On January 7, 2023, a man named Tyre Nichols was stopped and pulled over by five police officers in Memphis, Tennessee. What happened next was a brutal beating, with Nichols being beaten up by the five officers until he became unconscious. Three days later, Nichols died in a nearby hospital due to the severe injuries he suffered at their hands. He was only 29 years old. All five officers involved in the beating have since been fired and charged with various crimes related to the attack, and the unit they worked within has been disbanded.

Out of respect for Nichols, his family, and all others who knew him, I will not spend this entry directly discussing his untimely, brutal death any further. After all, many other outlets far more prominent than my own have said a lot more than I ever could. However, I have instead chosen to write about the institution of American policing as a whole, asking one cardinal question.

This question is to define the very problems with American policing. After all, there are many Americans who see nothing wrong with policing as an institution, even after decades of tragic and unjustifiable incidents. The Rodney King beating in 1992 first raised awareness as to how brutal American policing can get at its worst, and the killings of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd, among countless others, have further solidified many calls for reform. Whether these calls are for general reform, re-allocation of policing resources, or outright abolition/replacement, they are growing stronger every time particularly major stories break on this topic.  However, many Americans still don’t see police brutality as that pressing of an issue. And yet, America loses around, if not over, a thousand lives annually to police brutality, and a highly disproportionate amount of these victims are Black. This infuriating fact brings us to answer what the first problem facing American policing is, and that issue is that there’s quite a bit of racism embedded in the system. I’m not saying that every cop has malicious intent in doing what they do, but to say that there are systemic barriers to change in policing is greatly understating it.

The next major problem that is facing American policing is much simpler to explain: They are simply tasked with doing too much beyond their core duties. Sure, police in some form, whether as an institution or community initiative, will always be needed to react to criminal situations. But do we need police to respond to every mental health episode, or do we allocate some of that funding to different programs specialized in dealing with mental health issues in the first place? Do we need units in policing designed specifically to patrol lower-income communities, or do we need investment in programs and institutions that directly lift up and benefit those communities? There’s only so much money to go around for the local governments that manage policing, so why do they spend more and more of it on that as the cops’ duties unnecessarily expand? Supposedly, it protects and serves the masses in a city or town, but in effect, it keeps marginalized communities marginalized to prop up an unequal social order.

That, in turn, brings up the third and most significant problem I have with American policing. That problem is simply that it is a massive barrier to much needed social and legal reforms. For example, reforms within policing itself are often stopped by various forces, including everything from occupational unions to local officials cautious about the optics of reforming a seemingly effective institution. This is especially true when it comes to reallocating police funding to other local institutions, which can and often will be interpreted as being soft on crime in many circles. But then again, it’s not like raising police budgets constantly stops crime in its tracks. Just ask any critic of New York City Mayor Eric Adams about how that’s working.

Proving this point further is the existence of specialized units like the Memphis, TN’s now-dissolved SCORPION unit whose members killed Tyre Nichols in the first place. This unit specialized in auto theft as well as drugs and gang-related cases in designated hotspots within the city. Various other units like this exist in other cities, and they’re not a bad idea on paper. However, the power that comes with the badge can be abused easily, and it’s not like accountability for these abuses is all that frequent. Just saying, the firings of the officers that beat Tyre Nichols to death were the exception, and frankly the opposite of the norm. For that, I give Memphis credit, because they saw something went horribly wrong in their SCORPION unit and promptly listened to community cries to disband it. If only more cities had even this decent level of accountability for police units abusing their power, that would be highly beneficial.

In conclusion, there is a lot that most Americans could stand to learn about their policing system. When done properly, it is an integral part of a thriving community, and frankly, that can be the case in theory. However, in practice, a lot needs to be improved to reach that ideal of protecting and serving the American population in criminal matters. From blatant systemic inequalities to overextension of the officers’ responsibilities, and from overfunding departments to a near-lack of accountability for when brutality occurs, there is ample room for improvement. I just wish this improvement didn’t already come too late for untold thousands who should still be alive. It’s up to all of us to push for reform in situations like this, and while I don’t often pray, I will now. I pray that this is the final straw for the status quo, and that we as a nation finally see lasting reform and change in policing after this. It’s the only way to truly honor those that have lost their lives to police brutality.