One big question deserves to be on every police officer’s mind when pulling a motorist over for a relatively minor offense: Is this stop really worth the violent confrontation or death that could follow? Even if cops aren’t asking that question, city governments are, and they increasingly are concluding that, no, it’s better to let the offender move on than risk yet another tragedy that undermines public trust in the police.
On April 4 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, an officer stopped a Black driver for having a license plate that didn’t match his car. The unarmed driver, Patrick Lyoya, made a series of horrendous decisions that escalated into confrontation. In video, the officer wrestles Lyoya to the ground and straddles his back. He then pulls his gun and shoots Lyoya in the back of the head. A license plate violation effectively yielded a death sentence.
There are scores of other horrific examples that resulted in the suspect’s death — which is not to suggest that the suspects weren’t at fault. Ideally, police training would be revamped so that officers’ first reaction in tense situations would not be to assume the worst if the suspect seems distrustful of police. Ideally, civilian interaction with police would be so common that trust between both sides would build rather than deteriorate to today’s levels, where some people, particularly Black young men, worry that they could die simply for asserting their rights or feeling they have to run to save their own lives.
