vox--2020-07-23--An FBI investigation shows Ohio’s abysmal energy law was fueled by corruption

Update , July 23 : On Thursday , the day after this article was first published , Ohio Gov .
Mike DeWine called for the repeal of HB 6 , the energy bill passed in 2019 now tied to a bribery scandal in the Ohio legislature .
On Tuesday , the news broke that the FBI had arrested Ohio Speaker of the House of Representatives Larry Householder , the architect of HB 6 , a law that passed in July 2019 .
That bill , widely recognized as the worst energy policy in the country , gutted Ohio ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out several coal and nuclear plants .
As I wrote in my book , Short Circuiting Policy , the law was a multibillion-dollar gift to FirstEnergy , a private electric utility that has resisted climate policy for decades .
It turns out it was a gift paid for with $ 61 million in bribes .
Spending a few million to get more than a billion dollars ?
Not a bad return on investment .
Unfortunately , this kind of corruption is not an aberration for the electric utility industry .
Across the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clean energy transition , and many are buying off politicians with campaign contributions to do it .
What ’ s more , the industry celebrates it — the Edison Electric Institute , the national private utility association , gave FirstEnergy an award for its work to pass HB 6 .
Corruption like this within the electric utility industry is a barrier to solving the climate crisis .
But the way forward is clear : Citizens must demand that politicians stop taking money from these fossil fuel companies and start holding them accountable .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ohio In March 2018 , FirstEnergy spun off its debt into FirstEnergy Solutions , a subsidiary that went through bankruptcy .
To deal with its financial problems , the company sought billions in subsidies from the Ohio legislature for its ailing coal and nuclear plants .
And it had a champion in Speaker Householder , who was there every step of the way , working diligently within the legislature to get FirstEnergy its money .
By July 2019 , the legislative session was over and FirstEnergy had not secured its bailout .
Householder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the chamber with little notice .
With narrow margins , he delivered the votes , and that same day Gov .
Mike DeWine signed the FirstEnergy bailout into law .
At the time , many wondered : Why the urgency , Mr. Speaker ?
Did you really have to call all the legislators back from their vacations to pass this coal bailout ?
It appears the FBI was wondering the same thing .
It now seems clear that Householder was working directly with FirstEnergy and its affiliated companies .
The utility funneled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Generation Now , which Householder , his political affiliates , and FirstEnergy lobbyists controlled .
Based on its tax status , it was supposed to be a “ social welfare ” organization , acting in the public interest .
Instead , it is alleged in the FBI affidavit that Generation Now engaged in a conspiracy to financially benefit the utility and its affiliated companies through this dirty energy bailout — and to line Householder ’ s and his associates ’ pockets while they were at it .
The dark money campaign funded political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support of HB 6 .
It also put lobbyists across the state on retainer , creating conflicts of interest to tie them up , so they could not work for the clean energy advocates who wanted to stop the bill .
The dirty details in the FBI affidavit The 82-page , 250 paragraph FBI affidavit — a collage of colorful text messages and political ads — is stunning in its simplicity : This is bribery .
The alleged participants in the scheme even used the term “ pay to play ” when describing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to , saying that the funding from FirstEnergy for their political aims was “ unlimited.
” Before the FBI arrests , many journalists and watchdog groups suspected that Householder was corrupt .
He was a controversial choice for speaker — his last time in the role , during the early 2000s , he found himself under federal investigation for money laundering .
Householder was only elected speaker last year after a contentious fight .
Somehow candidates supporting his leadership found themselves with well-funded campaigns .
We now know , according to the affidavit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to 21 candidates who pledged to support Householder ’ s rise to power .
All of these politicians supported Householder ’ s speakership , and only one voted against the bailout .
Per the FBI , Householder also benefited financially from the arrangement with FirstEnergy .
According to the affidavit , at least $ 300,000 was used to settle a lawsuit against him , more than $ 100,000 went toward his Florida vacation home , and another $ 97,000 went directly to his campaign expenses .
Householder also received personal favors from FirstEnergy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s inauguration on a corporate jet .
The corruption allegedly did not end when HB 6 became law .
When groups wanted to let the public decide whether to overturn this draconian policy through a petition for a ballot initiative , FirstEnergy wired $ 38 million in funds to Generation Now .
This money funded ads that falsely claimed the Chinese government would use your personal information if you signed the petition .
It also paid for bribery , harassment , and even physical assault of people collecting signatures .
It was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it worked .
Facing this well-funded opposition , the advocates failed to get enough signatures .
Ohio voters were never given a chance to overturn the bailout .
HB 6 remains law .
Given the investigation is ongoing , FirstEnergy and its affiliated companies are not yet named as defendants — they are referred to only as “ Company A ” in the affidavit .
It ’ s likely more charges will be coming .
In the six-month period leading up the bill ’ s passage , Householder had 30 phone calls with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The coming months will not be good ones for Mr. Jones .
We are only at the beginning of the end of this story .
As US Attorney for Ohio ’ s Southern District David M. DeVillers put it in Tuesday ’ s press conference , “ there are going to be a lot of busy FBI agents here in the Southern District of Ohio.
” The same day , FirstEnergy acknowledged that it had received subpoenas .
If I were a senior executive for FirstEnergy or its affiliated companies , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be arriving .
It ’ s not just a nuclear bailout — it ’ s a utility scheme to stop the clean energy transition While the FBI has largely framed the policy as a nuclear bailout , that is a narrow view of Ohio ’ s terrible energy law .
This bill also saved three large coal plants from closing .
It ’ s clear that FirstEnergy Solutions ( now called Energy Harbor ) used part of its nuclear bailout funds to save the Sammis coal plant that was scheduled to close .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the utility would never have to open up its books to legislators .
And the amounts the utility said it required to keep its nuclear plants open fluctuated continuously .
A few days after Gov .
DeWine signed the law , a FirstEnergy Solutions spokesperson said they would no longer have to close the Sammis coal plant .
This wasn ’ t surprising since the FirstEnergy Solutions CEO , John Judge , had previously said securing HB 6 ’ s passage would allow them to invest $ 40 million to $ 50 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It seems that through some creative accounting , part of the nuclear bailout ended up funding a coal plant .
No matter how you slice it , this law cost Ohioans billions of dollars The law also contained funding for several other coal plants that FirstEnergy Solutions has an ownership stake in — the so-called OVEC plants .
Based on bankruptcy filings , I estimate that the OVEC coal bailout was worth $ 1.7 billion just for Ohio ’ s two big utilities , including FirstEnergy Solutions .
If HB 6 remains law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spent bailing out these dirty coal plants than the state ’ s ailing nuclear fleet .
The law also gutted the state ’ s clean energy laws , which had been in place for more than a decade .
The energy efficiency policy alone had saved ratepayers over $ 5 billion , yet the legislature rolled it back .
The popular renewable energy goals , which Gov .
John Kasich had already undermined , were eliminated in HB 6 .
No matter how you slice it , this law cost Ohioans billions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ utilities we ’ re talking about , if folks want to stop funding FirstEnergy ’ s corrupt activities by simply paying the monthly electricity bills , they can ’ t .
There is no choice .
The Ohio case , while extreme , is not an aberration .
Corrupt electric utilities using ratepayer funds to roll back climate policy is not limited to Ohio .
As I described in Short Circuiting Policy , it is an unfortunately common pattern .
Last week , the Illinois utility ComEd — whose parent company is Exelon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agreed to pay a $ 200 million fine .
It ’ s very likely that another speaker , Michael Madigan , is involved in that case — the Illinois governor has already called on him to resign .
In Arizona , which I examine in my book , the FBI similarly launched an investigation into an elected official over its ties to a private electric utility , Arizona Public Service .
As we now know , Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Gary Pierce met privately with then-Arizona Public Service CEO Don Brandt numerous times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 700,000 through a dark money group to Pierce ’ s son ’ s failed bid for secretary of state .
