| Next | Section menu | Main menu | Previous |

Police on the line

Jon Fasman: Washington correspondent, The Economist, NEW YORK

Change is necessary, but difficult

ON AUGUST 9TH 2014 Michael Brown, a young unarmed black man, was shot and killed
by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri. The circumstances of
Brown’s death remain disputed. Some claim he had his hands raised in surrender; Mr
Wilson said that Brown punched him, charged at him, tried to grab his gun and reached
towards his waistband, as if to pull out a gun of his own. Weeks of protests in Ferguson
followed. And although a Justice Department investigation cleared Mr Wilson, police
officers were all required to adopt body-worn cameras (bodycams).

On May 25th 2020 Derek Chauvin, a police officer in Minneapolis, knelt on the neck of
George Floyd—an unarmed, handcuffed black man—for nearly nine minutes,
asphyxiating him. The footage of Floyd’s death sparked weeks of protests, and shifted
national opinion on police reform. Protestors urged politicians to “defund the police”
and, though those calls have died down, some Democratic governors and legislators
have enacted policies to increase police oversight and transparency. The coming year
will determine how widespread change will be.