Defeating the coronavirus

Seven counties in the San Francisco Bay Area issued “sweeping shelter-in-place” orders on March 16. Reaction was predictable: “Public health experts praised the region’s action, while residents, business owners and workers were divided. Some welcomed the restrictions as necessary for the common good, while others feared they could threaten jobs and livelihoods, doing more harm than the virus itself.”

Governor Gavin Newsom followed with a statewide order three days later. These orders, sound steps to ensure public health, cast California’s political leadership in a good light and protected Californians before the virus had gotten out of control.

No longer. In spite of Governor Newsom’s vow, “Protests won’t drive our decision making. Political pressure will not drive our decision making. The science, the data public health will drive our decision making,” he was under intense pressure to reopen (a dynamic in red and blue states alike). People’s livelihoods were at stake. Not to mention government revenues to fund public programs and services.

To to get businesses up and running again and employees back at work, Governor Newsom shifted the criteria for reopening safely and permitted local governments to rush to reopen. By May 26, public health officials were pushing back against Newsom’s increasingly aggressive reopening timeline.

Three and a half months after California began to shut down, and then began to reopen, the Golden State is among numerous states that have experienced an out of control coronavirus. While the rate of infection (15 per 100,000) is not as high as in eight other states — Arizona (43); Florida (34): South Carolina (28); Nevada (22);  Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas  (20 each); and Georgia (19) — California is the nation’s most populous state. The number of people affected, with 237,068 cases and 6,152 total deaths, eclipses the impact felt in smaller states.

In blue states (which promised that data, not political pressure would drive decision making) as well as red (where following Donald Trump’s lead has been the dominant impulse), the United States has become an international outlier. This nation — an international leader in medical innovation — has bungled the response to the pandemic so thoroughly that it is now among the countries whose residents are banned from entering Europe.

Of course the United States’ primary policy failures have been at the national level. While this crisis cried out for national leadership, Trump has steadfastly refused to take on the challenge. That left 50 state governors (plus leaders in D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam) on their own. If that patchwork of policy responses – and the inevitable counterproductive competition among states for PPE and other resources to fight the pandemic – were not challenging enough, Trump told his base that reports of the pandemic were overblown, “fake news” generated by the mainstream media; he rejected wearing facial coverings as signals of disapproval of him; and criticized governors who imposed social distancing restrictions. Thus, simple, sensible measures to defeat the virus have been met with resistance every step of the way – in blue states and red states alike.

Republican men, who are particularly in thrall of Trump, are most likely to spurn sound guidance (when the President spurns it), but other folks (and not just Trump fans) have been misled by the mixed messages communicated by the President of the United States, his administration, his campaign, and a host of media enablers (led by Fox News Channel).

For a few weeks it appeared that states, individually and in concert, were on track to defeat this virus. The absence of national leadership and a unifying message, the refusal to marshal resources and coordinate a response across the country, and Trump’s deliberate undermining of governors determined to protect public health have defeated us. This calamity has starkly revealed Donald Trump’s unfitness for the office he holds. He is incapable of performing his job and declines to try.

While other countries have found a great measure of success, the United States will be wrestling with coronavirus for the rest of Trump’s first term – and well beyond.

Changing police culture

For many weeks across the country we’ve seen protests seeking to end pervasive discrimination based on race, with a special focus on law enforcement practices and policies that put Black men, especially, and Black women in harm’s way. Especially since 911, many police forces have leaned toward militarization, which clashes with more collaborative models of community policing.

Obviously, this problem isn’t confined to red states. The Los Angeles Police Department has a history of both militaristic and racially biased law enforcement. In 1965 (Watts) and again in 1992 (Rodney King), Black neighborhoods, sparked by anger over policing in the city, erupted in violence. While neighborhoods didn’t burn after the O.J. Simpson acquittal (1995), Black reaction to the verdict was undoubtedly influenced by LAPD Officer Mark Fuhrman’s taped interviews featuring racial slurs, tales of police brutality, and boasts of planting evidence.

LAPD circa 2020 is more than a generation removed from Daryl Gates’ department. We have seen significant changes since then. But there are still police shootings of unarmed suspects, including mentally ill individuals, and during street protests following George Floyd’s murder, there were numerous instances of police conduct that resembled the meting out of ‘street justice’ or torrents of uncontrolled anger, rather than disciplined law enforcement.

