vox--2020-08-10--“Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor”: The power and the peril of a catchphrase

After all-too-common acts of police brutality against Black women , the hashtag # SayHerName ” now peppers social media timelines .
The phrase , codified in 2014 through Kimberlé Crenshaw ’ s Say Her Name campaign , serves as a long-standing reminder that Black women are often erased as victims of police violence .
Following the March 13 shooting death of 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor by Louisville police while she slept unarmed in her bed , that ’ s exactly what her family wanted : for the world to remember her story and know her name .
“ I want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Taylor ’ s mother Tamika Palmer told the Washington Post and The 19th in a joint interview in June .
When a trio of police officers invaded the apartment Taylor shared with her boyfriend , Kenneth Walker , she was little more to police than an excuse for a drug search .
They entered her apartment , wearing plainclothes and reportedly without announcing themselves , under a no-knock warrant to search for two drug suspects — neither of whom lived there .
When Walker , defending himself against a home invasion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officers , they returned fire with over 20 rounds , shooting Taylor eight times .
“ I ’ m just getting awareness for my sister , for people to know who she is , what her name is , ” Taylor ’ s younger sister Ju ’ Niyah Palmer , who ’ d been tweeting about Taylor , added .
While the names of Black men and boys who fall prey to racialized violence are often well known — think Mike Brown , George Floyd , Philando Castile , Freddie Gray , Botham @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — women who suffer similar fates , like Sandra Bland , Shantel Davis , and Mya Hall , are frequently overlooked .
After videos of the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery went viral in May , arrests and indictments came swiftly for their killers .
But Taylor lacked nationwide recognition , and it had already been months since her death .
In June , however , amid the national protests against racist police violence , that changed : “ Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor ” became a widespread social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has become a household name .
Her death and an increased awareness of the no-knock warrant practice that allowed cops to enter her residence unannounced have garnered international media attention and become the subject of a broader conversation about police brutality and social justice — especially when it comes to women who ’ ve been killed by officers .
And that attention has come with ongoing activism and calls for proper redress for her death .
Protests in Louisville are ongoing , with residents demanding justice for Taylor as the investigation into her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the GoFundMe fundraiser for Taylor ’ s family to over $ 6.5 million .
Members of the WNBA recently began wearing the names of victims of police brutality on their warm-up outfits , prominently recognizing Breonna Taylor as the woman whose death sparked the change .
For the first time in history , Oprah Winfrey removed her own photo from the cover of O magazine and pictured Taylor instead .
Winfrey also placed 26 billboards featuring Taylor ’ s image across Louisville , one billboard for each year of Taylor ’ s life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now saying her name .
By any metric of success , Taylor ’ s family have gotten their wish : Their calls to keep Breonna Taylor ’ s name alive have been heeded .
But alongside the prominent spread of “ Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor , ” we have a new , perplexing quandary .
On social media , regardless of intent , her supporters often seem to blunt the impact of their message by treating phrases like “ Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor ” and “ it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cops who killed Breonna Taylor ” almost as a punch line .
Often , social media posts that start out with unrelated content will suddenly feature Breonna Taylor ’ s name — like a now-infamous “ sideboob ” Instagram post by Riverdale actress Lili Reinhart , for which Reinhart swiftly apologized .
All the while , the justice these well-meaning supporters want for Taylor has gone undelivered , and authorities continue to encounter hurdles in her investigation due to a lack of police cooperation .
This week marks five months since Taylor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the three policemen involved in the incident has been fired , the two others have been placed on administrative assignment and no arrests have been made .
The online agitation over saying Breonna Taylor ’ s name has clearly been useful as a way of spreading the news about her death , but is saying her name really enough to create real change ?
What happens when a name becomes the only thing people are saying ?
Taylor ’ s name has partly become a meme As a call to action , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Taylor ” is a ringing demand for justice laid out in perfect iambic pentameter .
It ’ s succinct , angry , and to the point .
It became , in no time at all , a ubiquitous slogan for one of the most prominent flashpoints in the energized Black Lives Matter movement .
But almost as soon as Taylor ’ s name went viral , the call to action became something closer to a meme-fied catchphrase , with many social media users turning calls to arrest Taylor ’ s killers into a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and memes based around Breonna Taylor ’ s name rapidly eclipsed all discussion of the alarming and disturbing circumstances surrounding Taylor ’ s death — and it didn ’ t take long for people to notice and begin commenting on them .
Indie merchant platforms like Etsy and Teepublic have seen an explosion of for-profit merchandise exploiting Taylor ’ s name .
Breonna Taylor face masks are a particularly hot item on both websites .
Of the 10 random Etsy merchants I browsed , only one promised to donate an unspecified portion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s GoFundMe .
Another two promised that “ some ” of the proceeds from sales would support the Black Lives Matter movement or community empowerment in a vague way .
One store sold Breonna Taylor and BLM face masks alongside Blue Lives Matter face masks without any acknowledgment of their ideological contradictions .
It ’ s easy to take in all this commodification and performative social media action and come away feeling jaded .
Cate Young would know : She was one of the first people to devise a campaign to raise awareness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NPR , Young created the wildly successful Justice for Breonna website , which outlined a hybrid campaign of online action , social media activity , and IRL activism .
Actions ranged from donating to the Taylor family ’ s GoFundMe to sending birthday cards to Kentucky ’ s Attorney General on June 5 — what would have been Taylor ’ s 27th birthday .
“ My initial worry when I was coming up with this list of items was that no one would care , ” Young told me .
“ That was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ the website ] in the first place , because it was around the time of George Floyd ’ s murder and the protests in June .
And it felt frustrating to see her name not come up in any of the stories and to see the way that she was being erased in real time .
And I worried that nothing would come of the campaign , and no one would care and no one would participate.
” But Young ’ s worries proved unfounded .
In fact , social media was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ This is not a case where I can say that people didn ’ t care or didn ’ t mobilize , ’ cause they did .
They absolutely did , ” she said .
“ People sent stacks of letters , got their families involved .
People started baking cakes for her birthday and selling slices , donating the proceeds to the [ Louisville ] Bail Fund , things of that nature .
People started getting creative , which was really encouraging.
” The online agitation seems to have helped people understand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Google Trends shows that searches for “ Breonna Taylor ” spiked sharply during the first week in June .
That ’ s the week of Taylor ’ s birthday and the week that “ Arrest the cops ... ” began to gain widespread attention from celebrities and the media .
But Young quickly realized , as the investigation into Taylor ’ s death lost momentum and continued to encounter roadblocks , that online activism wasn ’ t enough to effect meaningful change .
“ [ The campaign ] was successful , thankfully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think despite everyone ’ s best efforts and involvement , there still has been very little movement .
The officers still have not been reprimanded in any real way .
It ’ s since come out that the warrant that was executed on her home was part of a larger gentrification strategy in that area .
And not much has changed , unfortunately , despite all the work that went into it.
” In a piece for Jezebel outlining the litany of ways in which Taylor had been meme-fied across social media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cops ” catchphrase as part of the problem .
“ Absent any specific call to actions , ” she wrote , “ ‘ Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor ’ became a clarion call , divorced from Taylor ’ s life and image—the newest virtue signal of choice , one that defies the current conversation around the abolition of police and prisons.
” If that conversation feels different in Taylor ’ s case , it may be because it ’ s being had by new people .
Whenever political concerns take over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a way to cope with the news and as ways to spread a message to the uninitiated — who then make memes of their own in order to participate in the conversation .
It ’ s likely that many people who are talking about Taylor ’ s death now have little idea what ideas like “ abolish the police ” or “ defund the police ” really even mean .
