Protesters have made their pleas; police say they are listening, so what happens next?

SALT LAKE CITY — Protests over systemic racism, police violence and injustice have popped up all over Utah, the U.S. and the world in the weeks since the death of George Floyd in the custody of a Minnesota police officer.

Since those protests began, some officers in Utah and around the country have taken a knee in solidarity with protesters.

Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown hasn’t just taken a knee, he’s participated in meetings with prominent minority leaders. The NAACP and the Utah Fraternal Order of Police — the state’s largest police organization — also announced a "cooperative agreement to work together to bridge the community divide."

But experts and historians point out this has happened before. There’s a police incident that sparks anger, protests and discussion, and the cycle seems to repeat itself. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, or Kerner Commission, released a report in 1968 that pointed out problems of racism with policing and the justice system, housing inequality and economic disparity and more, as Smithsonian Magazine pointed out. Many arguments are still brought up to this day — more than 50 years after it was published.

The Kerner Commission formed in 1965 shortly after a riot in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, which sparked from a police incident, left 34 dead. One quote from the report has made its rounds in recent weeks as it relates to this ongoing cycle. Educator Kenneth Clark said in the report: "I read that report … of the 1919 riot in Chicago, and it is as if I were reading the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of ’35, the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of ’43, the report of the McCone Commission on the Watts riot," he said, referring to riots that broke out from various police-related incidents prior to what happened in Watts.

But could the death of Floyd and other recent cases be the tipping point to finally lead to the change protesters have worked hard to educate people about? Dr. Martell Teasley, dean of the University of Utah’s College of Social Work, believes there’s something different about reaction this time around.

"We’ve had a major turning point, where people have particularly used the death of George Floyd as a symbol for the need to change," he said, making note to nearly two full weeks of worldwide protests as a result of Floyd’s death. Some of that, he contends, is because people may have watched the video and thought if an officer could do that to one person and feel like there’s no penalty for their action, who's to say they wouldn’t do it to someone else?

"Black Lives Matter, when it first started, was heavily demonized, like ‘why are people saying that?’ Well, now we have people of all stripes and all hues saying ‘black lives matter,’" Teasley added, as another reason he believes change could come this time around. "And we have a multicultural coalition of people protesting against the police — so it’s not just African Americans out there now."

That leads to another important question. How does change happen?

The push for change on the federal level

The next stage in the process is forged from advocacy groups that propose ideas or meet with police agencies. Black Lives Matter and the NAACP are among the groups that have facilitated efforts over the past week for legislative change at state and federal levels.

Advocacy groups work to hold prior pledges for change accountable; citizens may also start to question policies, and that puts pressure on elected officials to follow through on pledges, Teasley explained.

On Monday, national Democratic leaders unveiled their plan for change with a bill referred to as the Justice in Policing Act of 2020. It would force local, state and federal law enforcement officers from discriminatory profiling and mandate that all officers receive training related to racial, religious and discriminatory profiling. It also would ban chokeholds, carotid holds, no-knock warrants and would limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local officers, limit qualified immunity, as well as a handful of other changes.

"On the back-end, the bill fixes our federal laws so law enforcement officers are held accountable for egregious misconduct and police abuses are better tracked and reported," said Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, in a statement. "And on the front-end, the bill improves police practices and training to prevent these injustices from happening in the first place."

It came after Lex Scott, founder of the Utah chapter of Black Lives Matter, created a petition on Change.org calling for a federal bill to address the issue. The petition had garnered more than 800,000 signatures by Tuesday morning.

The proposed Justice in Policing Act has portions similar to Scott’s proposed Police Accountability and Transparency Act, including bias and diversity training as well as stricter body camera enforcement. Other aspects of Scott’s proposal, like banning police from investigating officer-involved shootings and creating a detailed database of individual officers, aren’t included in the Democratic plan.

The Democrats’ bill was released with the support of 166 representatives and 35 senators, but none of those listed crossed party lines to support the bill; no Utah leader was listed either. Sen. Mitt Romney said Tuesday he’s working with Republican senators on a separate police reform bill with the hope that it might get bipartisan support. The plan would include a "supervisory" component to determine if a police officer used unnecessary force or racial "enmity" in an interaction with another person.

NBC News reported later Tuesday that President Donald Trump could reveal a set of proposals for policing reform as early as this week.

