The fires, violence and looting sparked by video of a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee on the neck of an unarmed black man who later died reveals that law enforcement has learned little since the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, experts say.
The fires, violence and looting sparked by video of a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee on the neck of an unarmed black man who later died show that law enforcement has learned little since the riots in Ferguson, Mo., experts say.
“It’s just like Ferguson didn’t happen; because we failed to learn the lessons that came out of understanding the root cause of mass protests in this country and how to handle mass protests in this country,” said Roy E. Alston, a former member of the Dallas Police Department in Texas.
Alston was part of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS) assessment team that wrote a 188-page report into the 2014 demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo. Those riots followed the shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown.
The report found a number of problems in the police response, including inconsistent leadership, failure to understand endemic problems in the community, withholding information that should have been made public and reliance on military-style equipment.
‘Police are handling very poorly’
“Here we find ourselves in 2020 with mass protests in Minneapolis based on an event that the police are handling very poorly,” Alston said.
There is a complete void in trust between the police and communities of colour, the former officer added.
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Charles Drago, a former police chief for Oviedo, Fla., is a police instructor and career police officer who specializes in police practices and use of force. He agreed that the lessons of Ferguson have been lost.
“Have we not learned anything from Ferguson? My answer is we have not,” Drago said. “We have very short memories, unfortunately. And in policing, I guess we’ve been famous for that.”
The streets of Minneapolis have been the scene of arson, looting and vandalism since the death of George Floyd, who had been arrested by police on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.
Floyd was on the ground face down and handcuffed while one officer held his knee on his neck for more than eight minutes, according to a criminal complaint. At one