Nearly a full six months after Taylor ’ s death , with the investigation into its circumstances seemingly stalled , Young ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The online pressure for justice seems to have had little effect on Louisville authorities .
And the original reason that the # SayHerName hashtag generated momentum in the first place — to draw attention to violence against Black women — seems to have been drowned out by all the social media noise .
The memeification of Taylor ’ s name is still serving an important purpose — up to a point Not everyone is as quick to write off the importance of the call-to-action-turned-catchphrase .
“ I feel that we ’ re in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for help , ” Ardre Orie told me .
“ And so when you get to that place of desperation , [ you reach for ] any megaphone that can be leveraged.
“ Orie is a former educator who runs a vanity press focused on elevating Black voices , so I wanted to ask her about the potential usefulness of social media hashtags and slogans in this case .
She told me that tweet-ready phrases can be helpful in terms of awareness-raising , but also just in terms of letting people feel like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are people who are misinformed and miseducated , but they want to do something .
And they ’ re using the hashtag and creating it in ways that are placed behind sentences that start off as , ‘ My favorite movie ... ’ or , ‘ Guess what I think about X , Y , and Z , ’ that then [ end with ] “ Arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor.
’ ” These lighter messages are probably fine by themselves , Orie indicated .
But other uses , such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that we ’ re talking about a life , ” she said , were less helpful .
“ I definitely don ’ t sit in agreement with that and I don ’ t condone it , but I also do not fault people for trying to scream from the rooftop to realize justice in an unjust society.
” Young also acknowledged that between the protests , the pandemic , and whatever else 2020 is hitting them with , many people just might not have the energy to devote more of their attention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or a tweet .
Still , she said , “ There is part of me that wishes that we could kind of continue the momentum in a way that didn ’ t lead to dilution of the most radical ideas.
” Orie also told me she recognizes that public discussion of Taylor ’ s death hasn ’ t done nearly enough to generate awareness of all aspects of her story , and the way that misogynoir within the justice system contributes to violence against Black women .
“ When you think about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fact that nothing is being done , that gives a very loud and clear message to Black women in this country about the value of our lives , ” Orie says .
“ If it is possible for you to be lying in bed , minding your business , not doing anything wrong , be a productive member of society ... and then for your life to be unjustly taken and nothing to be done about it , it speaks great volumes .
So there has to be another way to counter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not become what you believe about your life.
” Ideally , hashtags like # SayHerName should have helped to provide such a counter narrative — but their impact has been diluted .
In fact , even the hashtag # SayHerName itself was subsequently overlooked after its initial creation , as it became co-opted into broader ongoing social media trends like # SayHisName and # SayTheirNames .
“ It ’ s sad to say but [ the ] reality [ is that ] Breonna Taylor was a Black woman , ” the Louisville-based poet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me .
Drake has been active in the protests and the community conversation since Taylor ’ s death .
“ Black women will always have to fight to be heard and seen , even in death.
” Still , she told me , “ I believe a broader conversation is [ starting to ] happen .
This is much bigger than the three officers .
It is how all those in positions of legal power conspired together , from [ officer ] Joshua Jaynes providing false information to obtain the [ no-knock ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ signing five no-knock warrants in less than 15 minutes .
“ We can not just look at one thing , ” she cautioned .
“ We must look at how all of these elements worked together to lead to the murder of Breonna Taylor.
” Social media , however , favors short witticisms and attention-grabbing , succinct messaging — not these kinds of lengthier explanations .
“ Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor ” is pithy and clear .
“ Breonna Taylor died because of systemic racism and a growing power imbalance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s not easy to lay out the entire case in 280 characters on Twitter .
What if arresting the cops is not the best idea ?
Perhaps another part of the trouble with figuring out how best to deploy social media in the face of cries for justice is that there ’ s little consensus on what justice actually looks like .
Young told me she ’ d been second-guessing whether seeing the cops arrested is even the course of action she wants to endorse .
“ In the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind of been struggling on my own about what justice means in this case , because ... fitting with the literature around police and prison abolition , I don ’ t necessarily know that arrest for her killers is the right course of action .
I ’ m just figuring out for myself what feels just and how that can be achieved.
” Young added that she ’ d also started to question whether she really believed in abolishing the police , another common protest demand .
“ I feel like for me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ framework feels like excusing her death on an emotional level .
But I think on a practical level , if we are really trying to divorce ourselves from the carceral systems that we know are harmful , it means not feeding more people into it .
Even people who have harmed us , and even cops.
” Within this conversation , she told me , the people who are calling for Breonna Taylor ’ s killers to be arrested fall into two camps : the activists and the performers .
“ I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who sincerely believe that arrest is the right course of action and people who want to appear to be doing something , ” she said .
“ For the former group , the issue is [ less about ] discouraging them from using [ the catchphrase ] .
I ’ m ... asking them to consider what arrest accomplishes.
” Orie emphasized that it ’ s unlikely advocates for justice will ever reach a unified position about what justice looks like .
“ I don ’ t think that there will ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I think we have to acknowledge that this is chaotic , and so you won ’ t have everyone in agreement with how to bring about justice , with how to make it right , with how to change the narrative or control the narrative at all.
” Still , despite not being sure what proper justice will ultimately look like , she cautioned , that ’ s no reason to jettison the social media push to remember Taylor .
“ I think that the bottom line is that in this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name and are keeping it at the forefront , I don ’ t see it to be a negative thing because there have been many scenarios where the names are forgotten ...
I don ’ t think that it ’ s a bad thing that we are saying the name because in that space , that is how more people learn about what has actually happened.
” Undoubtedly , the best way to support Breonna Taylor and other victims of police brutality is to take your support offline .
“ You tweeting [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to me doesn ’ t get them arrested , ” Young stressed .
“ That doesn ’ t actually make a material difference in that case or increase the likelihood that those men will be arrested.
” That ’ s why her campaign emphasized real-world actions .
“ I specifically wanted physical letters sent to those offices , ” she said , “ because it ’ s very easy for these officials to get off Twitter for a day and block a hashtag or filter their tweets .
That stuff is easy to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to see that stuff if they don ’ t want to.
” A write-in letter campaign to local authorities handling the investigation , she said , was much harder to ignore .
“ [ State and local officials ] may never have read any of the thousands of letters that arrived to them , but they still have to physically deal with them .
That ’ s an inconvenience that makes us an issue that they have to think about because it ’ s a physical thing in their space.
” Drake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working with community advocates for justice , has a far more localized perspective .
She and other activists are focused on specific concrete steps that seem far removed from the online conversation .
“ Locally , I think people are saying ‘ arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor ’ and that ’ s the statement , ” she said .
“ There is no meme .
There is no list of mundane activities .
That ’ s the message .
Even more so , arrest Joshua Jaynes , Brett Hankison , Myles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t get to hide behind ‘ arrest the cops.
’ These are their names .
They are the ones responsible for the death of Breonna Taylor .
That is the message and we will not shift from that .
Justice for Breonna isn ’ t a meme .
We want it to be reality.
” It ’ s through the efforts of local activists , Drake noted , that no-knock warrants were swiftly banned in Louisville after Taylor ’ s death ; now they ’ re figuring out what ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to really ask , ‘ how did this happen ?
’ ” she said .
Meanwhile , the protests for Taylor continue .
Drake has simple advice for those who actually care about justice for Taylor — and it goes right back to the beginning of the conversation : “ Share Breonna ’ s story .
Say her name .
Keep her trending .
Do not let her be forgotten.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around 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 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 .