Arizona Public Service also secretly spent tens of millions on campaigns to elect its own regulators in order to secure favorable decisions , including clean energy rollbacks and generous rate hikes .
In 2018 alone , it spent upward of $ 40 million to successfully block a clean energy ballot initiative .
The new CEO , Jeff Guldner , played a key role in directing the utility ’ s dark political spending .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategy .
Throughout the 1990s , electric utilities including FirstEnergy and Arizona Public Service were key funders of climate denial .
Virginia provides one hopeful counterexample , which shows us one solution to the problem of corrupt electric utilities .
In 2017 , grassroots activists started a campaign to push politicians to pledge not to accept money from electric utilities , most prominently Dominion .
This electric utility has an atrocious track record of ripping off customers , polluting the climate , and perpetuating environmental racism .
By the 2019 election , Virginia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 50 seats .
Shortly thereafter , the legislature passed a landmark law requiring 100 percent clean electricity .
Once the Virginia politicians stopped taking money from the electric utility , they could finally pass climate legislation .
The dogged folks at the Energy and Policy Institute — a utility watchdog that has turned up real-time facts in most of these cases — paint a clear picture for those paying attention : Most electric utilities are resisting the clean energy transition and using corruption to do it .
We must change this pattern .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from electric utilities and the fossil fuel industry .
Instead , they should change the law , disallowing ratepayer funds to be used for political work .
Now that it ’ s clear that Ohio ’ s draconian energy policy was passed based on bribery and corruption , legislators should act immediately to repeal the law .
While Gov .
Mike DeWine has called for Householder ’ s resignation , he has not called for the repeal of the corrupt coal bailout .
That ’ s perhaps not surprising , since DeWine has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s staff even made plans to fly legislators on a taxpayer-funded plane to make Householder ’ s last-minute vote for the bailout .
The day after DeWine signed the law , he attended a Trump fundraiser hosted by coal baron Bob Murray .
He seems quite cozy with the fossil fuel industry .
If DeWine is not in bed with FirstEnergy , then he should be calling for HB 6 to be reversed immediately .
This law was passed by corrupt politicians .
The effort to overturn it by popular will was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DeWine can ’ t see this invalidates Ohio ’ s energy law , then perhaps he has a bigger problem .
We can not allow utility corruption to continue to stall clean energy progress .
This FBI affidavit is a wake-up call to all politicians : Stop taking electric utilities ’ money .
Leah C. Stokes is an assistant professor at the University of California Santa Barbara .
Her book , Short Circuiting Policy , examines the case of Ohio ’ s coal bailout and other examples of utility corruption .
Find her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ An earlier version of this story misstated the first name of Michael Madigan .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Update, July 23: On Thursday, the day after this article was first published, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called for the repeal of HB 6, the energy bill passed in 2019 now tied to a bribery scandal in the Ohio legislature.
On Tuesday, the news broke that the FBI had arrested Ohio Speaker of the House of Representatives Larry Householder, the architect of HB 6, a law that passed in July 2019. That bill, widely recognized as the worst energy policy in the country, gutted Ohio’s renewables and energy efficiency laws while bailing out several coal and nuclear plants.
As I wrote in my book, Short Circuiting Policy, the law was a multibillion-dollar gift to FirstEnergy, a private electric utility that has resisted climate policy for decades. It turns out it was a gift paid for with $61 million in bribes.
Spending a few million to get more than a billion dollars? Not a bad return on investment.
Unfortunately, this kind of corruption is not an aberration for the electric utility industry. Across the country, most private utilities are resisting the clean energy transition, and many are buying off politicians with campaign contributions to do it. What’s more, the industry celebrates it — the Edison Electric Institute, the national private utility association, gave FirstEnergy an award for its work to pass HB 6.
Corruption like this within the electric utility industry is a barrier to solving the climate crisis. But the way forward is clear: Citizens must demand that politicians stop taking money from these fossil fuel companies and start holding them accountable.
Something is rotten in the state of Ohio
In March 2018, FirstEnergy spun off its debt into FirstEnergy Solutions, a subsidiary that went through bankruptcy. To deal with its financial problems, the company sought billions in subsidies from the Ohio legislature for its ailing coal and nuclear plants. And it had a champion in Speaker Householder, who was there every step of the way, working diligently within the legislature to get FirstEnergy its money.
By July 2019, the legislative session was over and FirstEnergy had not secured its bailout. Householder kept working, calling his colleagues back to the chamber with little notice. With narrow margins, he delivered the votes, and that same day Gov. Mike DeWine signed the FirstEnergy bailout into law.
At the time, many wondered: Why the urgency, Mr. Speaker? Did you really have to call all the legislators back from their vacations to pass this coal bailout? It appears the FBI was wondering the same thing.
It now seems clear that Householder was working directly with FirstEnergy and its affiliated companies. The utility funneled $61 million through an organization called Generation Now, which Householder, his political affiliates, and FirstEnergy lobbyists controlled. Based on its tax status, it was supposed to be a “social welfare” organization, acting in the public interest.
Instead, it is alleged in the FBI affidavit that Generation Now engaged in a conspiracy to financially benefit the utility and its affiliated companies through this dirty energy bailout — and to line Householder’s and his associates’ pockets while they were at it.
The dark money campaign funded political ads, mailers, and lobbying in support of HB 6.
It also put lobbyists across the state on retainer, creating conflicts of interest to tie them up, so they could not work for the clean energy advocates who wanted to stop the bill.
The dirty details in the FBI affidavit
The 82-page, 250 paragraph FBI affidavit — a collage of colorful text messages and political ads — is stunning in its simplicity: This is bribery.
The alleged participants in the scheme even used the term “pay to play” when describing what Householder and his associates were up to, saying that the funding from FirstEnergy for their political aims was “unlimited.”
Before the FBI arrests, many journalists and watchdog groups suspected that Householder was corrupt. He was a controversial choice for speaker — his last time in the role, during the early 2000s, he found himself under federal investigation for money laundering. Householder was only elected speaker last year after a contentious fight. Somehow candidates supporting his leadership found themselves with well-funded campaigns.
We now know, according to the affidavit, that FirstEnergy funneled millions of dollars to 21 candidates who pledged to support Householder’s rise to power. All of these politicians supported Householder’s speakership, and only one voted against the bailout.
Per the FBI, Householder also benefited financially from the arrangement with FirstEnergy. According to the affidavit, at least $300,000 was used to settle a lawsuit against him, more than $100,000 went toward his Florida vacation home, and another $97,000 went directly to his campaign expenses. Householder also received personal favors from FirstEnergy, like a flight to President Trump’s inauguration on a corporate jet.
The corruption allegedly did not end when HB 6 became law. When groups wanted to let the public decide whether to overturn this draconian policy through a petition for a ballot initiative, FirstEnergy wired $38 million in funds to Generation Now. This money funded ads that falsely claimed the Chinese government would use your personal information if you signed the petition. It also paid for bribery, harassment, and even physical assault of people collecting signatures.
It was an anti-democratic dark money campaign, and it worked. Facing this well-funded opposition, the advocates failed to get enough signatures. Ohio voters were never given a chance to overturn the bailout. HB 6 remains law.
Given the investigation is ongoing, FirstEnergy and its affiliated companies are not yet named as defendants — they are referred to only as “Company A” in the affidavit. It’s likely more charges will be coming. In the six-month period leading up the bill’s passage, Householder had 30 phone calls with FirstEnergy’s CEO, Chuck Jones. The coming months will not be good ones for Mr. Jones.
We are only at the beginning of the end of this story. As US Attorney for Ohio’s Southern District David M. DeVillers put it in Tuesday’s press conference, “there are going to be a lot of busy FBI agents here in the Southern District of Ohio.” The same day, FirstEnergy acknowledged that it had received subpoenas. If I were a senior executive for FirstEnergy or its affiliated companies, I would be wondering when my subpoena would be arriving.
