Morally Justifiable Arson

I'll go on record and say that I fully support burning down the Minneapolis 3rd Precinct police building. I'm not totally ok with burning down random business but I understand the helpless rage behind it. But targeting the specific precinct building where the cops involved were employed? That's precision.

My prediction is that without mass rioting and destruction, it would be extremely easy to just sweep the killing of George Floyd under the rug. That's overwhelmingly the norm when it comes to police officer killings in the US. You wait for the initial attention to die down, have your colleagues conduct an internal discipline investigation, and try and figure out how to get an 'unsubstantiated' result. They know that pathway is not possible in this case, because the rioters are holding the city hostage. It's unfortunate that mass arson is one of the few effective ways of forcing accountability, and it would be infinitely better if there was an infrastructure in place that actually held cops to account for their misdeeds that didn't rely on mass destruction, but you work with what you've got.

The chances that murder charges will be filed just skyrocketed. Same with the chances that the Minneapolis PD's policies on use of force will be scrutinized and overhauled by everyone involved. Additionally every Minneapolis police officer will know all their actions will be heavily scrutinized, and not only would they want to avoid murder charges or the like, but they probably also don't want to be remembered as "that guy that started the second wave of riots". Given how dramatic the destruction has been, this effect will propagate at least somewhat to other police departments around the country.

This absolutely happened in Ferguson (and regardless of the merits of that specific encounter). Darren Wilson wasn't charged with murder, but a grand jury was impaneled which on its own is virtually unheard of for police officers. People noticed how the prosecutor basically acted like Wilson's defense attorney during the grand jury panel, and that's a recognition of the inherent conflict of interest of requiring local prosecutors to investigate what are essentially their colleagues. Towards that end, quite a few states did or try to enact special prosecutor laws which require using an outside prosecutor in the case of police killings (e.g. New Jersey). Additionally, the Department of Justice initiated an investigation on the pattern and practice of local police departments and entered into a settlement with Ferguson PD. One of their findings is that a significant portion of municipal funding is derived from fines resulting from police encounters. This resulted in a complete overhaul of local courts in Missouri to mitigate these predatory practices.

I guarantee that literally none of this would ever have happened had people not exploded in outrage. Again, it's genuinely unfortunate that that's what it takes to effectuate change with this area of policy.

During mass civil unrest, there is undeniably a huge risk that you'll just destroy your community in the process in vain. This is why I said above that I don't really support targeting random businesses who had nothing to do with the controversy. I agree the primary effect, more than anything else, is encouraging economic desertion and is ultimately self-sabotaging.

Still, it's hard for me to totally condemn. I appreciate that people are angry and traditional venues for redress are completely closed off. So they lash out, often in very self-destructive ways. I don’t hesitate about the precinct building situation because it was, relatively speaking, narrowly tailored and precise. Insofar as the currency of a riot is "dramatic displays of destruction", it accomplished exactly that while limiting needless collateral destruction.

Ferguson might have fucked itself over in the process but it did accelerate policy changes in policing across the country. I was genuinely surprised that something relatively unfocused like BLM came out with an actually seriously thought out policy platform. Some of these are progressing faster than others, and the political clout and attention would not have existed without the shitshow that started it all.

To be clear, the raw numbers of people killed by police is definitely small relatively speaking, but unaccountable police has an erosive effect on significant portions of civil society. It's bigger than just the specific number of people dead. It plays into how the criminal justice system operates as a whole. An example is the Houston Tuttle raid. Sure, "only" two people died but it took that incident to unearth that a 34-year department veteran has been routinely falsifying information throughout his career. The total of individuals convicted solely based on his word is 164 so far, and there are plans to release them. And again, this was only uncovered because Officer Goines dramatically fucked up what would otherwise have been a routine drug raid.

The issue for me is police accountability in general. People killed by cops is only one facet of that. The Tuttle Raid illustrates how lack of accountability affects far more than just the number of bodies in the ground. Lack of accountability is an issue because it erodes trust in the very system designed and intended for accountability. The specific anecdotes of injustice do no matter except as a reflection of what systemic efforts exist to mitigate them. And those systems are extremely limited in the realm of policing.

Compare that to cases of medical malpractice, where there's a system you can point to in place to dole out accountability. There is medical malpractice insurance, there is licensing discipline, there is reputation, there is actual legal liability and an army of hungry personal injury attorneys, etc. Obviously there are deficiencies but at least there is a process of sorts. There's nothing quite comparable in terms of infrastructure for police accountability. Medical malpractice injury attorneys are plentiful, well-equipped, and part of a robust industry. In contrast, after immigration defense, probably the saddest area of law has to be §1983 litigation

If an institution authorized to dole out force can't police itself, it shouldn't exist. Realistically, there is virtually no risk attached to being a shitty police officer in large part thanks to qualified immunity and police unions. Even if you somehow fuck up enough to get fired, it's incredibly easy to just get hired by a neighboring jurisdiction. And because of the relationship between prosecutors and law enforcement, they're obviously reticent to bring in charges against them for political reason.

With all these impediments in place, there is no realistic avenue to hold police officers accountable. If it takes burning down a police building for them to realize they won't be able to engage in misconduct consequence-free, so be it.