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After all-too-common acts of police brutality against Black women, the hashtag #SayHerName” now peppers social media timelines. The phrase, codified in 2014 through Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Say Her Name campaign, serves as a long-standing reminder that Black women are often erased as victims of police violence. Following the March 13 shooting death of 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor by Louisville police while she slept unarmed in her bed, that’s exactly what her family wanted: for the world to remember her story and know her name.
“I want [people] to say her name,” Taylor’s mother Tamika Palmer told the Washington Post and The 19th in a joint interview in June. When a trio of police officers invaded the apartment Taylor shared with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, she was little more to police than an excuse for a drug search. They entered her apartment, wearing plainclothes and reportedly without announcing themselves, under a no-knock warrant to search for two drug suspects — neither of whom lived there. When Walker, defending himself against a home invasion, shot once at one of the officers, they returned fire with over 20 rounds, shooting Taylor eight times.
“I’m just getting awareness for my sister, for people to know who she is, what her name is,” Taylor’s younger sister Ju’Niyah Palmer, who’d been tweeting about Taylor, added. While the names of Black men and boys who fall prey to racialized violence are often well known — think Mike Brown, George Floyd, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, Botham Jean, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin — women who suffer similar fates, like Sandra Bland, Shantel Davis, and Mya Hall, are frequently overlooked.
After videos of the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery went viral in May, arrests and indictments came swiftly for their killers. But Taylor lacked nationwide recognition, and it had already been months since her death. In June, however, amid the national protests against racist police violence, that changed: “Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor” became a widespread social media cry.
Since then, Taylor has become a household name. Her death and an increased awareness of the no-knock warrant practice that allowed cops to enter her residence unannounced have garnered international media attention and become the subject of a broader conversation about police brutality and social justice — especially when it comes to women who’ve been killed by officers.
And that attention has come with ongoing activism and calls for proper redress for her death. Protests in Louisville are ongoing, with residents demanding justice for Taylor as the investigation into her death grows. Online support has boosted the GoFundMe fundraiser for Taylor’s family to over $6.5 million. Members of the WNBA recently began wearing the names of victims of police brutality on their warm-up outfits, prominently recognizing Breonna Taylor as the woman whose death sparked the change. For the first time in history, Oprah Winfrey removed her own photo from the cover of O magazine and pictured Taylor instead. Winfrey also placed 26 billboards featuring Taylor’s image across Louisville, one billboard for each year of Taylor’s life. Everyone from pundits to politicians is now saying her name.
Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor. — Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) July 27, 2020
Breonna Taylor was asleep in her home.
George Floyd was suspected of having a fake $20 bill.
Eric Garner was selling loose cigarettes.
Tamir Rice was 12 years old playing with a toy gun.
THIS is why we have to say #BlackLivesMatter. https://t.co/lsZbGzgRyk — Eliza Orlins (@elizaorlins) August 4, 2020
By any metric of success, Taylor’s family have gotten their wish: Their calls to keep Breonna Taylor’s name alive have been heeded.
But alongside the prominent spread of “Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor,” we have a new, perplexing quandary. On social media, regardless of intent, her supporters often seem to blunt the impact of their message by treating phrases like “Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor” and “it’s a great day to arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor” almost as a punch line. Often, social media posts that start out with unrelated content will suddenly feature Breonna Taylor’s name — like a now-infamous “sideboob” Instagram post by Riverdale actress Lili Reinhart, for which Reinhart swiftly apologized. All the while, the justice these well-meaning supporters want for Taylor has gone undelivered, and authorities continue to encounter hurdles in her investigation due to a lack of police cooperation. This week marks five months since Taylor’s death, and while one of the three officers involved in the incident has been fired, the two others have been placed on administrative assignment and no arrests have been made.
The online agitation over saying Breonna Taylor’s name has clearly been useful as a way of spreading the news about her death, but is saying her name really enough to create real change? What happens when a name becomes the only thing people are saying?
Taylor’s name has partly become a meme
As a call to action, “Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor” is a ringing demand for justice laid out in perfect iambic pentameter. It’s succinct, angry, and to the point. It became, in no time at all, a ubiquitous slogan for one of the most prominent flashpoints in the energized Black Lives Matter movement.
But almost as soon as Taylor’s name went viral, the call to action became something closer to a meme-fied catchphrase, with many social media users turning calls to arrest Taylor’s killers into a kind of structural gimmick.
i love you but i had to make it rhyme.
roses are red
i use google chrome
arrest the bastards who murdered breonna taylor in her own home — lewis (@paradisefallsss) June 10, 2020
Hey guys the NBA is about to come back which means it’s a great day to arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor — code:leaf (@ThomasNassiff) July 30, 2020
The catchphrases and memes based around Breonna Taylor’s name rapidly eclipsed all discussion of the alarming and disturbing circumstances surrounding Taylor’s death — and it didn’t take long for people to notice and begin commenting on them.
Too much “it’s a great day to arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor”,
Not enough “THE COPS ARE PROTECTING THE MEN WHO MURDERED BREONNA TAYLOR IN HER SLEEP APPLY PRESSURE UNTIL THEY’RE TRIED & CONVICTED”. That’s all I’m saying. We gotta keep that same energy. — Her Brilliancy (@BrianaNavy) June 23, 2020
Indie merchant platforms like Etsy and Teepublic have seen an explosion of for-profit merchandise exploiting Taylor’s name. Breonna Taylor face masks are a particularly hot item on both websites. Of the 10 random Etsy merchants I browsed, only one promised to donate an unspecified portion of sales proceeds to the Taylor family’s GoFundMe. Another two promised that “some” of the proceeds from sales would support the Black Lives Matter movement or community empowerment in a vague way. One store sold Breonna Taylor and BLM face masks alongside Blue Lives Matter face masks without any acknowledgment of their ideological contradictions.
It’s easy to take in all this commodification and performative social media action and come away feeling jaded. Cate Young would know: She was one of the first people to devise a campaign to raise awareness for Taylor. A freelance culture critic, Young created the wildly successful Birthday for Breonna website, which outlined a hybrid campaign of online action, social media activity, and IRL activism. Actions ranged from donating to the Taylor family’s GoFundMe to sending birthday cards to Kentucky’s Attorney General on June 5 — what would have been Taylor’s 27th birthday.
“My initial worry when I was coming up with this list of items was that no one would care,” Young told me. “That was part of why I decided to do [the website] in the first place, because it was around the time of George Floyd’s murder and the protests in June. And it felt frustrating to see her name not come up in any of the stories and to see the way that she was being erased in real time. And I worried that nothing would come of the campaign, and no one would care and no one would participate.”
But Young’s worries proved unfounded. In fact, social media was initially the boon her campaign needed.
#BreonnaTaylor would have celebrated her 27th birthday today.
On March 13, police entered her home and killed her. She was an essential worker. She was an EMT in Louisville, Kentucky. Today, we're demanding justice.
Learn more about how you can support #BirthdayForBreonna. pic.twitter.com/gY8kYOHD9G — ZORA (@zoramag) June 5, 2020
“This is not a case where I can say that people didn’t care or didn’t mobilize, ’cause they did. They absolutely did,” she said. “People sent stacks of letters, got their families involved. People started baking cakes for her birthday and selling slices, donating the proceeds to the [Louisville] Bail Fund, things of that nature. People started getting creative, which was really encouraging.”
The online agitation seems to have helped people understand what happened to Taylor; in fact, Google Trends shows that searches for “Breonna Taylor” spiked sharply during the first week in June. That’s the week of Taylor’s birthday and the week that “Arrest the cops ...” began to gain widespread attention from celebrities and the media.
