By Zoe Adams
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Changing the way police officers can use force will result in fewer killings, a civil rights activist and podcaster told a half-occupied Merrick Lecture Hall at Goucher College on Tuesday.
DeRay Mckesson, an activist for Campaign Zero, said that restrictions on police will help dramatically reduce the number of killings that are committed by officers each year. Some of those restrictions include banning both chokeholds and strangleholds, the duty to intervene, and requiring a warning before shooting, even if the warning is only verbal.
“Officers should have to report every time they point their gun at somebody,” Mckesson added.
Mckesson said there should be little-to-no reporting, because an officer pointing a gun at someone should not be a frequent occurrence.
Mckesson’s analysis of corruption in the system has led him to conclude that police reform will only occur when the public demands it.
“People are more in love with the idea of resistance rather than the actual work of resistance,” Mckesson said.
Mckesson said that people often support resistance and change, but statistics show that the number of people killed by police increased from 2017 to 2018. This shows that change is not occurring yet, he said.
Mckesson spoke at Goucher College as part of the Meyerhoff Alumna Visiting Professorship, according to Jose Antonio Bowen, president of Goucher. Bowen said the program brings professors to the college to speak about pressing issues in the community.
Campaign Zero, a police reform movement that began after the death of Freddie Gray, has conducted research about corruption within police departments across the country, Mckesson said.
He shared several excerpts from police department contracts that protect officers when they have done something that requires disciplinary action. A contract out of Portland, Oregon, says that disciplinary measures must be done in a way “least likely to embarrass the officer.”
Accountability is at the root of the change that needs to be made, Mckesson said. New rules and training would be more effective if a police officer were to lose their job the day after they shoot and kill someone wrongfully, he said.
“When should the police kill your child?” Mckesson said to someone when asked about what justifies a police officer killing someone.
Campaign Zero has made the first ever database of deaths caused by an officer. Before that, Mckesson said, there was little data to track officer-caused homicides.
“If you get killed by a police officer and a newspaper doesn’t write about it, you are not in a database,” Mckesson said. The organization has data on its website about deaths caused by police and ways to reform.
“One in 11 gun-homicides are committed by an officer,” Mckesson said. “One-third of all people killed by a stranger are killed by a police officer.”
The activist also wanted to make clear that they are responsible for sharing the burden with others to get the public to begin deeply thinking about issues.
“Understanding the problem differently, helps understand the solution differently,” Mckesson said.
He said he wants to get people talking about the pressing issues in the community and help start change. He referred to those who need reform as “the choir.”
“I’m interested in the choir,” Mckesson said. “How do we help people do something special? Can we help everybody sing?”