It’s not just a nuclear bailout — it’s a utility scheme to stop the clean energy transition
While the FBI has largely framed the policy as a nuclear bailout, that is a narrow view of Ohio’s terrible energy law. This bill also saved three large coal plants from closing.
It’s clear that FirstEnergy Solutions (now called Energy Harbor) used part of its nuclear bailout funds to save the Sammis coal plant that was scheduled to close. The law was written explicitly so that the utility would never have to open up its books to legislators. And the amounts the utility said it required to keep its nuclear plants open fluctuated continuously.
A few days after Gov. DeWine signed the law, a FirstEnergy Solutions spokesperson said they would no longer have to close the Sammis coal plant. This wasn’t surprising since the FirstEnergy Solutions CEO, John Judge, had previously said securing HB 6’s passage would allow them to invest $40 million to $50 million to keep this coal plant open. It seems that through some creative accounting, part of the nuclear bailout ended up funding a coal plant.
No matter how you slice it, this law cost Ohioans billions of dollars
The law also contained funding for several other coal plants that FirstEnergy Solutions has an ownership stake in — the so-called OVEC plants. Based on bankruptcy filings, I estimate that the OVEC coal bailout was worth $1.7 billion just for Ohio’s two big utilities, including FirstEnergy Solutions.
If HB 6 remains law, a lot more money will be spent bailing out these dirty coal plants than the state’s ailing nuclear fleet.
The law also gutted the state’s clean energy laws, which had been in place for more than a decade. The energy efficiency policy alone had saved ratepayers over $5 billion, yet the legislature rolled it back. The popular renewable energy goals, which Gov. John Kasich had already undermined, were eliminated in HB 6.
No matter how you slice it, this law cost Ohioans billions of dollars. And since these are monopoly utilities we’re talking about, if folks want to stop funding FirstEnergy’s corrupt activities by simply paying the monthly electricity bills, they can’t. There is no choice.
A pattern of utility corruption
The Ohio case, while extreme, is not an aberration. Corrupt electric utilities using ratepayer funds to roll back climate policy is not limited to Ohio. As I described in Short Circuiting Policy, it is an unfortunately common pattern.
Last week, the Illinois utility ComEd — whose parent company is Exelon — admitted to engaging in bribery and agreed to pay a $200 million fine. It’s very likely that another speaker, Michael Madigan, is involved in that case — the Illinois governor has already called on him to resign.
In Arizona, which I examine in my book, the FBI similarly launched an investigation into an elected official over its ties to a private electric utility, Arizona Public Service. As we now know, Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Gary Pierce met privately with then-Arizona Public Service CEO Don Brandt numerous times. The utility also funneled over $700,000 through a dark money group to Pierce’s son’s failed bid for secretary of state.
Arizona Public Service also secretly spent tens of millions on campaigns to elect its own regulators in order to secure favorable decisions, including clean energy rollbacks and generous rate hikes. In 2018 alone, it spent upward of $40 million to successfully block a clean energy ballot initiative. The new CEO, Jeff Guldner, played a key role in directing the utility’s dark political spending.
And this isn’t a new strategy. Throughout the 1990s, electric utilities including FirstEnergy and Arizona Public Service were key funders of climate denial.
Virginia provides one hopeful counterexample, which shows us one solution to the problem of corrupt electric utilities. In 2017, grassroots activists started a campaign to push politicians to pledge not to accept money from electric utilities, most prominently Dominion. This electric utility has an atrocious track record of ripping off customers, polluting the climate, and perpetuating environmental racism.
By the 2019 election, Virginia state candidates refusing Dominion money won nearly 50 seats. Shortly thereafter, the legislature passed a landmark law requiring 100 percent clean electricity. Once the Virginia politicians stopped taking money from the electric utility, they could finally pass climate legislation.
The dogged folks at the Energy and Policy Institute — a utility watchdog that has turned up real-time facts in most of these cases — paint a clear picture for those paying attention: Most electric utilities are resisting the clean energy transition and using corruption to do it.
We must change this pattern. Politicians must pledge to stop taking money from electric utilities and the fossil fuel industry. Instead, they should change the law, disallowing ratepayer funds to be used for political work.
It’s time to repeal Ohio’s corrupt law
Now that it’s clear that Ohio’s draconian energy policy was passed based on bribery and corruption, legislators should act immediately to repeal the law.
While Gov. Mike DeWine has called for Householder’s resignation, he has not called for the repeal of the corrupt coal bailout. That’s perhaps not surprising, since DeWine has himself taken money from FirstEnergy. DeWine’s staff even made plans to fly legislators on a taxpayer-funded plane to make Householder’s last-minute vote for the bailout. The day after DeWine signed the law, he attended a Trump fundraiser hosted by coal baron Bob Murray. He seems quite cozy with the fossil fuel industry.
If DeWine is not in bed with FirstEnergy, then he should be calling for HB 6 to be reversed immediately. This law was passed by corrupt politicians. The effort to overturn it by popular will was thwarted by a corrupt utility. If DeWine can’t see this invalidates Ohio’s energy law, then perhaps he has a bigger problem.
We cannot allow utility corruption to continue to stall clean energy progress. This FBI affidavit is a wake-up call to all politicians: Stop taking electric utilities’ money.
Leah C. Stokes is an assistant professor at the University of California Santa Barbara. Her book, Short Circuiting Policy, examines the case of Ohio’s coal bailout and other examples of utility corruption. Find her on Twitter @leahstokes.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the first name of Michael Madigan.


vox--2020-07-23--More people in the US are hospitalized with Covid-19 than ever before

More Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 than at any prior point in the pandemic , a grim milestone that indicates the coronavirus pandemic is not slowing down in the US .
On July 22 , 59,628 people across the United States were in the hospital after testing positive for the novel coronavirus , according to the Covid Tracking Project ; that total surpassed the previous daily high of 59,539 on April 15 , when the New York City area was the epicenter of the US outbreak .
Covid-19 has migrated across the country to many more regions in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were overwhelmingly concentrated in the Northeast in the spring , but now more than half of hospitalized Covid-19 patients ( 35,624 ) are in the South .
The West has also seen the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients double since April , while the Northeast now accounts for fewer than 5,000 of the nearly 60,000 current hospitalizations .
“ The hospitalization number is the best indicator of where we are , ” Eric Topol , a professor of molecular medicine and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute , told Vox .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new heights in the pandemic that we haven ’ t seen before .
Not that what we saw before wasn ’ t horrifying enough.
” The growth has been driven by accelerating spread in Arizona , California , Florida , Georgia , and Texas in particular .
On April 15 , when New York City hospitals were nearly being overrun with Covid-19 patients , Texas had about 1,500 patients hospitalized with the disease .
Today , more than 10,000 Texans are hospitalized with Covid-19 .
Some areas are reaching a woeful tipping point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scrambling to find beds in other facilities for Covid-19 patients .
Miami-Dade County reported this week that the number of patients in need of ICU care had exceeded the number of available ICU beds .
More than 50 hospitals across the state say they have no ICU beds available .
Texas Medical Center in Houston has already filled up its usual non-pandemic ICU unit and been forced to rely on its surge capacity plans to handle the patient load .
Earlier this month , 10 out of the 12 hospitals in the Rio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full and needed to start transferring patients to hospitals elsewhere in the state .
This was , unfortunately , to be expected .
Nearly all of the states currently experiencing an increase in new cases and hospitalizations started relaxing their social distancing restrictions in May and June before meeting the government ’ s reopening guidelines of having sufficiently reduced the virus ’ s spread and adequately ramped up their testing and tracing capabilities .
New cases began rising and hospitalizations followed a few weeks after that .
Now deaths are ticking up again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ begun in early May .
Four million Americans have had confirmed cases of Covid-19 .
More than 143,000 of them have died .