But Young quickly realized, as the investigation into Taylor’s death lost momentum and continued to encounter roadblocks, that online activism wasn’t enough to effect meaningful change.
“[The campaign] was successful, thankfully,” she said, “but I think despite everyone’s best efforts and involvement, there still has been very little movement. The officers still have not been reprimanded in any real way. It’s since come out that the warrant that was executed on her home was part of a larger gentrification strategy in that area. And not much has changed, unfortunately, despite all the work that went into it.”
In a piece for Jezebel outlining the litany of ways in which Taylor had been meme-fied across social media, Young decried the “Arrest the cops” catchphrase as part of the problem. “Absent any specific call to actions,” she wrote, “‘Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor’ became a clarion call, divorced from Taylor’s life and image—the newest virtue signal of choice, one that defies the current conversation around the abolition of police and prisons.”
If that conversation feels different in Taylor’s case, it may be because it’s being had by new people. Whenever political concerns take over social media, memes are often used as a way to cope with the news and as ways to spread a message to the uninitiated — who then make memes of their own in order to participate in the conversation. It’s likely that many people who are talking about Taylor’s death now have little idea what ideas like “abolish the police” or “defund the police” really even mean.
Nearly a full six months after Taylor’s death, with the investigation into its circumstances seemingly stalled, Young’s frustration seems easy to understand. The online pressure for justice seems to have had little effect on Louisville authorities. And the original reason that the #SayHerName hashtag generated momentum in the first place — to draw attention to violence against Black women — seems to have been drowned out by all the social media noise.
The memeification of Taylor’s name is still serving an important purpose — up to a point
Not everyone is as quick to write off the importance of the call-to-action-turned-catchphrase. “I feel that we’re in a place where we’re crying for help,” Ardre Orie told me. “And so when you get to that place of desperation, [you reach for] any megaphone that can be leveraged.“
Orie is a former educator who runs an independent hybrid publishing house focused on elevating Black voices, so I wanted to ask her about the potential usefulness of social media hashtags and slogans in this case. She told me that tweet-ready phrases can be helpful in terms of awareness-raising, but also just in terms of letting people feel like they’re contributing.
“There are people who are misinformed and miseducated, but they want to do something. And they’re using the hashtag and creating it in ways that are placed behind sentences that start off as, ‘My favorite movie ...’ or, ‘Guess what I think about X, Y, and Z,’ that then [end with] “Arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor.’”
These lighter messages are probably fine by themselves, Orie indicated. But other uses, such as jokes or “anything that demeans the fact that we’re talking about a life,” she said, were less helpful. “I definitely don’t sit in agreement with that and I don’t condone it, but I also do not fault people for trying to scream from the rooftop to realize justice in an unjust society.”
Young also acknowledged that between the protests, the pandemic, and whatever else 2020 is hitting them with, many people just might not have the energy to devote more of their attention to Taylor outside of an Instagram post or a tweet. Still, she said, “There is part of me that wishes that we could kind of continue the momentum in a way that didn’t lead to dilution of the most radical ideas.”
Orie also told me she recognizes that public discussion of Taylor’s death hasn’t done nearly enough to generate awareness of all aspects of her story, and the way that misogynoir within the justice system contributes to violence against Black women.
“When you think about the implications and the messaging, because of the fact that nothing is being done, that gives a very loud and clear message to Black women in this country about the value of our lives,” Orie says. “If it is possible for you to be lying in bed, minding your business, not doing anything wrong, be a productive member of society ... and then for your life to be unjustly taken and nothing to be done about it, it speaks great volumes. So there has to be another way to counter narratives like that so that that does not become what you believe about your life.”
Ideally, hashtags like #SayHerName should have helped to provide such a counter narrative — but their impact has been diluted. In fact, even the hashtag #SayHerName itself was subsequently overlooked after its initial creation, as it became co-opted into broader ongoing social media trends like #SayHisName and #SayTheirNames.
“It’s sad to say but [the] reality [is that] Breonna Taylor was a Black woman,” the Louisville-based poet and racial justice activist Hannah Drake told me. Drake has been active in the protests and the community conversation since Taylor’s death. “Black women will always have to fight to be heard and seen, even in death.”
Still, she told me, “I believe a broader conversation is [starting to] happen. This is much bigger than the three officers. It is how all those in positions of legal power conspired together, from [officer] Joshua Jaynes providing false information to obtain the [no-knock] warrant [to] Judge Mary Shaw signing five no-knock warrants in less than 15 minutes.
“We cannot just look at one thing,” she cautioned. “We must look at how all of these elements worked together to lead to the murder of Breonna Taylor.”
Social media, however, favors short witticisms and attention-grabbing, succinct messaging — not these kinds of lengthier explanations. “Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor” is pithy and clear. “Breonna Taylor died because of systemic racism and a growing power imbalance between police and civilians” is not. It’s not easy to lay out the entire case in 280 characters on Twitter.
What if arresting the cops is not the best idea?
Perhaps another part of the trouble with figuring out how best to deploy social media in the face of cries for justice is that there’s little consensus on what justice actually looks like. Young told me she’d been second-guessing whether seeing the cops arrested is even the course of action she wants to endorse.
“In the time since that campaign, I’ve kind of been struggling on my own about what justice means in this case, because ... fitting with the literature around police and prison abolition, I don’t necessarily know that arrest for her killers is the right course of action. I’m just figuring out for myself what feels just and how that can be achieved.”
Young added that she’d also started to question whether she really believed in abolishing the police, another common protest demand. “I feel like for me, at least moving towards an abolitionist framework feels like excusing her death on an emotional level. But I think on a practical level, if we are really trying to divorce ourselves from the carceral systems that we know are harmful, it means not feeding more people into it. Even people who have harmed us, and even cops.”
Within this conversation, she told me, the people who are calling for Breonna Taylor’s killers to be arrested fall into two camps: the activists and the performers.
“I think there is definitely a distinction between the people who sincerely believe that arrest is the right course of action and people who want to appear to be doing something,” she said. “For the former group, the issue is [less about] discouraging them from using [the catchphrase]. I’m... asking them to consider what arrest accomplishes.”
Orie emphasized that it’s unlikely advocates for justice will ever reach a unified position about what justice looks like. “I don’t think that there will ever be full agreement,” she said. “I think we have to acknowledge that this is chaotic, and so you won’t have everyone in agreement with how to bring about justice, with how to make it right, with how to change the narrative or control the narrative at all.”
Still, despite not being sure what proper justice will ultimately look like, she cautioned, that’s no reason to jettison the social media push to remember Taylor. “I think that the bottom line is that in this instance, when we are saying her name and are keeping it at the forefront, I don’t see it to be a negative thing because there have been many scenarios where the names are forgotten ... I don’t think that it’s a bad thing that we are saying the name because in that space, that is how more people learn about what has actually happened.”
Undoubtedly, the best way to support Breonna Taylor and other victims of police brutality is to take your support offline. “You tweeting [‘Arrest the cops ...’] to me doesn’t get them arrested,” Young stressed. “That doesn’t actually make a material difference in that case or increase the likelihood that those men will be arrested.”
That’s why her campaign emphasized real-world actions. “I specifically wanted physical letters sent to those offices,” she said, “because it’s very easy for these officials to get off Twitter for a day and block a hashtag or filter their tweets. That stuff is easy to do. ... They don’t have to see that stuff if they don’t want to.”
A write-in letter campaign to local authorities handling the investigation, she said, was much harder to ignore. “[State and local officials] may never have read any of the thousands of letters that arrived to them, but they still have to physically deal with them. That’s an inconvenience that makes us an issue that they have to think about because it’s a physical thing in their space.”
