Why Did Other Cops Fail To Stop the Lethal Assault on Tyre Nichols?
"Active bystandership" training aims to overcome the pressures that discourage police officers from intervening when their colleagues use excessive force.
The Memphis, Tennessee, police officers who lethally beat, pepper-sprayed, and tased Tyre Nichols after a January 7 traffic stop were clearly out of control, delivering punishment for what they perceived as "contempt of cop" in the guise of making an arrest. Yet during the 13 minutes that elapsed between the stop and the police radio report that Nichols had been taken into custody, no one else who was present intervened to stop the blatantly illegal use of force.
That sort of failure is familiar from other notorious cases of police abuse, including the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Even when officers recognize that a colleague is using excessive force, they do not necessarily act on that knowledge. Given the strong social and institutional pressures against second-guessing a fellow officer, that problem cannot easily be remedied through legal reforms. But there is reason to think that training in "active bystandership," which builds on psychological research that illuminates the barriers to intervention in situations like these, can make a difference.
Nichols ostensibly was pulled over for reckless driving, although Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis says she has not seen any evidence to support that charge aside from one officer's statement. Davis fired the officers directly involved in what she called the "heinous, reckless and inhumane" treatment of Nichols—Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith—on January 20, about a week and a half after Nichols died from his injuries. Last Friday, they were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official oppression, and official misconduct. But the responsibility for Nichols' death goes beyond what these five officers did; it extends to what other people at the scene failed to do.
Video released by the Memphis Police Department (MPD) on Friday evening shows other officers milling about as Bean et al. pummel Nichols, kick him, and strike him with a police baton. "The available footage does not show any sign that the officers present intervened to stop the aggressive use of force," The New York Times notes. "If anything, it shows the contrary. At one point, footage captured an officer saying 'I hope they stomp his ass' after Mr. Nichols's attempt to flee the scene."
After viewing the body and pole camera recordings on Friday, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. said he had "concerns about two deputies who appeared on the scene following the physical confrontation between police and Tyre Nichols." Bonner said he had "launched an internal investigation into the conduct of these deputies to determine what occurred and if any policies were violated." The deputies "have been relieved of duty pending the outcome of this administrative investigation."
Although Bonner said the conduct that bothered him occurred "following the physical confrontation," the video shows a squad car from his office arriving after Nichols, who at that point had been tackled, tased, and pepper-sprayed, fled police. That suggests deputies were present during the vicious beating that Nichols received after the cops caught up with him. Body camera video also shows at least eight MPD officers at the scene of the initial confrontation before the second assault.
Last week, Davis said the internal investigation prompted by the deadly traffic stop was not limited to the officers "directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr. Nichols." She said it includes an unspecified number of "other MPD officers" who "are still under investigation for department policy violations."
Davis did not say exactly which "department policy violations" she had in mind. But the MPD's policy manual includes an admonition that "any member who directly observes another member engaged in dangerous or criminal conduct or abuse of a subject shall take reasonable action to intervene." It adds that "a member shall immediately report to the Department any violation of policies and regulations or any other improper conduct which is contrary to the policy, order or directives of the Department."
Disregarding that duty can be a criminal offense as well as a policy violation. Official misconduct, one of the charges against Bean et al., occurs not only when a "public servant" does something that exceeds his legal authority but also when he "refrains from performing a duty that is imposed by law or that is clearly inherent in the nature of the public servant's office or employment."
Discipline or prosecution, of course, happens only after an officer fails to intervene. What can be done to increase the likelihood that an officer will do what he is supposed to do when he sees a colleague "engaged in dangerous or criminal conduct or abuse of a subject"?
Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement (ABLE), a training program that was established in 2021 and so far involves more than 300 law enforcement agencies, offers one potential answer. ABLE, which was developed by Georgetown University's Center for Innovations in Community Safety, grew out of a New Orleans program known as EPIC (Ethical Policing Is Courageous) that was launched in 2014 under the guidance of Ervin Staub, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. It is based on insights gained from research into why people either intervene or fail to intervene in emergency situations. The obstacles to intervention include deference to authority, diffusion of responsibility, and fear of retaliation and ostracism.
