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Why Police Brutality is a Management Failure

Police killings of blacks and brutality toward minorities is a hot-button political issue in this election year.

I want to share the views of a man who knows a lot about these problems. Rudolfo “Rudy” Thomas is a retired Deputy Police Chief from Detroit, one of the toughest, racially-charged cities in America. He thinks hostility and distrust between the nation’s police and minorities is going to be tough to fix, if it can be fixed at all.

A Retired Black Cop Who Knows

Rudy Thomas, Deputy Chief, Detroit Police
Rudolfo, “Rudy” Thomas rose through the ranks to become a Deputy Chief in the Detroit Police Department. Thomas is now retired. (Image: Detroit Police)

Rudy Thomas came up through the ranks. He commanded the Narcotics Section when crack cocaine became a national drug epidemic.

Thomas says systemic racism in police departments is indisputable. But he believes we are missing some key pieces of the puzzle in the search for answers. Thomas says after a police violence incident, no one asks what the supervisors were doing when it happened and where they were. He says these problems are baked in to the American way of policing:

“It’s all part of the systemic racism that goes on: Police officers that are not properly trained. We spend thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars on use of force, weapons. What about de-escalation?”

We’ve Been Here Before

Police violence commissions, police violence studies
The 1929 Wickersham Commission examined police brutality for the Hoover Administration. Like the 1967 Kerner Commission and the 2015 Task Force on 21st Century Policing, nothing changed as a result of the commission studies. (Image: Public Domain)

The nation has tackled this problem several times in the past.

Thomas believes most special commissions and studies of police racism and violence are worthless and change nothing:

“Most of the findings that are discovered and brought up by these commissions, they calm the citizenry but nothing gets done.

“And this is where reform comes in to place. Monitoring the disciplinary actions of police officers and bringing them aware of that and firing those who do not need to be on the job. Right now, we’re not doing that and we need to take action right now.”

Q: What is the reason you figure why cities don’t fix it?

“I think it’s a matter of them appeasing the public, but actually Vince, (police departments) are run by the unions, the police department, the supervisors, all the way up to the chief of police. And they have control and that’s why it’s never going to change. Who’s in control? Right now, it’s the police officers. But when they get in a situation like in Floyd, there were no supervisors out there.”

George Floyd: Where Were the Supervisors?

Former Detroit Deputy Police Chief Rudy Thomas wonders about the full story in the death of George Floyd:

George Floyd, death, Derek Chauvin, Minneapolis, police
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is seen in this video clip kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, whose hands were cuffed behind him. Floyd died on the scene, despite pleas from bystanders to let him breathe. (Image: Darnella Frazier)

“They knew they were on camera. And he continued to do it. I don’t, I don’t understand what he was thinking about. He just didn’t care. Or did he have support of his supervisors and ‘Oh, I’ll get out of this. It’s no big deal.’ I don’t know.”

Q: Do you think that’s possible, that these guys might have thought that their supervisors, their sergeants and lieutenants, would cover for them?

“Yes. Yes.”

Q: That’s possible in police work?

“That is possible, yeah.”

Making matters worse is a critical nationwide shortage of police officers.

Cities, counties, states and even the federal government, they all are struggling to recruit new officers. I asked Rudy Thomas why this is:

“It’s the job itself. The stress. What it does to their families. What it does to the individual. Officers are needed, like you said. There are so many openings. But when it’s time to go out and you’re risking your life, you realize ‘I can’t do this. I’m not made for the job.’ A lot don’t want to risk their lives. ‘I’m not made for this. I can’t do this.’ They don’t want to take the job and back out. It’s a sign of weakness.”

Those who choose to become police officers quickly discover they have the power, the upper hand, over their supervisors, department commanders, everybody:

“I’ve seen officers call in sick because a supervisor may have told him, ‘Look, you’re not going to do this.’ And they end up with two or three cars in a precinct. And that’s terrible. That’s not right to other police officers, and so they (supervisors) give in.”

Supervisors Need to Start Supervising

A key problem in policing, according to Thomas, comes down to this: supervisors don’t supervise:

Police, supervisors, police brutality
A key to understanding law enforcement brutality is to realize police supervisors usually don’t supervise. Young patrol officers are left to do as they choose, without accountability. (Image: Mohamed Hassan-Pixabay)

“Supervisors, for the most part, are in the precinct…he’s in the precinct doing reports, getting information for the next day. He’s probably working the next week and he’s got shifts. They’re busy. They’re very busy.”

(Thomas continued the thought) “And how many sergeants do we have? We have less sergeants than we have patrol officers. So, it’s tough. It’s tough for them and it’s tough for these young officers. And they’re (young patrol officers) out there. They run that precinct. Those young officers. Without any guidance.

“Now you have a sergeant who has experience, he understands what’s going on, he needs to be in the streets, not in that office. He needs to be in the street patrolling, responding to some of the runs, seeing how some of these officers react, how they treat the citizenry.”

Police supervision, police brutality, police executives, city leaders
Former Detroit deputy police chief Rudy Thomas, now retired, urges citizens to focus on police street supervision, or the lack of it, in meetings with police and municipal leaders. (Images: ClkrFreeVectorImages, Mohamed Hassan-Pixabay)

Q: What would you say to the average citizen trying to understand what’s wrong with policing?

“I’d tell them we have a shortage of supervisors. We have a shortage of police officers. We’re doing the best we can.”

Like A Gang                                           

The retired deputy chief believes citizens and city leaders need to demand a new attitude from police officers:

Police brutality, gangs, untrained, de-escalation
Police officers frequently behave as if they are members of a gang, according to retired Detroit Police Deputy Chief Rudy Thomas. They have an us-against-them mentality toward the public. (Image: Joseph Ngabo-Unsplash

(Addressing all police officers) “You’re not a warrior. You’re here again to protect and serve.”

Q: They want to be accepted by their fellow officers but not necessarily by the community?

“Absolutely right. They could care less. It’s almost like being in a gang, more or less. Police officers could be like a gang of their own and could care less about nobody else but their partners and those in blue.”

Q: Well That’s a recipe for continuing this problem…

“Absolutely. On-going. It’ll never end.”

In our interview retired Detroit Deputy Police Chief Rudy Thomas told the truth, but it’s not what most people want to hear. They want somebody fired. Or prosecuted. Or both. That may be a measure of justice, but it’s not reform.

Unless we, the people, are willing to spend the tax dollars to hire and properly and fully train police officers, unless people are willing to hire more police supervisors, to demand management accountability on the streets, police brutality and misconduct will be an issue in the next election.

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