Drake, who’s been in Louisville working with community advocates for justice, has a far more localized perspective. She and other activists are focused on specific concrete steps that seem far removed from the online conversation. “Locally, I think people are saying ‘arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor’ and that’s the statement,” she said. “There is no meme. There is no list of mundane activities. That’s the message. Even more so, arrest Joshua Jaynes, Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove, and Jonathan Mattingly. They don’t get to hide behind ‘arrest the cops.’ These are their names. They are the ones responsible for the death of Breonna Taylor. That is the message and we will not shift from that. Justice for Breonna isn’t a meme. We want it to be reality.”
It’s through the efforts of local activists, Drake noted, that no-knock warrants were swiftly banned in Louisville after Taylor’s death; now they’re figuring out what’s next. “We are just starting to really ask, ‘how did this happen?’” she said. Meanwhile, the protests for Taylor continue.
Drake has simple advice for those who actually care about justice for Taylor — and it goes right back to the beginning of the conversation: “Share Breonna’s story. Say her name. Keep her trending. Do not let her be forgotten.”
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-08-10--Want to fix policing? Start with a better 911 system.

Tamir Rice , a 12-year-old Black child , was playing with a toy pellet gun in a Cleveland park when a police car arrived on the scene .
Within moments of exiting his squad car , officer Timothy Loehmann shot and killed Rice .
The surveillance video of the November 2014 shooting garnered worldwide attention , and Rice remains a symbol for the Black Lives Matter movement .
As is the case with many high-profile police killings , most after-the-fact reports focused on the incident itself and the officer ’ s record : Why didn ’ t Loehmann give any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done the same to a white child ?
Why was the officer hired in the first place , given he had been deemed unfit for duty by a different police department ?
These are legitimate questions .
But it ’ s possible the most important factor in Rice ’ s killing was what happened in the moments before the police officer arrived on the scene .
Like the majority of police killings of unarmed civilians , this incident began with a 911 call .
The civilian who called 911 on Rice initially reported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a park , but then clarified the initial description , saying that Tamir is “ probably a juvenile ” and that the weapon is “ probably fake.
” However , according to police records , that clarifying information did not get passed on to responding officers .
All the information Loehmann and his partner heard from their dispatcher was , “ We have a Code 1 ” — the department ’ s highest level of urgency .
That error may have been the difference between life and death for a child .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , use-of-force training instructor , and now a criminologist at the University of Colorado Denver , found out that the 911 dispatch information about Rice had been wrong , he decided to run an experiment .
Taylor put 300 police officers representing 18 agencies in two states through an interactive firearms training simulator .
All the officers were told about a “ possible trespass in progress.
” Then some were told that the “ subject appears to be holding a gun ” and others that the “ subject appears to be talking on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the scene , they saw a man matching the description of the suspect with his hands in his jacket pockets .
For half the volunteers , the man quickly pulled a cellphone out of his pocket to film the officers ; for the other half , the man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at them .
The officers had to make a split-second decision to shoot or not shoot , with their virtual lives at stake .
The results were dramatic .
Six percent of officers who had been advised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a cellphone ended up shooting the man who attempted to film them with his phone .
But 62 percent of the officers who were told the suspect had a gun did the same .
In other words , officers who were told the man had a cellphone were 10 times less likely to shoot an unarmed suspect than those with incorrect information .
( In the scenario where the suspect drew a gun , 100 percent of the officers shot the suspect , regardless of what dispatch told them . )
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results held for all officers no matter what , ” Taylor told me .
“ It didn ’ t matter how much experience you had .
It didn ’ t matter if you were on a SWAT team .
Getting the wrong information universally increased the risk of making an error.
” Findings like this one do not excuse police officers of wrongdoing .
Nor do they suggest that anti-Black racial bias doesn ’ t play a huge role in police shootings — it most certainly does .
What studies like this ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it comes to police violence and aggression , the officer-civilian interaction itself is only part of the story .
Of the 50 million Americans who came into contact with the police in 2015 , about half were the result of citizen-requested police services , usually through an emergency call number .
And 83 of the 153 police killings of unarmed civilians that year began with a 911 call .
Research on the 911 system is scarce and imperfect ( that ’ s putting it lightly ) , so we don ’ t know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contained incorrect information .
But the experts I spoke to mentioned data points — like the proportion of calls downgraded by officers once they arrive on the scene — and examples like the killings of Rice , Francisco Serna , and Fridoon Rawshan Nehad and the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. as evidence of the severity of the problem .
“ We will never know what would have happened to Tamir Rice if the officer had been given a different image of what was happening , ” says Rebecca Neusteter , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University of Chicago ’ s Urban Labs and a senior fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice .
“ But I would like to believe he would have approached that situation very differently if he was aware this could just be a kid playing in the park.
” The emergency call taker who relayed the incorrect information in the Rice case was temporarily suspended by Cleveland ’ s police chief for “ violating protocol.
” But for Neusteter and others who have studied the role of 911 call takers and police dispatchers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Rice killing isn ’ t a one-off example of a bad call taker gone rogue — it is the product of systemic flaws in how call takers are trained that amplify the risk officers perceive when they enter a given situation .
Addressing those flaws will be essential to the success of any police reform agenda .
Emergency call takers also decide whether police should be sent into a given situation in the first place .
Thus , as communities develop alternatives to traditional police response — as many cities are already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that of a public safety quarterback who will be tasked with the all-important role of sending the correct first responders .
Yet call takers are undertrained , underpaid , and underresourced .
They are treated as though their role is no different from that of an administrative assistant .
And they are ignored in most conversations about policing and criminal justice reform .
That ’ s a shame given the essential role they play in our public safety system .
“ 911 call takers are gatekeepers not only for police but the entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We need to start treating them that way .
We can ’ t solve any of our public safety problems without taking care of call takers.
” How the call-taking system can amplify the risk of a dangerous police encounter To understand an error at the center of Tamir Rice ’ s killing , you first have to know how the 911 system works .
When you call 911 to summon police , the person you are talking to is generally neither a police officer nor a dispatcher directly in charge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Instead , you are talking to a call taker who ’ s in charge of collecting the relevant information about the incident and the suspect and then classifying the incident according to a list of predefined categories like “ suspicious person , ” “ breaking and entering , ” or “ active shooter.
” That incident type , along with some descriptive information about the suspect , is forwarded to a police dispatcher , who then relays it to responding officers .
This sounds like a fairly innocuous system .
But according to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and research fellow at the Policing Project at New York University Law School who studies the role of call taking in the criminal justice system , it has a glaring flaw .
Call takers are trained and incentivized to think of minimizing potential safety risk to police officers as their highest priority .
That means if a caller is uncertain or ambiguous — for instance , simultaneously speculating that the event unfolding could be either a man at a park with a gun ( a potential violent threat ) or a kid playing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ innocuous act ) — call takers are more likely to classify the incident as more serious to ensure officers are prepared for the worst-case scenario .
“ There ’ s a huge training emphasis that essentially tells call takers , ‘ You ’ re safer and better off by sending a police over-response , ’ ” Gillooly tells me .
“ The big fear is that you don ’ t send a big enough or serious enough response and something bad happens .
There ’ s no mention of the idea that maybe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really bad outcome.
” This emphasis produces systemic police over-response .
Scholarly research has found that between 20 and 40 percent of all crime calls that 911 call takers enter are downgraded by officers once at the scene .
In other words , officers routinely arrive on the scene primed for a far more dangerous , serious encounter than actually exists .