The push for change at the state and local levels

Most changes regarding this issue would come at a state or local level, Teasley said. All four of Utah’s Republican gubernatorial candidates said in a debate last week that they were sickened by Floyd’s death. Thomas Wright, one of the candidates, even suggested getting involved with Utah’s Peace Officer Standards and Training, which oversees police conduct and rules in the state to add curriculum related to training officers to handle racial inequality.

Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, said on Friday he’s beginning work on three bill proposals that would incorporate changes the NAACP is seeking. That includes banning officers from using chokeholds and knee holds in the state, clarifying the Use of Force Continuum, making misconduct information and disciplinary histories more accessible, and implementing a citizen’s review board for municipalities to hold police departments accountable and rebuild public trust.

"We need federal, state and local reforms which impose strict police accountability, limit the use of force, eliminate racial profiling, demilitarize law enforcement, track and report data, and ensure proper screening, education and training of all officers," NAACP Salt Lake President Jeanetta Williams said at a press conference about the proposed legislative changes.

Regarding one of the proposed changes, former Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank pointed out on KSL NewsRadio’s "Live Mic with Lee Lonsberry" on Tuesday that Salt Lake City has had a civilian police review board that existed before he was appointed police chief in 2006.

The board has the ability to question, call witnesses and look at materials to make recommendations for the police chief after an incident, but the board doesn’t have final say on outcomes. Other recommendations may come from a department’s internal affairs unit and from a district attorney’s office before a decision is made. It’s something he supports because gives police an idea of how people outside the legal community view a situation.

Burbank said he believes there’s still a good relationship between Salt Lake’s civilian review board and police but acknowledged that hasn’t been the case everywhere in the country. The power of boards isn’t universal, so some boards can supersede police rulings while others don’t have any say. That’s led to contention elsewhere, he said.

"This is a crisis of legitimacy of law enforcement across the nation, and we as law enforcement have ignored that for far too long and have not made concrete steps and advances," Burbank added. "We’ve done lots of talking, but we have not put in place laws, rules and procedures — such as a civilian review board in every circumstance — in order to actually solve the problem."

Then there’s the "defund police" movement, which those attending protests in Utah have joined others in the U.S. in advocating for. It has turned into one of the largest rally cries over the past few weeks. As advocates of this theory point out, this doesn’t necessarily mean removing police altogether but, as one Minnesota group put it, is a call for "strategically reallocating resources, funding, and responsibility away from police and toward community-based models of safety, support, and prevention," the Associated Press reported.

Teasley explained an example of this is investing in mental health resources to treat those with opioid addictions instead of locking up people for addiction-related crimes, which requires lots of police intervention, money and resources. He said it shouldn’t cut police completely out of the picture; rather, it’s reducing some of their responsibilities and using spending toward resources that might prevent criminal activity. This is a change that would likely come at a local level from municipal governments.

"We need to put more funding into community services as a prevention society instead of putting money into intervention later on through the use of policing," Teasley said. "If someone has a mental health crisis, why are the police coming? Well, if they are a danger to themself, I can see why. But more than likely, we need mental health providers there: people who know how to calm things down."

There have also been efforts for community leaders to meet with police to solve problems in policing.

"For me, it was being able to get information so that as I am interacting with those individuals in our community who are frustrated and angry, that I can have that productive conversation with them," Rep. Sandra Hollins, D-Salt Lake City, told KSL TV following one of the meetings last week.

Salt Lake City police did not respond to KSL.com's request for comment for this article; however, Brown retweeted an open letter by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization he is part of, sent on Sunday. In it, the association acknowledged change is necessary but stopped short of immediate defunding.

"All reforms must be vetted to ensure they are sustainable and will be the meaningful impact our communities are calling for," the letter stated, in part. "Knee-jerk reactions and absolutes are irresponsible and as we look towards legislation, we need to take care that the needs of our diverse communities are reflected in the policies put forth."

There are plenty of ideas of how to move forward once the protests are over, but it remains unclear what the timeline could be for any reform.

Teasley remains hopeful that the outrage over Floyd’s death will have a different outcome from the previous protests over racial injustice in history.

"Change needs to take place," he said. "We cannot continue down the pathway we have, where sometimes you get good police and sometimes you get bad. And certain groups, particularly African Americans and minoritized populations, seem to have differential treatment. It’s that differential treatment that led to the rioting and violence we saw recently."

Contributing: Lee Lonsberry, KSL NewsRadio

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