I just had a conversation with a friend who disagreed when I said the biggest problem in reforming policing is the police unions. Racism in defending the "rights" of police officers' is steeped in the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.
In 1966, New York City Mayor Lindsay proposed adding four civilians to the board investigating police abuses. PBA president John J. Cassese's response was, "[Y]ou won’t satisfy these people until you get all Negroes and Puerto Ricans on the board and every policeman who goes in front of it is found guilty.”
I remember being a young teenager in the Kings Plaza area back then, shopping with my mother. Members of the PBA -- in uniform -- were at a bus stop asking Brooklynites for signatures on petitions opposing Lindsay's plan to add the civilians. The cops walked by me and my mother, treating us as invisible as they approached all the white people standing near us.
In a city like New York, where racial fairness is a credible rallying call, the PBA steadily threw its support behind Donald J. Trump, as Trump dog-whistled praises to his white supremacist followers.
Yes, today we have a Civilian Complaint Review Board, but it never accomplished anything close to what Minneapolis teenager Darnella Frazier did last year, when she aimed her camera and provided evidence that led to the arrest, conviction and sentencing of Derek Chauvin, for the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd.
Note: Linked here is a piece from the Gotham Center for New York City History, by Chris Hayes (an historian in the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University in New Brunswick).