With hospitalizations reaching the new peak and several states still reporting thousands of new cases a day , experts say we are in for a difficult August and fall .
“ We ’ ve still got 91 to 92 percent of people who are still vulnerable , who have not been infected , ” said Topol .
“ And so that just shows how many more people can be hurt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so sick , but many will.
” The new hospitalization record , and the untenable pressure it ’ s putting on the health care system , is also a reminder of how critical it is for states to implement and enforce measures like mandatory face masks , and for the federal government to solve testing and contact tracing problems .
“ It should be an all-points bulletin to really bear down on this because otherwise there ’ s no limit on where this might go , ” said Topol .
Hospitals are running @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beds for Covid-19 patients Hospitals in hot spots across the country are expanding and even maxing out their staff , equipment , and beds , with doctors warning that the worst-case scenario of hospital resources being overwhelmed is on the horizon if their states don ’ t get better control of the coronavirus .
“ With Covid , a lot of times people who aren ’ t sick enough yet get pushed to the back , and then they can become really , really sick unfortunately because we were focusing our efforts on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of death , ” an emergency room doctor at the Banner Health system in the Phoenix metro area , who asked to go unnamed fearing retaliation from his employer , told Vox recently .
Other doctors in Arizona , where 85 percent of hospital beds statewide were in use as of Thursday , have said the scarcity of resources means they ’ ll soon be rationing medical care , as doctors in Italy were forced to do .
“ The fear is we are going to have to start sharing ventilators , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ start saying , ‘ You get a vent , you don ’ t. ’ I ’ d be really surprised if in a couple weeks we didn ’ t have to do that , ” says Murtaza Akhter , an emergency medicine physician at Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix .
The rampant transmission of the virus in Arizona and resulting pressure on hospitals are particularly infuriating to some emergency room and ICU staff , who say they ’ re having to make decisions on the fly that they ’ re uncomfortable making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with oxygen tanks because we don ’ t have the resources for them ?
This is something I ’ ve never done in my life before , ” says Akhter .
“ This is crazy .
And this is gon na be even worse in a couple of weeks .
So far we ’ re trying to hold steady , but how long will that last ?
” The psychological toll , he says , is serious too .
“ To come off a shift and be like , ‘ I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dangerous place to be in , ” he says .
“ I don ’ t want to feel that way .
And that ’ s because despite the horrible numbers , despite the fact I ’ m still getting the Covid cases [ in the ER ] , despite what we ’ ve been saying to the media from the front line , I drive home from work and I literally see lots of people congregating together closely and in the grocery store not wearing masks.
” Texas hospitals say they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equipment than they were in March and April , but that could change as the crisis gets worse .
Roberta Schwartz , executive vice president at Houston Methodist , says her facilities have sometimes had trouble getting gowns and disinfectant wipes .
John Henderson , who represents a trade association for rural hospitals in the state , says he recently “ got a couple of SOS calls.
” Staffing is a universal problem in hot spots .
Houston Methodist has already brought in out-of-state nurses and asked its administrative staff with nursing certifications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nurses are also being asked to work longer and overnight shifts .
Rural hospitals in Texas aren ’ t running out of beds yet , but they are running into a staffing shortage .
These facilities might typically have five patients in a given unit , and the hospitals have staffed them accordingly .
But now there might be as many as 20 patients .
“ You ’ re working every nurse as much as you can work them and still not meeting the need , ” Henderson says .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from .
The state has already sent about 2,300 volunteers to the Rio Grande Valley , one of the hardest-hit areas in the state .
“ Other areas are requesting that workforce support , ” Henderson says .
“ But there ’ s not much more in terms of resources to be sent.
” Another concern is ventilators .
Rural hospitals in Texas would ordinarily transfer their patients in serious condition , the kind who might be on a ventilator for days , to a larger hospital in the city .
But because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patients , there is nowhere for the rural hospitals to send their patients .
Instead , they are forced to keep those patients , causing their beds to fill up even more quickly .
And while the current coronavirus patients are younger than those seen in the spring , Henderson says his hospitals don ’ t have enough of the nasal oxygen hookups that are used to help those patients breathe on their own and prevent them from being put on a ventilator .
“ They ’ ve shown to be effective , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them , ” he says .
El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County , one of California ’ s biggest Covid-19 hot spots right now , has already brushed up against its worst-case scenario .
The hospital recently saw its available ventilators dwindle to one .
Adolphe Edward , the hospital ’ s CEO , convened an impromptu committee to evaluate the patients currently on ventilators so they could prioritize if another patient who needed one came through their door .
They checked the patients ’ lung capacity and considered whether they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them off the ventilator if the need arose .
Luckily , Edward figured out a workaround .
He called another nearby hospital and asked if they had any ventilators available .
They had two , which they shipped over to El Centro .
For now , the machines are still there , though Edward says he and the other hospital have stayed in constant contact in case the ventilators need to be transferred again .
Daily deaths are creeping up again but are still far below the earlier peak While daily Covid-19 hospitalizations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , another key metric , daily deaths , 1,126 , was still less than half of its May 7 peak of 2,742 , according to the Covid Tracking Project .
Yet the trend is ominous , since daily deaths were dropping steadily by mid-June and then began rising again in early July .
On Thursday , Florida reported a new record single-day death toll of 173 .
Texas hit its own respective record on Wednesday , with 193 deaths .
Since many Covid-19 fatalities to date have occurred among people who were hospitalized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they expect deaths will continue to rise in the coming days and weeks .
Yet it ’ s possible , they say , that fewer people who are hospitalized will end up dying in this summer stage of the pandemic as compared to the spring .
“ Hospitalizations undoubtedly are going to be associated with more deaths or chronic illnesses , but I ’ m hoping that the deaths are not as steep as they were back in March and April , ” said Topol .
“ And maybe that ’ s because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sick and they will pull through .
Maybe it ’ s also because the treatments are getting better , not just the drugs but just the whole approach.
” Overall , he says , “ The hope is that the relationship between hospitalizations and fatalities won ’ t be as tight as it was , but we have to watch this closely because that ’ s the optimistic view.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making @ @ @ @ @ @

More Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 than at almost any other point in the pandemic, a grim indicator that the coronavirus pandemic is not slowing down in the US.
On July 23, 59,846 people across the United States were in the hospital after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, according to data reported by the Covid Tracking Project, just below the peak of 59,940 reached on April 15, when the New York City area was the epicenter of the US outbreak. (As the Covid Tracking Project notes, the national and state hospital data are erratic and incomplete at the moment, and reported totals may continue to shift.)
What’s clear is that Covid-19 has migrated across the country to many more regions in the three months since. In the spring, hospitalizations were overwhelmingly concentrated in the Northeast, but now more than half of hospitalized Covid-19 patients are in the South. The West has also seen the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients double since April, while the Northeast now accounts for fewer than 5,000 of the nearly 60,000 current hospitalizations.
The current total is likely an undercount. Two states, Kansas and Hawaii, do not report current hospitalization data, and some states may temporarily not be reporting full hospitalization numbers because of a recent change in the reporting system ordered by the Trump administration.
“The hospitalization number is the best indicator of where we are,” Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told Vox. “We’re going to go to new heights in the pandemic that we haven’t seen before. Not that what we saw before wasn’t horrifying enough.”
The growth has been driven by accelerating spread in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas in particular. On April 15, when New York City hospitals were nearly being overrun with Covid-19 patients, Texas had about 1,500 patients hospitalized with the disease. Today, more than 10,000 Texans are hospitalized with Covid-19.
Some areas are reaching a woeful tipping point of hospitals stretched to maximum capacity, scrambling to find beds in other facilities for Covid-19 patients. Miami-Dade County reported this week that the number of patients in need of ICU care had exceeded the number of available ICU beds. More than 50 hospitals across the state say they have no ICU beds available.