In full-page ads, which ran in the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Washington Post, the San Jose Police Officers Association, the San Francisco Police Officer Association, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League calling for police reforms: “No words can convey our collective disgust and sorrow for the murder of George Floyd,” said the statement, continuing, “We have an obligation as a profession and as human beings to express our sorrow by taking action.”

The statement acknowledged the existence of racist police officers but pledged, “Police unions must root out racism wherever it rears its ugly head and root out any racist individual from our profession.”

On the same day the ad ran, the union had an entirely different message (“Facing criticism, police union unleashes its ‘pit bull,'”) for its 9,900 members:

“The CHIEF! Never sell out and back the troops!” said a Facebook post by Los Angeles Police Protective League board member Jamie McBride. The message accompanied a video of Daryl F. Gates, a former LAPD chief who ran a department plagued by excessive force and brutal relations with communities of color.

That kind of defiant pose has become a trademark for McBride over a 30-year career in the Los Angeles Police Department and six years on the board of the powerful union, which uses campaign donations to influence city elections. The Police Protective League puts McBride in front of the news media to signal that rank-and-file officers have had enough of the city’s left-leaning political leadership.

The veteran detective exudes the swagger and tribal brio of the old-school LAPD. He was a street cop with a disproportionate number of on-duty shootings and an investigator who fought management discipline (including his own) and won, and he remains a sometime actor who plays street thugs and tough cops in movies and on television.

His frequent and public Facebook posts yearn for a bygone era when the LAPD wasn’t under attack by what old-timers view as a cadre of timid chiefs, desk-bound geeks and opportunistic politicians.

A 2018 post on McBride’s Facebook page, touting the “good ol days,” features an armored vehicle, gunfire, tasers, body slams, car crashes, rivers of blood, and corpses – all to the tune of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter.’ At least not all the lawbreakers are Black or Latino.

“What you see in this video is a joy in search-and-destroy policing. … It’s not about protection. It’s not about safety. It’s warrior enforcement,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights lawyer who has worked with the department on reform measures.

Of officers like McBride, Rice added: “That’s the kind of policing they enjoy. That’s what they live for. … What the protesters are saying is: ‘Time’s up for that. It’s over.’ The consent of the governed for that kind of policing is done.”

McBride said that the video shows an earlier era of policing but that he acknowledges a need for change. “We as a department have instituted hundreds of reforms, yet there is more we can do,” he said.

The phrase, “hundreds of reforms,” is a tell, suggesting that it’s time to consider something more fundamental than a checklist of ‘reforms’ to eliminate us-against-them policing. Although Los Angeles is hardly ready to defund the police, the City Council just voted to cut $150 million from the police budget.

Supporters of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, who have proposed cuts of 90 to 100% of police funding, derided the action:

“That is literally pocket change,” said Rebecca Kessler, a resident of Van Nuys who called in to the council this week. “It’s a slap in the face. You need to defund the police, take way more money, put way more money into these programs.”

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reached his goal of increasing the size of LAPD to 10,000 officers in 2013. That’s not that many cops for the sprawling city of Los Angeles. At the time, I regarded this as sound policy. With today’s budget cut, the force will eventually fall to 9,757.

When the troubled city of Camden, New Jersey disbanded its police department in 2013, and reconstituted it as a county agency, it saved money (by withdrawing from a union contract) and the force grew from 250 to 400. That’s a model I might have endorsed a month ago – staffing up and retraining.

But the route Los Angeles seems headed for – pioneered by Eugene, Oregon in 1989! – may be more promising. When residents call 911, the dispatcher has a choice: send police (if an armed response is needed); otherwise, send a team consisting of a medic and a crisis worker – from the nonprofit, Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS).

Last year CAHOOTS handled 20% of 911 calls in Eugene and the neighboring city of Springfield. Denver and Olympia, Washington have embraced a similar model.

In Los Angeles many 911 calls involve mental health crises, substance abuse, homeless individuals — often nonviolent situations. There is no compelling reason for armed police officers to respond to these calls. Further, the police are receptive to an approach that designates another responder.

Los Angeles police union officials have welcomed the idea of spreading around calls for service to other agencies more equipped to handle mental health-related calls. In 2019, LAPD statistics show, officers responded to 1.9 million calls for service, with 20,758 of those related to mental-health issues, a 2 percent increase from the previous year.

“We have gone from asking the police to be part of the solution, to being the only solution for problems they should not be called on to solve in the first place,” wrote the authors of the Los Angeles City Council that directed city staffers to look to Eugene for answers.

(Image: KCAL.)