In some cases , this means officers end up killing unarmed civilians like Rice , Serna , and Nehad , each of whom they were led to believe had weapons .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ sort of humiliation , fear , and aggression that can occur when officers believe they are entering a situation far more serious than it actually is .
“ I think about the current state of call taking and dispatching as a game of Telephone , ” says Neusteter .
“ Often , the end result is very different than the original message .
And that ’ s a huge problem .
Public safety is too important to leave to a game of Telephone.
” The gatekeepers of our criminal justice system 911 call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between police officers and civilians ; they also determine whether police are sent out in the first place .
Some 240 million calls are made to 911 every year .
Tens of millions — possibly hundreds of millions — more are made to non-emergency and alarm lines .
In each case , a call taker ’ s first job is to play the role of gatekeeper : either assign the call to the appropriate first responders or try to resolve the situation on the spot if it does not require immediate assistance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ this gatekeeper function tends to devolve into a just-send-the-police function .
Most jurisdictions have only three types of first responders : fire , medical , and police .
And typically there are narrow , predefined criteria for sending in firefighters or EMTs .
If those criteria haven ’ t been met and the situation can ’ t be easily resolved over the phone , the call taker only has two options : send the police or send no one .
Faced with this choice , call takers will usually opt to send the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ face severe punishment and liability if they don ’ t and something bad happens .
“ There are situations where if it ’ s not a clear-cut need for fire or ambulance service , sending law enforcement is the only legitimate response , ” says April Heinze , a former call taker and call center director , and current 911 operations director for the National Emergency Number Association ( NENA ) .
“ That ’ s not because the call taker wants to send police — they are constrained by local protocol.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and researcher , says she rarely denied police services no matter how benign the situation seemed .
She describes a call from someone who found it suspicious that an older Asian man was walking on the side of the road ; another about a dispute over a pet peacock defecating on a neighbor ’ s front lawn ; and one from a man who felt uncomfortable at the bus station because a Black teenager ’ s jeans were hanging too low .
“ In most of these cases , sending the police is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Gillooly tells me .
“ The informal motto among most call takers is , ‘ When in doubt , send them out.
’ ” Sending police to situations like these can have devastating consequences .
That ’ s why a central plank of the “ defund the police ” campaign is to reimagine public safety such that police are no longer the default response to all of society ’ s ills .
Instead , activists point to a variety of potential non-police first responders , from trained mediators to crisis specialists to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suited to address problems like homelessness , mental illness , and traffic accidents .
In the wake of recent protests against police violence , cities like San Francisco , Oakland , Portland , Denver , Minneapolis , Albuquerque , and Los Angeles are developing their own civilian first responder programs .
And Sens .
Ron Wyden ( D-OR ) and Catherine Cortez Masto ( D-NV ) recently introduced the CAHOOTS Act — named after the much-applauded initiative in Eugene , Oregon , that sends unarmed crisis specialists instead of police to address noncriminal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government support for such programs .
But even if these alternative programs are successful politically , they will only succeed logistically if 911 call takers can clearly distinguish between incidents that require sending in police and those that don ’ t .
“ We expect our call takers to make really important judgment calls , ” says Steve Zeedyk , a call center supervisor in Eugene who works closely with Cahoots .
“ There are many jurisdictions where if someone calls and wants an officer , they get an officer .
Our call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to determine whether police really are the right response .
That ’ s why we ’ re able to make good decisions deploying the resources we have.
” My conversations with Zeedyk and others made clear that 911 call takers will be crucial to the success of any non-police response efforts .
“ The 911 system needs to be part of the conversation as cities think about how to set up alternate public safety initiatives , ” says Ayesha Delany-Brumsey , director of the Behavioral Health Division at the Council of State Governments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to make consequential decisions about what responders get called in where.
” How to fix our 911 system A few modest changes and investments could go a long way toward addressing the 911 system ’ s tendencies to default to police and amplify the risk of police over-response .
As Gillooly points out in a recent paper on the subject , the technology that call takers use to transfer call information could be redesigned to include fields that capture a situation ’ s level of ambiguity and uncertainty , signaling quickly to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ ve been given may be wrong .
Training for call takers could be more comprehensive and include a greater emphasis on asking clarifying questions — like “ are you sure that the gun is real ?
” — before classifying an incident .
And incentives for call takers more broadly could be changed to incorporate the social costs of sending a police over-response .
A more sweeping solution would be to invest in significantly upgrading the technology that 911 call takers use .
Imagine how many problems with the current 911 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could receive pictures or videos of a given situation as it is happening and then forward them directly to the responding officer — or use them to determine that police aren ’ t needed for the situation at all .
That ’ s part of the vision behind “ Next Generation 911 , ” an initiative spearheaded by the US Department of Transportation ’ s National 911 Program to upgrade the emergency call system nationwide .
According to experts at NENA , the biggest obstacle to Next Gen 911 deployment is inadequate funding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jurisdictions in the US were slated to have Next Gen core services by the end of 2020 and 85 percent by 2025 ; however , the pandemic ’ s impacts on state and local government budgets may create a shortfall of funding and thus delay deployment .
A modest federal investment could change that .
According to the National 911 program , the cost of national deployment of Next Gen 911 comes out to about $ 12 billion over five to 10 years , a relatively small drop in the bucket of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about time to move 911 technology into the 21st century , ” says Brian Fontes , CEO of NENA .
“ With so many 911 calls originating from smartphones , there is so much potential information we could gather that is essential to responding to an emergency.
” Call centers could also implement “ criteria-based dispatching , ” a script-based set of questions that guide the call-taking process .
This would mean that both the level of police response and whether police are sent in at all would be left up to predefined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the call taker , which could be subject to all kinds of momentary biases .
The criteria-based dispatching model is often used in medical and firefighting dispatching centers and has been credited with curbing over-response .
The approach is being piloted for policing in a handful of cities including Seattle , Tucson , Houston , and Washington , DC .
With criteria-based dispatching , the important consideration is to draw the criteria boundaries such that police forces aren ’ t the default response .
For instance , in Seattle , part of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ suspicious activities ” and “ suspicious persons ” ; if the caller can ’ t definitively name a specific suspect behavior that a given person is engaging in , the call taker does not dispatch police .
Some places have gone a step further .
Houston 911 call-taking scripts involve mandatory questions to assess whether the given incident involves someone experiencing a mental health crisis .
If a case does involve a mental health component , it is flagged for dispatchers .
And for those cases , the city employs a handful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dispatchers and help them determine the appropriate first response : a civilian clinician team , a co-response team of police and clinicians , or a police team .
The result is that of the 40,000-plus calls that were flagged by call takers as having a mental health component in 2019 , only 0.5 percent ended in an arrest , according to Wendy Baimbridge , assistant chief of the Houston police ’ s mental health division .
That ’ s partly because Houston sometimes sends non-police first responders , but it ’ s also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ situations , they are fully aware that what they are dealing with is probably a mental health crisis .
“ Call takers can ’ t possibly train for everything , ” says Baimbridge .
“ And they certainly don ’ t have the time to do a full mental health assessment .
That ’ s why we need mental health clinicians on the floor to play that role.
” Of course , without the availability of non-police first responders , reforms like these will only go so far .
For the many situations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , call takers can ’ t do much except call the police unless they have alternatives available .
In addition to these specific reforms , the experts I spoke with called for a cultural shift in how we as a society view , compensate , and treat emergency call takers and dispatchers .
Only 20 states have even minimum training requirements for call takers and dispatchers , and even fewer provide funding for that training .
In most states , call takers make less than $ 50,000 per year with scant benefits .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ stress levels , and PTSD from their work .
“ The 911 system has been completely undervalued , underfunded , and underresourced for 50 years , ” says Neusteter .
