When keepers of the peace harbor hate
If you ask Heather Taylor, an African American night watch homicide sergeant with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, if some of her co-workers are white supremacists, she will respond with an unequivocal yes.
Most cops are not racist, she says, 鈥淏ut if you think that there are no white supremacists, you鈥檙e definitely wrong. You鈥檙e definitely wrong.鈥�
She notes that there are currently six pending investigations for racial discrimination in the SLMPD, and that one case was recently resolved with a settlement. 鈥淲e are in the news every other week,鈥� she says.
Why We Wrote This
To root out hate, you first have to identify it. Technology has helped to reveal a thread of racism running through some U.S. police forces. That鈥檚 the first step. Now what?
St. Louis鈥� police department is hardly alone in struggling with racism in its ranks. What is relatively new, however, are ways to expose officers who may be undermining public trust in law enforcement.
A series of reports from earlier this year found active-duty police officers posting racist memes on Facebook, prompting more than 50 police departments across the United States to take action. In July, uncovered a group of 9,500 current and retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers posting xenophobic and white supremacist imagery on Facebook. The , established by a group of Philadelphia attorneys in 2016, has cataloged more than 5,000 Facebook posts and comments by police officers in eight cities that include racist imagery and encourage violence against ethnic minorities.
In June, Sergeant Taylor and the Ethical Society of Police demanded the immediate dismissal of St. Louis police officers exposed by the Plain View Project. The officers were聽found to have made Facebook posts that聽聽in racist stereotypes,聽聽the Confederate battle flag,聽聽Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan,聽聽about extrajudicial executions, and聽听惭耻蝉濒颈尘蝉.
St. Louis police officers had posted these inflammatory聽messages publicly on Facebook between 2013 and 2017, but they remained unnoticed until the Plain View Project posted them in its online database in June.聽
In the past, when someone shared a racist comment or joke with a friend, colleague, or family member, it typically stayed in the room. Today, as technology mediates an ever-increasing portion of our social lives, such remarks can become matters of public debate years after they鈥檝e been expressed.
And when these remarks resurface, sometimes years later, they force two questions central to one of the biggest civil rights debates of our time:聽To what extent does white supremacy find a home in American policing?聽And how can it be best addressed?
To some, those questions presume too sweeping an indictment of the force.
鈥淟et鈥檚 put aside the notion that there鈥檚 rampant racism in law enforcement,鈥� says Jeff Roorda, business manager of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, the union representing St. Louis Metro Police. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a false narrative.鈥�
Mr. Roorda, who worked as a police officer for 17 years and is the author of the 2016 book 鈥淭he War on Police: How the Ferguson Effect Is Making America Unsafe,鈥� points out that many of the posts amassed by the Plain View Project are just variations on the logo of the Punisher, a Marvel Comics character. Many others express opinions held by a wide swath of Americans, he says.
鈥淚 challenge you to find any profession with less occurrence of racist posts,鈥� says Mr. Roorda. 鈥淲e expect to be held to a higher standard. What we can鈥檛 handle is being held to an impossible standard.鈥�
鈥淸The Ethical Society] has a history of addressing racial inequality,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ut in the last few years their president [Sergeant Taylor] has been radicalized.鈥澛�
Prosecutors鈥� role
To Vida Johnson, a Georgetown University law professor and a criminal defense attorney, the job of dealing with police with white supremacist beliefs is best handled outside the department.
One potential solution, Professor Johnson argued in in the Lewis & Clark Law Review in April, is for jurists to expand their enforcement of the Brady doctrine, a pretrial discovery rule that prosecutors must disclose to the defense any material exculpatory evidence, and the related Giglio doctrine, which requires disclosure of any such evidence that could be used to impeach the credibility of prosecution witnesses, including police officers.