Jonathan Aronie, a partner at the law firm Sheppard Mullin, which sponsors ABLE, co-founded the program and chairs its board of advisers. He says ABLE, which includes a weeklong certification program for officers who conduct eight hours of training for their colleagues, is based on principles that have proven effective for hospitals and airlines seeking to prevent surgical and pilot error. The challenge in those contexts is similar to the one exemplified by police officers who fail to question the use of excessive force: overcoming the natural tendency to go along rather than risk negative consequences by challenging the judgment of colleagues and superiors.
ABLE, which demands explicit and conspicuous buy-in from police executives, local politicians, and community groups, strives to create a culture that reinforces the duty to intervene. The program, which is free to police departments thanks to support from Sheppard Mullin and several corporate donors, uses case studies and role-playing scenarios to identify and overcome barriers to intervention.
Does it work? "It is difficult to quantify the success of active bystandership training," ABLE concedes, "because, in most cases, when it works, nothing news-worthy happens." But the organization cites research in other fields that "confirms the skills necessary to intervene successfully can be taught and learned." It says "extensive field experiments" by Staub and other researchers have shown that "the inhibitors to an intervention can be overcome even in hierarchical, high group-cohesion environments, like policing." ABLE also cites testimonials from officers who have participated in the program and says it is conducting surveys and collecting policing data that could provide more rigorous and specific evidence.
So far, ABLE's list of participating agencies includes the Knoxville Police Department but not the MPD or any other law enforcement agency in Tennessee. As the MPD's code of conduct illustrates, police already theoretically know they are not supposed to tolerate illegal conduct by fellow officers. But the brief, pro forma instruction they receive on that point during standard training is plainly no match for the countervailing pressures they encounter on the job. Additional training that focuses specifically on the skills needed to resist those pressures seems like a promising approach that agencies such as the MPD should consider if they are serious about preventing horrifying incidents like the one that killed Tyre Nichols.
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Assaulting officers wanted to get in their club.
They’re sticking to their story
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Don’t mention cop club.
There are a battery of reasons not to.
Yeah, but they should be taken with a grain assault.
At cop club, bruise are served via tap or bottle.
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A 124 grain assault? Or 55?
Is that one of the rules? You do not talk about
fightcop club?Cop Club? That’s just a myth….
First rule about cop club, don’t talk about cop club.
It’s all about the “culture” of the program.
I was involved with a program (not law enforcement), the nature of which involved some pretty serious safety considerations, involving chainsaws, etc. The organization was based on paramilitary type of structure, but with a difference. We had the supervisors the team leaders, plus the safety officers. The safety-officer had the responsibility to step in when somebody started doing something stupid. They weren’t supervisors, or forepersons, just trained to enforce safety standards.
Nobody ever questioned it. I have seen a safety officer, with two weeks in our unit, shut down a long-time civil servant supervisor. Not a problem.
Safety was always #1. It was part of the culture. I could see how that could work for law enforcement, as well, given the proper “culture.”
Safety is #1. Officer safety. At the expense of everyone who is not an officer.
Yeah. But I think you know what I was getting at…..
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That is a solid example of an existing organizational culture that already supports the idea of compliance, Jefferson’s. The point of the article (and sarcasmic’s cynicism about it), however, is that culture must be changed – and that’s really hard.
“The point of the article (and sarcasmic’s cynicism about it), however, is that culture must be changed – and that’s really hard.”
Absolutely.
That “culture” is a rational response to economic and social circumstances of the job, namely low pay, low respect, high crime rates, unionization, and political pressures. You need to change these parameters if you want to “change the culture.”
Doubt it’s about culture as this is fairly common in all lines of work. Few want to report on the malfeasance of others in a corporation.
Enron’s financial shenanigans were known by several in the company but nobody really wanted to do much about it until all of it started leaking out. Twitter employees didn’t publicly denounce the nonsense going on at Twitter. Teachers seldom report bad teachers.
This is just how people are. They want to be in their group.
Policing is different because of the diffused work locations. You’d have to have a separate safety officer roll wit every unit.
We live in a world where surveillance is almost ubiquitous. There are dash cams, body cams, doorbell cams, store front cams, and street cams. That doesn’t even count the bystander with a cell phone. If your fellow officers pull you back, say to take a break and asks you to let them handle the situation, they are likely saving your job and maybe your freedom. That should be seen as a positive and not a negative.
If your fellow officers pull you back, say to take a break and asks you to let them handle the situation, they are likely saving your job and maybe your freedom.
