decriminalized.
Strong communities and smart policy have the power to make police as we know them obsolete, not just in Minneapolis but in Spokane, too. And we would never need a Chauvin trial again. ♦
Jac Archer (they/them/theirs) is a local activist, community organizer and educator in the fields of diversity, equity, civic engagement and sexuality. Jac has a passion for institutional policy and making difficult concepts easily accessible.