Why the Tyre Nichols Incident is More Disturbing than George Floyd

As horrendous and horrific as George Floyd was, the Tyre Nichols case is far worse. The reasons are many and in this blog I will address the many reasons why and how we as law enforcement professionals and a society can move forward. 

Race was presumed to be the underlying issue in the George Floyd case. This inflamed public opinion and ignited the discussion of racial discrimination and disparities in our country, particularly as it pertains to law enforcement. Protests (both peaceful and violent) occurred nationwide. This resulted in focusing on race and officer bias. Unfortunately, that took center stage over true police reform and accountability, which should have been at the core of our focus following George Floyd. Because of the focus being solely on race, the real cause of the Floyd incident laid dormant until now.  

Race cannot nor should not be blamed as the root cause in the Tyre Nichols case. In fact, it is long overdue for us to take a true assessment of what clearly went wrong and we must determine a corrective course of action plotted with true reform.

So, what went wrong?

The George Floyd incident was so inflamed by the race narrative, that many police leaders got distracted and did not take a real and substantive evaluation of their agency's core mission. Every police agency was impacted by the Floyd case, but very few took the decisive, long-lasting action that would ensure this did not happen again. Police leaders and the rank and file approached reform with little enthusiasm. Many legislators rushed to create laws to force police reform. This didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. Why? Because there will not be one law to fix all the problems.

If Congress creates laws for police reform, they will most likely be written for federal law enforcement only. This is a very small segment of law enforcement. Each individual state would have to adopt and ratify the federal law or create their own. Not only would this be cumbersome and inefficient, but it’s also almost not doable. Laws are not the answer in this case.

Police agencies are slow to change. Police, as a profession, suffer from a systemic blind eye to the fact that the world has changed in a huge way. All law enforcement agencies were heavily evaluated post-Floyd and some changes were instituted or seemed to be, but were they really? Most changes dealt with de-escalation and use of force tactics. Trust me, these are all good to do, but they don’t address the core issue of personal accountability, which is what matters. 

Lack of leadership. This incident is a clear and grave example of failure to supervise and lead. Leaders in Memphis didn’t lead. Leading requires identifying rogue employees and those employees who fail to meet standards of good conduct. I guarantee you (and the media is already finding) that a review of each of these Memphis cops’ records will detail an incident or notes of wrongdoing in their career. This is not the first incident that caused pause. Further, the special street crime unit the SCORPIONS of which these officers were members, requires even more scrutiny and accountability to ensure that the right people are in the unit and are led and supervised properly.

Personal accountability. These officers did not hold themselves personally accountable. If they had possessed personal accountability, someone would have had enough self-control to stop the situation before it got out of hand. Holding yourself accountable is the single most important act an employee will do. Without personal accountability, no rule is ever followed. 

Culture. The culture of the Memphis Police Department has to take partial responsibility for this incident. Every police administrator knows that many cultures exist within their agencies. Specialty units (like the SCORPIONS here) often create a culture of self-importance to believe they can bend or break the rules due to their tough assignment or their over-productive results. This can lead to major problems as we witnessed in Memphis. Police culture has also long been known for the ability to be silent when witnessing wrongdoing by other officers.

The motto is “Defend at all cost our brothers in blue.”

This is only appropriate when our brothers in blue act in accordance to acceptable policy, guidelines, and laws. Culture is a major reason why employees do what they do. Culture consists in large part of the unwritten rules of an organization. These should be as strict as the written but are often not. A culture of holding employees to a high standard of conduct will limit the wrong doings before they become problems. Culture was front and center of this incident.

So, what do we do as a profession to ensure this never happens again? 

First, we must condemn this incident without hesitation. None of "let’s find all the facts and let’s hear the officers’ side of the story" or "let's wait to see what happens". Neither one of those approaches are appropriate in this case. This is a clear case of "what we saw is exactly what happened". Every police leader across this country should speak with one voice of condemnation and make sure all of our officers know this will never be tolerated. Every chief of police and sheriff should internally and publicly declare their condemnation of the actions of these officers through internal and external official means. 

Second, do a better job of supervising and leading. Make it a goal to identify and do early intervention with problem employees. Further, if they can’t meet standards, let them know. I understand unions get in the way, but don’t let this distract you from identifying these employees and letting them know this will not be tolerated. Law enforcement is not the profession for angry and aggressive people who cannot control themselves. Being an officer and leader for over 30 years, leaders, I know that you know right now who those employees are within your organizations! Stop tolerating officers who do this job at a low level!

Third, stop ignoring cultural norms that tolerate treating the public with disdain or as the enemy. We are the people, and the people are us! It is not okay to have a bad attitude as a cop. I understand that we have one of the toughest jobs in the world, but this does not make it okay to pass this along to those we serve.

Fourth, it’s time to make the "Heart of a Servant with the Mind of a Warrior" mindset part of all of our onboarding and ongoing training. We need to aggressively emphasize the public servant and service part of this job. We spend 98% of all training with the "Mind of the Warrior" as the base. Being a warrior is certainly part of our job, but it in actuality, it’s less than 10% of the job. We need to re-evaluate our ratio of being a servant and adjust our training accordingly.

The violence it takes for a police officer to beat a person to death is unconscionable, but turning a blind eye to it and doing nothing is unimaginable! We cannot move forward until we admit our systemic failures to lead, supervise, address cultural failures, and having a slow response to change.

These solutions are provided in the spirit that we cannot delay decisive and progressive response and action to this horrible incident. We must prevent this from ever happening again. The time is NOW for all good men and women to answer the call of duty. Step up and step out to ensure this profession you are willing to give your life in the service of is as great as it needs to be.

ACT NOW!!!

- Dean