How do you come up with that? Cops routinely get away with terrible abuses of power while on camera. Unless the media runs with it the chances of someone getting fired are slim to none. The only job that will be lost will be that of the guy attempting to intervene. That guy will be blackballed, never to work in law enforcement again.
?: Do you even know any law enforcement officers?
No, don’t do that; it will only spoil your idealism.
You know who else benefited greatly from the “active standbyership” of others?
Joe Biden?
Cortez? He told his crew to standbyourship and burn it.
To this day, I can’t Sea Cortez doing that.
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Why Did Other Cops Fail To Stop the Lethal Assault on Tyre Nichols?
Because they didn’t want to end up dead on the ground next to Tyre.
Exactly.
I would not consider it a “reasonable action” to try to stop an adrenaline fueled guy with a gun who is on a rampage.
You can’t go shooting into a mob beating because of the innocents all around, you aren’t going say “Excuse me, would you mind not doing that?” and expect agreement.
Just stand back and call the union attorney.
Stopping “an adrenaline fueled guy with a gun who is on a rampage” is a cop’s job. If they’re not willing to do that job, why are we paying them?
Every city gets the cops it deserves, based on the work conditions it creates. Don’t blame the cops for your failures.
it is kind of a funny attempt by the “defend the cops no matter what” crowd. unfortunately, it has some resonance and is a part of the culture problem that cops have. whether it is watching another cop kill a man for no reason or standing around for an hour while a gunman shoots up a school, cops are demonstrating more and more often that they don’t give a fuck about serving the community. fewer cops these days seem driven by that sense of honor and service, beyond the sense of superiority they get from paying it lip service.
Whites are constantly being told to shut up about Black-on-Black violence. They’ll handle it “in house”, they say.
Perhaps the folks who wrote the original press releases issued by the cops in this case should be considered complicit in the coverup, too.
Before the video got out, the Police were singing a very different tune.
What do you expect from a beat reporter?
A hard-hitting story.
Which packs a punch.
Sometimes, though, I read those just for the kicks.
Finger-snapping like Maynard G. Krebs? (“WORK!?!?”). 🙂
Serpico said this crap will not change until the bad cop fears the good cop, not the other way around.
That can’t happen until there is effective management, which can’t happen as long as police are organized in unions.
“Government is the delusion that you can put good, honest people in charge of violent crooks.”
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That’s out of order!
Jumping To Conclusions
So, another Negro is killed by police, all Negroes, in a town run by Negroes. Immediately, the officers involved are fired and charged with murder.
Wait a moment! Had an autopsy been performed? No. Was the actual cause of death determined? No, Were the events leading up to his death determined? No.
Why are Euro-Caucasians so afraid of violence by Negroes? Whoopi Goldberg call for violence against “Whites”. Oh, that’s okay. What if a “white” celebrity called for violence against Negroes? Oh, not okay.
Hey, white man, You are being dispossessed by a bunch of minorities who covet your territory and resources, What are you doing? Nothing.
That’s a rather colored view of things.
A dark comment, to be sure.
And black is just the absence of color and 99.9% of the Natural Universe.
BioBehavioral_View, Mister Ku Klux Krud with a Thesaurus, obviously has a Fear of A Black Universe and needs “race” as a crunch to deal with his fear. 🙂
Hey! White is all colors unrefracted. 🙂
Stop it. That’s just woke bullshit from a different direction.
Indeed!
They rushed to criminal charges to keep street violence down. Most of the charges will be dropped later after more complete investigation.
Nichols probably had fentanyl in his system, so clearly the prolonged beating had nothing whatsoever to do with his death.
There’s a place on the video after the beating where one of the cops faces one of the cops with a body camera rolling and loudly says, “He ON something! He definitely ON something!”, obviously trying to set up that trope.
You are already dispossessed of your cognitive abilities if you think this is all about “race” and not psychopaths with guns, badges, and delusions of grandeur that they get from them, Dummy!
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Why? Because they don’t want to be set up like Frank Serpico got set up for not being a ‘team player’. It’s only rocket science if you are a libertarian.
Even if they don’t get Serpicoed, they’d get shunned by the rest of the police.
Then the rest of the police should be fired.
Why ?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2912004/Ex-Baltimore-cop-describes-hounded-department-fellow-officers-reported-police-brutality-case-told-snitch-career-done.html
That’s why.