Texas Medical Center in Houston has already filled up its usual non-pandemic ICU unit and been forced to rely on its surge capacity plans to handle the patient load. Earlier this month, 10 out of the 12 hospitals in the Rio Grande Valley reported that they were completely full and needed to start transferring patients to hospitals elsewhere in the state.
Related Just 3 states meet these basic criteria to reopen and stay safe
This was, unfortunately, to be expected. Nearly all of the states currently experiencing an increase in new cases and hospitalizations started relaxing their social distancing restrictions in May and June before meeting the government’s reopening guidelines of having sufficiently reduced the virus’s spread and adequately ramped up their testing and tracing capabilities. New cases began rising and hospitalizations followed a few weeks after that. Now deaths are ticking up again, reversing a steady decline that had begun in early May.
Four million Americans have had confirmed cases of Covid-19. More than 143,000 of them have died. With hospitalizations surging and several states still reporting thousands of new cases a day, experts say we are in for a difficult August and fall.
“We’ve still got 91 to 92 percent of people who are still vulnerable, who have not been infected,” said Topol. “And so that just shows how many more people can be hurt. Obviously many won’t get so sick, but many will.”
The new hospitalizations, and the untenable pressure they’re putting on the health care system, are also a reminder of how critical it is for states to implement and enforce measures like mandatory face masks, and for the federal government to solve testing and contact tracing problems. “It should be an all-points bulletin to really bear down on this because otherwise there’s no limit on where this might go,” said Topol.
Hospitals are running out of staff, supplies, and beds for Covid-19 patients
Hospitals in hot spots across the country are expanding and even maxing out their staff, equipment, and beds, with doctors warning that the worst-case scenario of hospital resources being overwhelmed is on the horizon if their states don’t get better control of the coronavirus.
“With Covid, a lot of times people who aren’t sick enough yet get pushed to the back, and then they can become really, really sick unfortunately because we were focusing our efforts on the people who are on the brink of death,” an emergency room doctor at the Banner Health system in the Phoenix metro area, who asked to go unnamed fearing retaliation from his employer, told Vox recently.
Other doctors in Arizona, where 85 percent of hospital beds statewide were in use as of Thursday, have said the scarcity of resources means they’ll soon be rationing medical care, as doctors in Italy were forced to do.
“The fear is we are going to have to start sharing ventilators, or we’re gonna have to start saying, ‘You get a vent, you don’t.’ I’d be really surprised if in a couple weeks we didn’t have to do that,” says Murtaza Akhter, an emergency medicine physician at Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix.
The rampant transmission of the virus in Arizona and resulting pressure on hospitals are particularly infuriating to some emergency room and ICU staff, who say they’re having to make decisions on the fly that they’re uncomfortable making.
“Sending people with Covid home with oxygen tanks because we don’t have the resources for them? This is something I’ve never done in my life before,” says Akhter. “This is crazy. And this is gonna be even worse in a couple of weeks. So far we’re trying to hold steady, but how long will that last?”
The psychological toll, he says, is serious too.
“To come off a shift and be like, ‘I’m losing hope’ — that’s a dangerous place to be in,” he says. “I don’t want to feel that way. And that’s because despite the horrible numbers, despite the fact I’m still getting the Covid cases [in the ER], despite what we’ve been saying to the media from the front line, I drive home from work and I literally see lots of people congregating together closely and in the grocery store not wearing masks.”
Texas hospitals say they are in better shape now with personal protective equipment than they were in March and April, but that could change as the crisis gets worse. Roberta Schwartz, executive vice president at Houston Methodist, says her facilities have sometimes had trouble getting gowns and disinfectant wipes. John Henderson, who represents a trade association for rural hospitals in the state, says he recently “got a couple of SOS calls.”
Staffing is a universal problem in hot spots. Houston Methodist has already brought in out-of-state nurses and asked its administrative staff with nursing certifications to start doing medical work again. Nurses are also being asked to work longer and overnight shifts.
Rural hospitals in Texas aren’t running out of beds yet, but they are running into a staffing shortage. These facilities might typically have five patients in a given unit, and the hospitals have staffed them accordingly. But now there might be as many as 20 patients.
“You’re working every nurse as much as you can work them and still not meeting the need,” Henderson says.
It’s not clear where more staff could come from. The state has already sent about 2,300 volunteers to the Rio Grande Valley, one of the hardest-hit areas in the state.
“Other areas are requesting that workforce support,” Henderson says. “But there’s not much more in terms of resources to be sent.”
Another concern is ventilators. Rural hospitals in Texas would ordinarily transfer their patients in serious condition, the kind who might be on a ventilator for days, to a larger hospital in the city. But because urban hospitals are already overrun with Covid-19 patients, there is nowhere for the rural hospitals to send their patients. Instead, they are forced to keep those patients, causing their beds to fill up even more quickly.
And while the current coronavirus patients are younger than those seen in the spring, Henderson says his hospitals don’t have enough of the nasal oxygen hookups that are used to help those patients breathe on their own and prevent them from being put on a ventilator.
“They’ve shown to be effective, but everybody’s trying to get them,” he says.
El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County, one of California’s biggest Covid-19 hot spots right now, has already brushed up against its worst-case scenario. The hospital recently saw its available ventilators dwindle to one.
Adolphe Edward, the hospital’s CEO, convened an impromptu committee to evaluate the patients currently on ventilators so they could prioritize if another patient who needed one came through their door. They checked the patients’ lung capacity and considered whether they could risk taking one or two of them off the ventilator if the need arose.
Luckily, Edward figured out a workaround. He called another nearby hospital and asked if they had any ventilators available. They had two, which they shipped over to El Centro. For now, the machines are still there, though Edward says he and the other hospital have stayed in constant contact in case the ventilators need to be transferred again.
Daily deaths are creeping up again but are still far below the earlier peak
While daily Covid-19 hospitalizations are surging, another key metric, daily deaths, was 1,039 on July 23, still less than half of its May 7 peak of 2,742, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Yet the trend is ominous, since daily deaths were dropping steadily by mid-June and then began rising again in early July.
On Thursday, Florida reported a new record single-day death toll of 173. Texas hit its own respective record on Wednesday, with 193 deaths.
Since many Covid-19 fatalities to date have occurred among people who were hospitalized for weeks before succumbing, experts say they expect deaths will continue to rise in the coming days and weeks. Yet it’s possible, they say, that fewer people who are hospitalized will end up dying in this summer stage of the pandemic as compared to the spring.
“Hospitalizations undoubtedly are going to be associated with more deaths or chronic illnesses, but I’m hoping that the deaths are not as steep as they were back in March and April,” said Topol. “And maybe that’s because they are more young people that are sick and they will pull through. Maybe it’s also because the treatments are getting better, not just the drugs but just the whole approach.”
Overall, he says, “The hope is that the relationship between hospitalizations and fatalities won’t be as tight as it was, but we have to watch this closely because that’s the optimistic view.”
Update, July 24: This article and its headline previously stated that hospitalizations had surpassed a peak reached in April. They have been updated to reflect irregularity in the hospitalization data.


vox--2020-07-23--Trump’s deployment of federal agents in Portland is exactly how not to police protests

President Donald Trump is upset that anti-racism and anti-police brutality protesters remain on the streets of America ’ s cities .
He blames local leaders , mainly Democrats , for not doing enough to quell the unrest , which he typically portrays as far more violent than it really is .
Local and state officials should “ dominate ” violent protesters , he says , by using overwhelming force to deter anyone from countering law enforcement again .
“ You have to dominate or you ’ ll look like a bunch of jerks , you have to arrest and try @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a June phone call .
“ You don ’ t have to be too careful.
” Trump has put his theory into practice in Portland , Oregon , where he sent federal agents in early July nominally to protect federal property in the city , but really to put down demonstrations that have lasted for several weeks .
Officials from US Border Patrol and other federal agencies , most of whom are not well-trained for handling mass demonstrations , have shot protesters in the head with “ less lethal ” munitions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far from federal property after stalking them in unmarked vehicles .