“ The technology is terrible .
The training , benefits , and occupational standards are subpar .
Call takers have not been set up for success institutionally.
” That ’ s a shame because call takers are the first point of contact , the most common reference point , and the gatekeeper for our entire criminal justice system .
As cities and communities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change policing , it ’ s more important than ever they invest in 911 call centers that are better equipped , better trained , and better suited to handle the range of responsibilities they will be tasked with .
“ Over the years , 911 has been treated as a stepchild of the public safety community , ” says Fontes .
“ That needs to change.
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Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black child, was playing with a toy pellet gun in a Cleveland park when a police car arrived on the scene. Within moments of exiting his squad car, officer Timothy Loehmann shot and killed Rice. The surveillance video of the November 2014 shooting garnered worldwide attention, and Rice remains a symbol for the Black Lives Matter movement.
As is the case with many high-profile police killings, most after-the-fact reports focused on the incident itself and the officer’s record: Why didn’t Loehmann give any warning before shooting? Would he have done the same to a white child? Why was the officer hired in the first place, given he had been deemed unfit for duty by a different police department?
These are legitimate questions. But it’s possible the most important factor in Rice’s killing was what happened in the moments before the police officer arrived on the scene.
Like the majority of police killings of unarmed civilians, this incident began with a 911 call. The civilian who called 911 on Rice initially reported a Black male with a gun in a park, but then clarified the initial description, saying that Tamir is “probably a juvenile” and that the weapon is “probably fake.” However, according to police records, that clarifying information did not get passed on to responding officers. All the information Loehmann and his partner heard from their dispatcher was, “We have a Code 1” — the department’s highest level of urgency.
That error may have been the difference between life and death for a child.
When Paul Taylor, a former police officer, use-of-force training instructor, and now a criminologist at the University of Colorado Denver, found out that the 911 dispatch information about Rice had been wrong, he decided to run an experiment.
Taylor put 300 police officers representing 18 agencies in two states through an interactive firearms training simulator. All the officers were told about a “possible trespass in progress.” Then some were told that the “subject appears to be holding a gun” and others that the “subject appears to be talking on a cellphone.”
When the officers arrived at the scene, they saw a man matching the description of the suspect with his hands in his jacket pockets. For half the volunteers, the man quickly pulled a cellphone out of his pocket to film the officers; for the other half, the man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at them. The officers had to make a split-second decision to shoot or not shoot, with their virtual lives at stake.
The results were dramatic. Six percent of officers who had been advised that the subject appeared to be talking on a cellphone ended up shooting the man who attempted to film them with his phone. But 62 percent of the officers who were told the suspect had a gun did the same. In other words, officers who were told the man had a cellphone were 10 times less likely to shoot an unarmed suspect than those with incorrect information. (In the scenario where the suspect drew a gun, 100 percent of the officers shot the suspect, regardless of what dispatch told them.)
“What blew me away is that these results held for all officers no matter what,” Taylor told me. “It didn’t matter how much experience you had. It didn’t matter if you were on a SWAT team. Getting the wrong information universally increased the risk of making an error.”
Findings like this one do not excuse police officers of wrongdoing. Nor do they suggest that anti-Black racial bias doesn’t play a huge role in police shootings — it most certainly does. What studies like this (and others) demonstrate is that when it comes to police violence and aggression, the officer-civilian interaction itself is only part of the story.
Of the 50 million Americans who came into contact with the police in 2015, about half were the result of citizen-requested police services, usually through an emergency call number. And 83 of the 153 police killings of unarmed civilians that year began with a 911 call. Research on the 911 system is scarce and imperfect (that’s putting it lightly), so we don’t know for certain how many of these calls contained incorrect information. But the experts I spoke to mentioned data points — like the proportion of calls downgraded by officers once they arrive on the scene — and examples like the killings of Rice, Francisco Serna, and Fridoon Rawshan Nehad and the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. as evidence of the severity of the problem.
“We will never know what would have happened to Tamir Rice if the officer had been given a different image of what was happening,” says Rebecca Neusteter, the executive director of the Health Lab at the University of Chicago’s Urban Labs. “But I would like to believe he would have approached that situation very differently if he was aware this could just be a kid playing in the park.”
The emergency call taker who relayed the incorrect information in the Rice case was temporarily suspended by Cleveland’s police chief for “violating protocol.” But for Neusteter and others who have studied the role of 911 call takers and police dispatchers within the American criminal justice system, the Rice killing isn’t a one-off example of a bad call taker gone rogue — it is the product of systemic flaws in how call takers are trained that amplify the risk officers perceive when they enter a given situation. Addressing those flaws will be essential to the success of any police reform agenda.
Emergency call takers also decide whether police should be sent into a given situation in the first place. Thus, as communities develop alternatives to traditional police response — as many cities are already doing — their role may evolve into that of a public safety quarterback who will be tasked with the all-important role of sending the correct first responders.
Yet call takers are undertrained, underpaid, and underresourced. They are treated as though their role is no different from that of an administrative assistant. And they are ignored in most conversations about policing and criminal justice reform. That’s a shame given the essential role they play in our public safety system.
“911 call takers are gatekeepers not only for police but the entire criminal justice system,” says Neusteter. “We need to start treating them that way. We can’t solve any of our public safety problems without taking care of call takers.”
How the call-taking system can amplify the risk of a dangerous police encounter
To understand an error at the center of Tamir Rice’s killing, you first have to know how the 911 system works.
When you call 911 to summon police, the person you are talking to is generally neither a police officer nor a dispatcher directly in charge of sending police to a scene. Instead, you are talking to a call taker who’s in charge of collecting the relevant information about the incident and the suspect and then classifying the incident according to a list of predefined categories like “suspicious person,” “breaking and entering,” or “active shooter.” That incident type, along with some descriptive information about the suspect, is forwarded to a police dispatcher, who then relays it to responding officers.
This sounds like a fairly innocuous system. But according to Jessica Gillooly, a former call taker and research fellow at the Policing Project at New York University Law School who studies the role of call taking in the criminal justice system, it has a glaring flaw. Call takers are trained and incentivized to think of minimizing potential safety risk to police officers as their highest priority. That means if a caller is uncertain or ambiguous — for instance, simultaneously speculating that the event unfolding could be either a man at a park with a gun (a potential violent threat) or a kid playing with a toy gun (a clearly innocuous act) — call takers are more likely to classify the incident as more serious to ensure officers are prepared for the worst-case scenario.
Related What the police really believe
“There’s a huge training emphasis that essentially tells call takers, ‘You’re safer and better off by sending a police over-response,’” Gillooly tells me. “The big fear is that you don’t send a big enough or serious enough response and something bad happens. There’s no mention of the idea that maybe sending an over-response could also produce a really bad outcome.”
This emphasis produces systemic police over-response. Scholarly research has found that between 20 and 40 percent of all crime calls that 911 call takers enter are downgraded by officers once at the scene. In other words, officers routinely arrive on the scene primed for a far more dangerous, serious encounter than actually exists.
In some cases, this means officers end up killing unarmed civilians like Rice, Serna, and Nehad, each of whom they were led to believe had weapons. More commonly, the result is the sort of humiliation, fear, and aggression that can occur when officers believe they are entering a situation far more serious than it actually is.
“I think about the current state of call taking and dispatching as a game of Telephone,” says Neusteter. “Often, the end result is very different than the original message. And that’s a huge problem. Public safety is too important to leave to a game of Telephone.”
The gatekeepers of our criminal justice system
911 call takers don’t just impact incidents between police officers and civilians; they also determine whether police are sent out in the first place.