I think choosing to be a cop appeals only to persons with very aggressive natures. Can’t imagine why anyone would want to do that job otherwise. “Here’s a badge and a gun; now go fuck with people.”
If ypur only history regarding cops is from if it bleeds it leads, sure. Try going to talk to some cops. Many of them are trying to do what’s right. But its okay to blame the many from the one with cops, especially if it fits a preferred narrative. Some cops are bad. Many aren’t. But that goes against narratives.
Not sure why this topic drives people to be absolutist. Especially given the environment of mostly peaceful protests causing billions of dollars in damages.
Cops could do a lot for their cause if they would actually hold the bad ones accountable.
Even if they wanted to, their unions wouldn’t let them.
Because that’s what unions do.
You’re right. Acab.
We need to take cops guns and have them act like servants like they do in the europe and uk.
If they need guns they can call their local stasi
Who is this “we”? If your city wants only unarmed patrols on the streets, it can do that.
How that addresses the problem of police beating people to death or tasering them or pepper spraying them is not clear to me, however.
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Every city gets the cops it deserves.
If it’s a high crime city that treats its cops like shit, it gets bad cops.
If it’s a low crime city that pays well and where people respect cops, they tend to get good cops.
Grew up in a cop family. Of course those days were different, at least as far as we knew.
Given the current environment I don’t know why anyone would want to do that job.
https://twitter.com/TonyVenutiShow/status/1619758493623537664?t=H-RJRBAdUz2UoBfLmyj0Xg&s=19
[Headline]
I don’t see a downside.
I’m just exhausted from sorting through all of the acronyms and when I saw the Sullum byline I figured we’d get another rant about orange man’s classified documents and the grave threat to our cherished democratic institutions that they present. But yeah. If a few good cops told the bad cops to calm the fuck down maybe we wouldn’t see this shit quite so often. But seriously Jacob, get back on your beat. I know the naysayers are claiming that you’ve made a complete ass of yourself with your tedious rants about Biden V. Trump and the classified documents kerfuffle. But your silence isn’t helping you to redeem yourself. Did you just discover that a president has the constitutional power to declassify? But like a senator or vice president don’t? Yeah that’s awkward. Is it the revelation that Delaware University has had all of Biden’s documents from his senate career in a “lockbox” for over a decade? Yeah that’s awkward too. But how could you possibly have known? It’s not like you’re an actual journalist or anything like that.
That’s gonna leave a mark.
Once knew a gal who really did leave a mark. (I don’t think the poor guy ever got over it.)
Catwoman with her whip on Batman? 😉
Yet Trump’s the one who’s going to go to prison.
Guess this is about cops after all.
Besides being annoying as fuck, some of these acronyms strike me as being quite ABLEist.
You know who else used Ableist acronyms like SA, SS, and NSDAP?
Why does the KC Chiefs defense never tackle the KC Chiefs offense? Why do basketball teams generally shoot the ball toward their own basket and not the other team’s?
What a stupid question in the title.
Hot take, if you want buy-in from a politically relevant proportion of the population, you have to emphasize that cops suck for white people too. I’ve never seen good policy get made or attitudes shift that was based only on helping a minority out of their woes, especially if it’s perceived as a cost to white hetero Christians. You may say the civil rights movement itself wasn’t offering much to whites, but that movement carries on, and the Republican party has been milking it for electorally fruitful grievances for half a century.
The racism stuff is all true, and racism is undoubtedly a core problem (what is policing in America without fear of black people?).
But none of us has a good time if we have a run-in. American prisons are an abomination for all of us, the constitution doesn’t apply on the streets, and cops are selected from a pool of psychopaths and allowed to be unaccountable, because that’s what they think we want, and we do, until we’re they’re victims.
You forgot a word that changes everything.
(what is policing in America without justified fear of black people?).
What are you afraid of?
You’re both wrong. Police are needed because most people don’t have CSI Labs in their bunkers or Ford F-150s.
If you and Tony want to make this about “race,” then meet BioBehavioral_View at his Klavern meeting for a reading from his copy of The Kloran (actual term for the KKK Bible.)
Fret not, Tony. The Klan now dresses in all colors of the Rainbow. Maybe you can consult them with fashion pointers for their White Pride Parade.
🙂
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