The problem for Trump , though , is that the seductive logic of quelling demonstrations using immense force has proven faulty .
More of Portland ’ s residents are on the streets now than before federal agents arrived , and violent incidents have ticked upward , not downward .
Despite those results , the Trump administration shows no signs of changing course in Portland , and may even export the strategy to other major American cities like Chicago .
When reporting on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this week , I interviewed Arizona State University ’ s Edward Maguire .
He co-authored a well-regarded guidebook on how police should handle protests , based on research from past events in the US and around the world .
What he told me then was that the incidents in Portland weren ’ t a surprise — in fact , they were likely to happen precisely because Trump ’ s idea of indiscriminately employing violence to quash protests is backward .
I called Maguire two days later to dig deeper into why , exactly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turns out police actually need to connect with demonstrators , letting them know they are there to protect their First Amendment rights and keep them safe .
This task should be left to local authorities , not federal ones , since they should already have some relationships with the community .
But if federal agents do come in , they shouldn ’ t aim to exacerbate the situation .
“ You need to win hearts and minds , ” Maguire urges authorities .
Our conversation , edited for length and clarity , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the federal government ’ s approach , gone so wrong in Portland ?
It ’ s part of a much larger problem .
Generally speaking , in the United States we prepare police officers for the more extreme end of civil disorders : riots .
We ’ re typically not doing a good job of preparing them for the less extreme end of civil disorders , basically any crowd event that hasn ’ t devolved into a full-blown riot .
That affects officers ’ thinking in these instances , and that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from crowd psychology and just decades of studying this stuff is that when police prepare to treat these types of events as riots , they can actually instigate a riot .
So planning and preparing to put down a riot , where one doesn ’ t exist , may actually ending up creating one .
That ’ s right .
What we need to do in handling these protests , then , is really understand not only how crowds function but also how crowds react to what the police do .
What we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under the Department of Homeland Security in Portland just ignoring everything we know about how to do protest policing right .
But one has to admit there ’ s a seductive logic to having law enforcement respond forcefully to a protest to deter further participation .
Plus , in Portland there have been some cases of people setting fires , looting stores , and throwing rocks at federal officials .
That ’ s violence , and it seems intuitive to meet that violence with overwhelming power so it stops .
Yet you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ straightforward as it sounds — isn ’ t effective ?
Portland is a fascinating case study because the intensity of the protests and the numbers out on the streets had decreased pretty substantially before federal law enforcement showed up .
Object throwing , fire setting , graffiti — all that increased dramatically after federal authorities arrived .
So I don ’ t think anybody can make the argument that the federal authorities came to town and made things better .
Just look at some of the violations Homeland Security cited in the July @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a lot , but not all , of what they acknowledged was graffiti .
Then check out later sections of the statement — after law enforcement arrived — and you ’ ll see that the violations got more serious .
This is completely consistent with what we know about crowd policing , and in many ways what the federal authorities have just done for me is illustrated all of the theories that I talked about in my guidebook for police .
They ’ ve done a fantastic job of illustrating everything that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what are those things they shouldn ’ t do ?
Well , the first thing to keep in mind is that these events are best handled by local authorities , not federal ones .
The reason why is actually quite simple : If local police are playing the game correctly , they should already have a relationship with the leaders of the protest movement as well as other social justice groups .
The hope is that having those kinds of relationships prevents the situation from spiraling in the first place .
But if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authorities can leverage those preexisting relationships to simmer things down pretty quickly .
“ Law enforcement should be seen as a guardian of the First Amendment .
Not the guardian of a building , not the guardian of a skirmish line , but of the First Amendment.
” The implication of that is that outside authorities won ’ t have the ability to reach out to the aggrieved groups as easily , thus rendering them less effective .
Right ?
Exactly .
There are instances when police are responding to events with big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re losing control a little bit .
That happens .
In those cases , they call for “ mutual aid , ” which allows them to bring in outside forces to support them — but often , mutual aid situations end up turning badly .
Just look at what happened during the 2014 protests in Ferguson , Missouri .
We saw about 50 or 60 law enforcement agencies responding to the situation , all of which have completely different training , cultures , equipment , policies , and procedures .
There was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ multiple jurisdictions , and that ’ s often a recipe for disaster .
That ’ s where we typically see policing go badly : outside forces coming in , not knowing the area or the people , and failing to do the job correctly .
Give me an example of when the dynamic you talk about — local police forming relationships closely with protest leaders and without outside help — worked well .
In 2011 , Occupy Wall Street took over Pioneer Park in Salt Lake City .
Police and protest leaders purposefully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remain more peaceful than it had in other cities .
When I interviewed the then-deputy chief , I asked him how he was able to maintain the peace .
His answer , and I ’ m paraphrasing , was “ I bought gallons of coffee for those guys.
” Right across from the park was a coffee shop , and he was routinely going down to the protest and taking leaders of the movement there .
He was always talking with them and asking , “ What do you need ?
Anything going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to work on ?
Is there anything I can provide ?
” That kind of interpersonal dynamic is what stops violence .
But say there is violence .
Buying coffee for people isn ’ t necessarily going to do the trick , is it ?
Let me use a personal analogy : I have a 9-year-old daughter .
If I do anything wrong , she ’ s going to call me out on it .
If she starts yelling at me , it would be an inappropriate response on my part to start @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t increase tensions in response to the other party having ramped up tension .
It just doesn ’ t work .
And if it doesn ’ t work in a one-on-one situation with my daughter , it ’ s obviously not going to work in a crowd-control situation , which is orders of magnitude more complicated .
So what should federal officials in Portland or elsewhere be doing instead of ratcheting up tensions ?
If you ’ re an authority figure dealing with subordinates right now — like federal and local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — what you need to do is reduce tension .
Calm everything down , and realize that what you ’ re doing is not working .
That takes a kind of humility , but taking a step back will make you realize you ’ re making the problem worse by not ceasing and desisting from the status quo .
Meanwhile , authorities need to be engaging in tons and tons of communication .
They need to reach out to the protest communities and say , “ Hey , obviously this isn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how to lower tensions here.
” Engaging in a softened dialogue is key .
Surely , though , there will be moments when arrests need to be made .
How might that impact the hoped-for comity ?
If there are people who are engaging in violence , of course they need to be arrested .
But if the only response to the violence or other forms of illegal behavior is to rush in and make arrests , it will make things worse .
No credible authority figure on policing protests is suggesting police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engaged in violence or property damage .
In fact , it ’ s the opposite : When people are engaged in that type of behavior , they need to be arrested and preferably now , not later .
But here ’ s what virtually every police agency misses : There ’ s just so much room for rumors and misinformation in a crowd event — particularly one already upset with police — that authorities need to have a really high-quality public address system by which they can communicate with the crowd .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should not only be enforcement-related communication .
What the crowd needs in that moment is validation , that those among them who are behaving peacefully and lawfully and expressing their First Amendment rights will still be allowed to do so .
That ’ s what protesters need to have confidence in : that if we ’ re out here exercising our rights , these knuckleheads aren ’ t going to shoot us with rubber bullets and chemical agents .
The most potent form of communication the police can engage in , then , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facilitate a protester ’ s right to be there and behave peacefully and lawfully .
However , the message should get across that those among the crowd who choose to engage in violence and property damage will be arrested .
That just needs to be a routine and repeated message .
And if an arrest is made , authorities need to tell the crowd why they detained someone , because otherwise misinformation will spread .
It seems these days that many police bureaus don ’ t understand the kind of playbook you just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually animates the crowds they face .
Why aren ’ t they learning these pretty straightforward lessons ?
Some surely do .
I happened to be having lunch with an official from the Tucson Police Department , and I mentioned I study crowds , protests , and policing .
All of a sudden he started talking about the “ social identity model ” and its implications for protest policing in the United States .
I wanted to jump out of my seat and cheer .