Some 240 million calls are made to 911 every year. Tens of millions — possibly hundreds of millions — more are made to non-emergency and alarm lines. In each case, a call taker’s first job is to play the role of gatekeeper: either assign the call to the appropriate first responders or try to resolve the situation on the spot if it does not require immediate assistance.
In the real world, however, this gatekeeper function tends to devolve into a just-send-the-police function. Most jurisdictions have only three types of first responders: fire, medical, and police. And typically there are narrow, predefined criteria for sending in firefighters or EMTs. If those criteria haven’t been met and the situation can’t be easily resolved over the phone, the call taker only has two options: send the police or send no one.
Faced with this choice, call takers will usually opt to send the police for a simple reason: They face severe punishment and liability if they don’t and something bad happens.
“There are situations where if it’s not a clear-cut need for fire or ambulance service, sending law enforcement is the only legitimate response,” says April Heinze, a former call taker and call center director, and current 911 operations director for the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). “That’s not because the call taker wants to send police — they are constrained by local protocol.”
Gillooly, the former 911 call taker and researcher, says she rarely denied police services no matter how benign the situation seemed. She describes a call from someone who found it suspicious that an older Asian man was walking on the side of the road; another about a dispute over a pet peacock defecating on a neighbor’s front lawn; and one from a man who felt uncomfortable at the bus station because a Black teenager’s jeans were hanging too low.
“In most of these cases, sending the police is the only option you really have,” Gillooly tells me. “The informal motto among most call takers is, ‘When in doubt, send them out.’”
Sending police to situations like these can have devastating consequences. That’s why a central plank of the “defund the police” campaign is to reimagine public safety such that police are no longer the default response to all of society’s ills. Instead, activists point to a variety of potential non-police first responders, from trained mediators to crisis specialists to community patrols, that would be better suited to address problems like homelessness, mental illness, and traffic accidents.
In the wake of recent protests against police violence, cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles are developing their own civilian first responder programs. And Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) recently introduced the CAHOOTS Act — named after the much-applauded initiative in Eugene, Oregon, that sends unarmed crisis specialists instead of police to address noncriminal 911 calls — that would provide federal government support for such programs.
But even if these alternative programs are successful politically, they will only succeed logistically if 911 call takers can clearly distinguish between incidents that require sending in police and those that don’t.
“We expect our call takers to make really important judgment calls,” says Steve Zeedyk, a call center supervisor in Eugene who works closely with Cahoots. “There are many jurisdictions where if someone calls and wants an officer, they get an officer. Our call takers screen at a much higher level to determine whether police really are the right response. That’s why we’re able to make good decisions deploying the resources we have.”
My conversations with Zeedyk and others made clear that 911 call takers will be crucial to the success of any non-police response efforts. “The 911 system needs to be part of the conversation as cities think about how to set up alternate public safety initiatives,” says Ayesha Delany-Brumsey, director of the Behavioral Health Division at the Council of State Governments Justice Center. “Call takers are going to make consequential decisions about what responders get called in where.”
How to fix our 911 system
A few modest changes and investments could go a long way toward addressing the 911 system’s tendencies to default to police and amplify the risk of police over-response.
As Gillooly points out in a recent paper on the subject, the technology that call takers use to transfer call information could be redesigned to include fields that capture a situation’s level of ambiguity and uncertainty, signaling quickly to the dispatcher and police that the information they’ve been given may be wrong. Training for call takers could be more comprehensive and include a greater emphasis on asking clarifying questions — like “are you sure that the gun is real?” — before classifying an incident. And incentives for call takers more broadly could be changed to incorporate the social costs of sending a police over-response.
A more sweeping solution would be to invest in significantly upgrading the technology that 911 call takers use. Imagine how many problems with the current 911 system would be mitigated if call takers could receive pictures or videos of a given situation as it is happening and then forward them directly to the responding officer — or use them to determine that police aren’t needed for the situation at all. That’s part of the vision behind “Next Generation 911,” an initiative spearheaded by the US Department of Transportation’s National 911 Program to upgrade the emergency call system nationwide.
According to experts at NENA, the biggest obstacle to Next Gen 911 deployment is inadequate funding. Before Covid-19, about half of jurisdictions in the US were slated to have Next Gen core services by the end of 2020 and 85 percent by 2025; however, the pandemic’s impacts on state and local government budgets may create a shortfall of funding and thus delay deployment.
A modest federal investment could change that. According to the National 911 program, the cost of national deployment of Next Gen 911 comes out to about $12 billion over five to 10 years, a relatively small drop in the bucket of the federal budget.
“It’s about time to move 911 technology into the 21st century,” says Brian Fontes, CEO of NENA. “With so many 911 calls originating from smartphones, there is so much potential information we could gather that is essential to responding to an emergency.”
Call centers could also implement “criteria-based dispatching,” a script-based set of questions that guide the call-taking process. This would mean that both the level of police response and whether police are sent in at all would be left up to predefined criteria instead of the subjective discretion of the call taker, which could be subject to all kinds of momentary biases. The criteria-based dispatching model is often used in medical and firefighting dispatching centers and has been credited with curbing over-response. The approach is being piloted for policing in a handful of cities including Seattle, Tucson, Houston, and Washington, DC.
With criteria-based dispatching, the important consideration is to draw the criteria boundaries such that police forces aren’t the default response. For instance, in Seattle, part of the dispatch criteria makes a strict distinction between “suspicious activities” and “suspicious persons”; if the caller can’t definitively name a specific suspect behavior that a given person is engaging in, the call taker does not dispatch police.
Some places have gone a step further. Houston 911 call-taking scripts involve mandatory questions to assess whether the given incident involves someone experiencing a mental health crisis. If a case does involve a mental health component, it is flagged for dispatchers. And for those cases, the city employs a handful of mental health clinicians to sit with dispatchers and help them determine the appropriate first response: a civilian clinician team, a co-response team of police and clinicians, or a police team.
The result is that of the 40,000-plus calls that were flagged by call takers as having a mental health component in 2019, only 0.5 percent ended in an arrest, according to Wendy Baimbridge, assistant chief of the Houston police’s mental health division. That’s partly because Houston sometimes sends non-police first responders, but it’s also because when police officers do enter such situations, they are fully aware that what they are dealing with is probably a mental health crisis.
“Call takers can’t possibly train for everything,” says Baimbridge. “And they certainly don’t have the time to do a full mental health assessment. That’s why we need mental health clinicians on the floor to play that role.”
Of course, without the availability of non-police first responders, reforms like these will only go so far. For the many situations that require some kind of trained response, call takers can’t do much except call the police unless they have alternatives available.
In addition to these specific reforms, the experts I spoke with called for a cultural shift in how we as a society view, compensate, and treat emergency call takers and dispatchers. Only 20 states have even minimum training requirements for call takers and dispatchers, and even fewer provide funding for that training. In most states, call takers make less than $50,000 per year with scant benefits. And they routinely experience burnout, high stress levels, and PTSD from their work.
“The 911 system has been completely undervalued, underfunded, and underresourced for 50 years,” says Neusteter. “The technology is terrible. The training, benefits, and occupational standards are subpar. Call takers have not been set up for success institutionally.”
That’s a shame because call takers are the first point of contact, the most common reference point, and the gatekeeper for our entire criminal justice system. As cities and communities across the country wrestle with how to change policing, it’s more important than ever they invest in 911 call centers that are better equipped, better trained, and better suited to handle the range of responsibilities they will be tasked with.
“Over the years, 911 has been treated as a stepchild of the public safety community,” says Fontes. “That needs to change.”
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