‘Police’ and ‘accountability’ rarely go together. Fresno faces major reform challenges

Before being sold, rotten produce is removed by a sorting process. But when discussing police malfeasance, we’re assured it’s just “a few bad apples.” Why is this repeated ad nauseum? For police departments, the answer is simple: “bad apples” makes systemic issues look like individual transgressions while evading even facile oversight. Let us retire this metaphor and speak seriously about police accountability.

Last June, then-Mayor Lee Brand announced the creation of the Fresno Commission on Police Reform following protests over the killing of George Floyd. The commission’s report called for seventy-three specific recommendations, including a civilian oversight panel. Todd Fraizer, then president of the Fresno Police Officers’ Association, was the lone commission member to vote against the recommendations, stating “I’m not against proper oversight, just appointing people … that have no experience in policing overseeing police officers.” In other words, the police would like to keep policing themselves. This isn’t new. But any conversation about police accountability should begin with William H. Parker of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Promoted to chief in 1950, Parker turned a notoriously corrupt department into an efficient, arrest-conscious force. Parker flooded units into South Central, believing that African Americans were pathologically prone to criminal behavior. Reports of severe mistreatment skyrocketed and were ignored. When called in front of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1960, Parker explained that the real victims were police officers — the “greatest dislocated minority in America today,” he said.

By 1958 the Southern California chapters of the NAACP and ACLU had proposed a civilian review board. Like Fresno’s, the L.A. board would have no authority to punish officers. Nevertheless, the idea was resoundingly attacked by law enforcement and politicians.

Parker called charges of police brutality “unfounded” and police oversight a communist plot to demoralize the police. One LAPD officer claimed that a review board would “destroy public confidence in the police departments and … sap the morale of police officers.” L.A. City Council member C. Lemoine Blanchard introduced a resolution condemning the plan, stating that “any attempt to [censor] the activities of this department would only benefit the dope peddlers, gangsters and other criminals.” Robert D. Cutts, president of the Fire and Police Protective League, said that a review board would “demoralize the police department” and charged “so-called Negro leaders” with trying to “strip the dedicated Los Angeles policeman of his civil rights and due process of law.” The review board was never created. One year before Parker died in 1966, Watts erupted in fiery rebellion.

Framing accountability as an assault on the police continues today. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson was “terrified” of reduced police budgets and called BLM “thugs with no stake in society.” After George Floyd was killed, the president of Minneapolis’ police union Bob Kroll circulated a letter to the union complaining that Floyd’s “violent criminal history” was not being told. Kroll has a history, too: “I’ve had 54 complaints filed against me over my 31 years, and I’m still here,” he bragged in an interview. “I’m still lieutenant. I’ve been disciplined, but none of it has ever been upheld. I’ve been sued 11 times.” After criticism of the NYPD’s violent tactics during summer protests, New York Police Benevolent Association president Mike O’Meara demanded that people “Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect.” The irony seemed lost on him.

Now Fresno is trying its hand at police reform. The City Council has accepted the commission’s recommendations. Although a step in the right direction, many of the recommendations face near-impossible hurdles of implementation. For example, the civilian oversight panel would require members to be chosen by Mayor (and former police chief) Jerry Dyer and approved by a two-thirds council vote. Even if implemented, the board would have no ability to remove “bad apples.”

I might seem cynical, but historically, the words “police” and “accountability” rarely go together. It’s like comparing bad apples to oranges.