It was the first time that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I know some officers know this stuff because I ’ ve taught it to them , but this is the first time I heard of an officer just finding his way to this literature .
Clearly some see its utility to be better officers .
“ If law enforcement attacks the group as a whole for the actions of a few troublemakers , the moderates can start to embrace — or at least understand or appreciate — the strategies of those who are more radical .
At that point , the crowd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ identity model ?
Based on the validated research , the social identity model suggests people in crowds have different social identities .
The idea , basically , is that we all have multiple , different social identities .
You and I share one , actually : We ’ re Red Sox fans .
But being in a crowd can change that momentarily ; we have fleeting identities in crowd events .
Here ’ s a great anecdote on just this point : I was in Washington , DC , watching a Nationals [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not a Nationals fan at all , obviously , but I went with friends .
Anyway , a Nationals player hit a home run , and I temporarily lost my mind .
I stood up .
I was yelling .
I was screaming .
When I sat down , I realized what had happened .
Being in that stadium among Nationals fans , I was immersed in the crowd around me .
At that moment , I was a Nationals fan and I shared that identity with those around me .
So anyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an infinite number of social identities .
But in a crowd event , you can be heavily influenced by the social identities of the people around you .
That ’ s not to say it ’ s a contagious effect or predetermined , but it can happen .
I ’ d assume , then , that if law enforcement attacks a crowd that shares a sense of identity , the crowd will feel attacked as a unit .
Yes , and it ’ s counterproductive .
Demonstrations usually have moderate protesters in them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law-abiding , and aren ’ t prone to engaging in violence or property damage .
Of course , there are also typically some anarchists or people ready to cause trouble .
The moderates and troublemakers may not agree on tactics , but they at least share a cause .
If law enforcement attacks the group as a whole for the actions of a few troublemakers , the moderates can start to embrace — or at least understand or appreciate — the strategies of those who are more radical .
At that point , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a key point , and where my recommended approach really comes into play : Law enforcement should want to avoid that shift .
You want the moderates to stay moderate .
You don ’ t want the fleeting social identities of the moderates to start to drift toward the social identities of the radicals .
The way I put this for police officers to understand is : “ You need to win hearts and minds.
” You ’ re not going to succeed with the radicals who are engaging in property damage , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ win over the majority of the crowd .
For the police forces and federal agents not familiar with this approach , or who haven ’ t had a chance to peruse the literature , what are your three main recommendations for how law enforcement should handle protests like the ones we ’ re seeing across America ?
First , communicate with protesters before , during , and after protest events .
Form relationships with these people .
Work with them , talk to them , negotiate with them .
That ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Set the priorities that you need to set , but communicate with these people .
[ These are ] people who are intent on First Amendment expression , so law enforcement should be seen as people who facilitate that expression , not block it .
Second , don ’ t take enforcement action against an entire crowd in response to the misbehavior of a small number of people in the crowd .
If people are engaging in illegal behavior , by all means make arrests , but continue to facilitate the First Amendment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Which brings me to my third point : Law enforcement should be seen as a guardian of the First Amendment .
Not the guardian of a building , not the guardian of a skirmish line , but of the First Amendment .
Embrace the constitutional freedoms these people enjoy , and only take enforcement action against those people who are behaving in a lawless manner .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to @ @ @

President Donald Trump is upset that anti-racism and anti-police brutality protesters remain on the streets of America’s cities. He blames local leaders, mainly Democrats, for not doing enough to quell the unrest, which he typically portrays as far more violent than it really is.
Local and state officials should “dominate” violent protesters, he says, by using overwhelming force to deter anyone from countering law enforcement again. “You have to dominate or you’ll look like a bunch of jerks, you have to arrest and try people,” Trump told US governors on a June phone call. “You don’t have to be too careful.”
Trump has put his theory into practice in Portland, Oregon, where he sent federal agents in early July nominally to protect federal property in the city, but really to put down demonstrations that have lasted for several weeks.
Officials from US Border Patrol and other federal agencies, most of whom are not well-trained for handling mass demonstrations, have shot protesters in the head with “less lethal” munitions, launched tear gas, and arrested citizens far from federal property after stalking them in unmarked vehicles.
The problem for Trump, though, is that the seductive logic of quelling demonstrations using immense force has proven faulty. More of Portland’s residents are on the streets now than before federal agents arrived, and violent incidents have ticked upward, not downward. Despite those results, the Trump administration shows no signs of changing course in Portland, and may even export the strategy to other major American cities like Chicago.
When reporting on the federal response to the Portland protests this week, I interviewed Arizona State University’s Edward Maguire. He co-authored a well-regarded guidebook on how police should handle protests, based on research from past events in the US and around the world. What he told me then was that the incidents in Portland weren’t a surprise — in fact, they were likely to happen precisely because Trump’s idea of indiscriminately employing violence to quash protests is backward.
I called Maguire two days later to dig deeper into why, exactly, that was the case. It turns out police actually need to connect with demonstrators, letting them know they are there to protect their First Amendment rights and keep them safe.
This task should be left to local authorities, not federal ones, since they should already have some relationships with the community. But if federal agents do come in, they shouldn’t aim to exacerbate the situation. “You need to win hearts and minds,” Maguire urges authorities.
Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.
Alex Ward
Why has policing, and the federal government’s approach, gone so wrong in Portland?
Edward Maguire
It’s part of a much larger problem. Generally speaking, in the United States we prepare police officers for the more extreme end of civil disorders: riots. We’re typically not doing a good job of preparing them for the less extreme end of civil disorders, basically any crowd event that hasn’t devolved into a full-blown riot.
That affects officers’ thinking in these instances, and that’s a major issue. What we know from crowd psychology and just decades of studying this stuff is that when police prepare to treat these types of events as riots, they can actually instigate a riot.
Alex Ward
So planning and preparing to put down a riot, where one doesn’t exist, may actually ending up creating one.
Edward Maguire
That’s right. What we need to do in handling these protests, then, is really understand not only how crowds function but also how crowds react to what the police do. What we have right now is law enforcement agencies under the Department of Homeland Security in Portland just ignoring everything we know about how to do protest policing right.
Alex Ward
But one has to admit there’s a seductive logic to having law enforcement respond forcefully to a protest to deter further participation. Plus, in Portland there have been some cases of people setting fires, looting stores, and throwing rocks at federal officials. That’s violence, and it seems intuitive to meet that violence with overwhelming power so it stops.
Yet you’re saying that reasoning — as seemingly straightforward as it sounds — isn’t effective?
Edward Maguire
Portland is a fascinating case study because the intensity of the protests and the numbers out on the streets had decreased pretty substantially before federal law enforcement showed up. Object throwing, fire setting, graffiti — all that increased dramatically after federal authorities arrived. So I don’t think anybody can make the argument that the federal authorities came to town and made things better.
Just look at some of the violations Homeland Security cited in the July 16 statement. Before federal authorities arrived, a lot, but not all, of what they acknowledged was graffiti.
Then check out later sections of the statement — after law enforcement arrived — and you’ll see that the violations got more serious.
This is completely consistent with what we know about crowd policing, and in many ways what the federal authorities have just done for me is illustrated all of the theories that I talked about in my guidebook for police. They’ve done a fantastic job of illustrating everything that I say not to do.
Alex Ward
And what are those things they shouldn’t do?
Edward Maguire
Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that these events are best handled by local authorities, not federal ones. The reason why is actually quite simple: If local police are playing the game correctly, they should already have a relationship with the leaders of the protest movement as well as other social justice groups.
The hope is that having those kinds of relationships prevents the situation from spiraling in the first place. But if it does start to go wrong, authorities can leverage those preexisting relationships to simmer things down pretty quickly.
“Law enforcement should be seen as a guardian of the First Amendment. Not the guardian of a building, not the guardian of a skirmish line, but of the First Amendment.”
