Today is seven years since Philando Castile was shot and killed by a cop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, because the cop thought Philando had a "wide nose" that resembled that of another man who was suspected in a robbery a few days earlier. Or that was the cop's excuse, anyway, for being so on edge that he had to draw his gun during a stop that started because of a brake light that didn't work.
The cop was later acquitted of manslaughter by a manipulated jury, though I am glad that the trial at least happened — glad that the cop was charged by our county attorney.
A few days ago, Radley Balko published an op-ed in the New York Times, and the Star Tribune reprinted it in today's paper (though I wondered if they would). It makes a fitting companion to the anniversary of Philando's death.
It tells the story of the Minneapolis white-flight suburb of Golden Valley, which recently hired a Black police chief. In response, a large proportion of the suburb's cops left the force.
"I haven't been on the job long enough to make any significant changes," the new police chief is quoted as saying. "Yet we're losing officers left and right. It's hard not to think that they just don't want to work under a Black supervisor."
And yet, with this large decrease in the number of cops on the streets, the crime rate in Golden Valley has gone down.
Minneapolis itself, which also has a historically low number of cops because of resignations and disability claims, combined with trouble getting more, is also experiencing a decrease in crime... since as we all are getting the sense, the crime rate overall is not related to the number of police but larger societal issues that are not controlled at the local level, let alone by police forces.
When the crime rate went up in 2020 and 2021, the Star Tribune and others immediately attributed it to the decrease in the police force, but now that it's going down they're silent about causality.
Hmm.
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