Two colleagues and I have recently published a short book entitled “Getting Away With Murder: Obstacles to Police Accountability.”
Back in 2020, during the demonstrations around the country and the world in reaction to the police killing of George Floyd, I was approached by several local individuals about organizing to address the issue of police killing innocent people in general and black people in particular.
Within weeks, we had a group of some ten members. This group included both young people and older adults. We called ourselves the Committee for Combating Racial Injustice in Policing. We started weekly meetings trying to understand the phenomenon of police officers killing unarmed black individuals and seldom being prosecuted and convicted for their apparent excessive use of force.
We first addressed police union contracts, which we found to be problematic in holding police officers accountable for misbehavior. This led us to collaborate with Campaign Zero, an organization that studies policing and public safety, in a webinar on the issue of police union contracts. Campaign Zero had conducted a study of several hundred police union contracts across the country.
After two years of study, we participated in a webinar as a part of a webinar series sponsored by an African American fraternity. Then, we decided to produce our work in book form.
Despite the national attention police violence gained and the calls for police reform following the murder of George Floyd, police officers are killing more people at a higher rate each year than before the police officer killed George Floyd. Police killed at least 1,372 people in 2024, with Blacks 2.8 times more likely to be killed by police than whites.
One reason this assault on citizens continues is that very few roadblocks have been put in the way of excessive violent policing. While any policing reform is beneficial, many reforms being discussed and enacted are unlikely to significantly reduce the police use of excessive force.
Of all the police killings documented between 2013 and 2019, one data source, Mapping Police Violence, found only one percent of cases led to a conviction of a police officer. Many in the public and some elected officials have argued that the excessive use of force by the police can be curtailed if more officers are held accountable for their actions, primarily their actions against innocent citizens. The authors of this book subscribe to that view and discuss some significant reasons why and how police are not held accountable for excessive use of force.
Specifically, we argue that four obstacles hinder holding police officers accountable for cases of excessive police violence: qualified immunity, the so-called “reasonable officer standard,” police union contracts, and the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.
This book is available free as an ebook at https://doi.org/10.21061/gettingawaywithmurder. At that site, one can purchase a paperback copy for a modest fee.