Alex Ward
The implication of that is that outside authorities won’t have the ability to reach out to the aggrieved groups as easily, thus rendering them less effective. Right?
Edward Maguire
Exactly. There are instances when police are responding to events with big crowds and they feel like maybe they’re losing control a little bit. That happens. In those cases, they call for “mutual aid,” which allows them to bring in outside forces to support them — but often, mutual aid situations end up turning badly.
Just look at what happened during the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri. We saw about 50 or 60 law enforcement agencies responding to the situation, all of which have completely different training, cultures, equipment, policies, and procedures. There was this mishmash of police coming in from multiple jurisdictions, and that’s often a recipe for disaster.
That’s where we typically see policing go badly: outside forces coming in, not knowing the area or the people, and failing to do the job correctly.
Alex Ward
Give me an example of when the dynamic you talk about — local police forming relationships closely with protest leaders and without outside help — worked well.
Edward Maguire
In 2011, Occupy Wall Street took over Pioneer Park in Salt Lake City. Police and protest leaders purposefully formed a relationship so the situation would remain more peaceful than it had in other cities. When I interviewed the then-deputy chief, I asked him how he was able to maintain the peace. His answer, and I’m paraphrasing, was “I bought gallons of coffee for those guys.”
Right across from the park was a coffee shop, and he was routinely going down to the protest and taking leaders of the movement there. He was always talking with them and asking, “What do you need? Anything going wrong? Is there anything I need to work on? Is there anything I can provide?” That kind of interpersonal dynamic is what stops violence.
Alex Ward
But say there is violence. Buying coffee for people isn’t necessarily going to do the trick, is it?
Edward Maguire
Let me use a personal analogy: I have a 9-year-old daughter. If I do anything wrong, she’s going to call me out on it. If she starts yelling at me, it would be an inappropriate response on my part to start yelling right back at her. You don’t increase tensions in response to the other party having ramped up tension. It just doesn’t work.
And if it doesn’t work in a one-on-one situation with my daughter, it’s obviously not going to work in a crowd-control situation, which is orders of magnitude more complicated.
Alex Ward
So what should federal officials in Portland or elsewhere be doing instead of ratcheting up tensions?
Edward Maguire
If you’re an authority figure dealing with subordinates right now — like federal and local officers in Portland dealing with protesters are — what you need to do is reduce tension. Calm everything down, and realize that what you’re doing is not working. That takes a kind of humility, but taking a step back will make you realize you’re making the problem worse by not ceasing and desisting from the status quo.
Meanwhile, authorities need to be engaging in tons and tons of communication. They need to reach out to the protest communities and say, “Hey, obviously this isn’t working. We need to talk about how to lower tensions here.” Engaging in a softened dialogue is key.
Alex Ward
Surely, though, there will be moments when arrests need to be made. How might that impact the hoped-for comity?
Edward Maguire
If there are people who are engaging in violence, of course they need to be arrested. But if the only response to the violence or other forms of illegal behavior is to rush in and make arrests, it will make things worse.
No credible authority figure on policing protests is suggesting police shouldn’t arrest people who are engaged in violence or property damage. In fact, it’s the opposite: When people are engaged in that type of behavior, they need to be arrested and preferably now, not later.
But here’s what virtually every police agency misses: There’s just so much room for rumors and misinformation in a crowd event — particularly one already upset with police — that authorities need to have a really high-quality public address system by which they can communicate with the crowd.
The communication that occurs through that PA system should not only be enforcement-related communication. What the crowd needs in that moment is validation, that those among them who are behaving peacefully and lawfully and expressing their First Amendment rights will still be allowed to do so.
That’s what protesters need to have confidence in: that if we’re out here exercising our rights, these knuckleheads aren’t going to shoot us with rubber bullets and chemical agents. The most potent form of communication the police can engage in, then, is to let protesters know they will facilitate a protester’s right to be there and behave peacefully and lawfully. However, the message should get across that those among the crowd who choose to engage in violence and property damage will be arrested.
That just needs to be a routine and repeated message. And if an arrest is made, authorities need to tell the crowd why they detained someone, because otherwise misinformation will spread.
Alex Ward
It seems these days that many police bureaus don’t understand the kind of playbook you just described, or the research behind what actually animates the crowds they face. Why aren’t they learning these pretty straightforward lessons?
Edward Maguire
Some surely do. I happened to be having lunch with an official from the Tucson Police Department, and I mentioned I study crowds, protests, and policing. All of a sudden he started talking about the “social identity model” and its implications for protest policing in the United States. I wanted to jump out of my seat and cheer. It was the first time that’s ever happened to me.
I mean, I know some officers know this stuff because I’ve taught it to them, but this is the first time I heard of an officer just finding his way to this literature. Clearly some see its utility to be better officers.
“If law enforcement attacks the group as a whole for the actions of a few troublemakers, the moderates can start to embrace — or at least understand or appreciate — the strategies of those who are more radical. At that point, the crowd psychology shifts.”
Alex Ward
What is the social identity model?
Edward Maguire
Based on the validated research, the social identity model suggests people in crowds have different social identities. The idea, basically, is that we all have multiple, different social identities. You and I share one, actually: We’re Red Sox fans. But being in a crowd can change that momentarily; we have fleeting identities in crowd events.
Here’s a great anecdote on just this point: I was in Washington, DC, watching a Nationals [baseball] game. I’m not a Nationals fan at all, obviously, but I went with friends. Anyway, a Nationals player hit a home run, and I temporarily lost my mind. I stood up. I was yelling. I was screaming.
When I sat down, I realized what had happened. Being in that stadium among Nationals fans, I was immersed in the crowd around me. At that moment, I was a Nationals fan and I shared that identity with those around me.
So anyone can show up to a protest with an infinite number of social identities. But in a crowd event, you can be heavily influenced by the social identities of the people around you. That’s not to say it’s a contagious effect or predetermined, but it can happen.
Alex Ward
I’d assume, then, that if law enforcement attacks a crowd that shares a sense of identity, the crowd will feel attacked as a unit.
Edward Maguire
Yes, and it’s counterproductive. Demonstrations usually have moderate protesters in them, people who are generally peaceful, law-abiding, and aren’t prone to engaging in violence or property damage. Of course, there are also typically some anarchists or people ready to cause trouble. The moderates and troublemakers may not agree on tactics, but they at least share a cause.
If law enforcement attacks the group as a whole for the actions of a few troublemakers, the moderates can start to embrace — or at least understand or appreciate — the strategies of those who are more radical. At that point, the crowd psychology shifts.
This is a key point, and where my recommended approach really comes into play: Law enforcement should want to avoid that shift. You want the moderates to stay moderate. You don’t want the fleeting social identities of the moderates to start to drift toward the social identities of the radicals.
The way I put this for police officers to understand is: “You need to win hearts and minds.” You’re not going to succeed with the radicals who are engaging in property damage, of course, but you just might win over the majority of the crowd.
Alex Ward
For the police forces and federal agents not familiar with this approach, or who haven’t had a chance to peruse the literature, what are your three main recommendations for how law enforcement should handle protests like the ones we’re seeing across America?
Edward Maguire
First, communicate with protesters before, during, and after protest events. Form relationships with these people. Work with them, talk to them, negotiate with them. That’s not to say give away the farm: Set the priorities that you need to set, but communicate with these people. [These are] people who are intent on First Amendment expression, so law enforcement should be seen as people who facilitate that expression, not block it.
Second, don’t take enforcement action against an entire crowd in response to the misbehavior of a small number of people in the crowd. If people are engaging in illegal behavior, by all means make arrests, but continue to facilitate the First Amendment expression of the people in the crowd.
Which brings me to my third point: Law enforcement should be seen as a guardian of the First Amendment. Not the guardian of a building, not the guardian of a skirmish line, but of the First Amendment. Embrace the constitutional freedoms these people enjoy, and only take enforcement action against those people who are behaving in a lawless manner.