鈥淭here is no doubt,鈥� Professor Johnson wrote, 鈥渢hat membership in a hate group or ascribing to racist beliefs would be fodder for cross-examination of an officer and useful to the defense.鈥�
Having an outside group perform these background checks would help relieve police departments of the burden of policing themselves, says Professor Johnson. 鈥淏ecause of the 鈥榖lue wall of silence,鈥� it鈥檚 really hard to expose these officers, because officers have to rely on one another,鈥� she says.
Professor Johnson argues that prosecutors are well placed to help screen police officers for racist beliefs and affiliations with white supremacist groups. 鈥淚f a prosecutor鈥檚 office saw it as their role to really look into their witnesses carefully, and particularly police officers who represent the government, they would be making sure these checks were done,鈥� she says.
鈥淚 think that鈥檚 just the culture of police departments,鈥� says Professor Johnson. 鈥淎nd until we change that it鈥檚 going to be hard to separate the good guys from the bad guys.鈥�
Confronting history
White supremacy and American law enforcement share a long history together. The earliest forms of organized policing were聽, and for much of U.S. history, through slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, police have played a key role in upholding a racist social order. And the problem didn鈥檛 vanish at the end of the 20th century; in 2006, the FBI sounded the alarm that so-called 鈥� members of neo-Nazi or other hate groups posing as members of civilized society 鈥� had joined police departments across the United States.聽
鈥淲hite supremacist groups in the 1980s and 1990s started promoting a strategy they refer to as infiltration,鈥� says Pete Simi, a sociologist who studies domestic terror聽at Chapman University in Orange, California.聽
鈥淲e have no idea how effective or really widespread the strategy has actually been,鈥� says Professor Simi, who co-wrote the 2010 book 鈥淎merican Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement鈥檚 Hidden Spaces of Hate.鈥�
For Sergeant Taylor, membership in a hate group is only one form that white supremacy can take.
鈥淪ometimes it鈥檚 systemic,鈥� she writes in a text message shortly after our interview. 鈥淪ometimes it鈥檚 as simple as racist words in an email group about President Obama being inferior, Facebook posts, an officer joining a group that hates Muslims, a supervisor refusing to allow someone in a specialized or coveted unit he or she supervises because of their hair, or denying an officer a promotion because they鈥檙e too 鈥榚thnic鈥� for them.鈥澛�
The best way to prevent white supremacists from wearing the badge, says Sergeant Taylor, is not to hire them in the first place. But she stresses that it is also important to screen police officers continuously throughout their career.聽
鈥淭he prescription is better screening and hiring,鈥� says Sergeant Taylor. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 hold on to people just because they run the fastest, they shoot the best, they meet all of these criteria that are important law-enforcement-wise, but when it comes to being moral and ethically sound, we can鈥檛 pass these people through our academies.鈥�
The Ethical Society advocates community policing 鈥� where officers aim to strengthen social bonds with the populations they police. Last year, the group expanded and began accepting members from the St. Louis County Police Department, which is directly responsible for policing the unincorporated areas of the county. That department also contracts with several municipalities in the county to serve as their police department.
In 2015, in response to younger black officers leaving the department, the Ethical Society founded a free 鈥淧re-Academy鈥� program for those considering a career in law enforcement. The program is open to people of all races and genders, ages 19 and older.聽
All instructors are previous or current police academy instructors who take prospective recruits through a miniaturized version of a real academy. They meet twice weekly for three-hour classes on constitutional law, criminal investigation and report writing, fitness and nutrition, and a class on maintaining emotional wellness.
The program is aimed at ensuring that the demographic makeup of the police department reflects that of the city. According to the SLMPD鈥橲 , two-thirds of the department鈥檚 commissioned officers are white, 30% are black, and about 3% are 鈥渙ther.鈥� The city of St. Louis, by comparison, is 45% white and 49% black, .
Sergeant Taylor is proud of the program, but she recognizes its limits. 鈥淓verything we do with our 10-week academy with screening people and trying to double check their character, you鈥檒l still have officers who will fail. That鈥檚 just human nature,鈥� she says.
