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From Chokeholds to No-Knock Warrants: Rethinking Controversial Police Practices

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One element dominating headlines in the continuing racial unrest is talk of de-funding police. That's taken attention away from controversial law enforcement tactics that many feel should be eliminated altogether.

Recent events prove some practices are questionable at best, illegal, and potentially deadly at worst.

"I call everybody my 'baby,' you're like my son," said City of Richmond officer Carol Adams. "That's the only way I can look at the community, as if they're blood-related to me and so that means that they trust me, they trust me to hear what they're saying."
 
Adams has been patrolling the streets of Richmond, Virginia for more than 20 years.  She was personally and professionally horrified by the George Floyd killing.
 
"Me, as a mother, yes – outraged by what I saw," Adams said.

"And we're really, really frustrated because we work really hard to build relationships with our community and all it takes is one incident like that and so many others for everybody to lump us together.
 
It began with the video difficult to watch and unforgettable once seen. A police tactical hold, legal at the time in Minneapolis, that led to George Floyd's death.

Mike Jones is a retired police chief and law enforcement officer with more than 40 years of experience. 

"Putting his knee on his neck and sitting there in a relatively calm position tells you he should have gotten off of him," Jones said. 
 
He believes the arresting officer reaches a point of caretaker rather than an enforcer.
 
"And the moment a person is handcuffed he becomes your personal responsibility as a police officer. You have to take care of that person."
 
Similar pictures and chilling words happened six years earlier as police held a black man in a chokehold. Eric Garner, arrested in New York City for illegally selling cigarettes, died after officers used the tactic already banned by their department.
 
Rev. Markel Hutchins is a community activist based in Atlanta, Georgia.
 
"I do personally think chokeholds should be outlawed, and we should never again in America see a person who supposed to be a professional put their knee on anyone's neck," Hutchins said.
 
Another controversial tactic facing backlash, no-knock warrants. We've seen how they can go wrong, especially in Louisville, Kentucky where police kicked in the door of Breonna Taylor's apartment back in March. Believing it was an illegal break-in because of no verbal identification from officers, Taylor's boyfriend fired his legally registered gun. Police responded with 20 rounds killing 26-year-old Taylor. 
 
In 2006, Atlanta Police rushed into the house of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston and shot her to death after she also fired her registered gun in fear. Turns out police had the wrong house.
 
"What ultimately killed Kathryn Johnston was the lie that was told to obtain the no-knock warrant," Hutchins said. "So, I think the key is making sure there are legislative parameters and real restrictions and requirements placed on their usage."
 
Adams believes a big part of the answer lies in national standards like those recommended by the President's Task Force on 21st century policing created after the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri,
 
The 2014 report focused on areas such as building trust and legitimacy, policy and oversight, community policing, training and education, and officers' wellness and safety.
 
"Now it's time to make it something that everyone has to buy into, every department should be regulated," Adams said.
 
She admits, however, regulating policy is one thing, regulating the heart is another. 
 
"If an officer really sees both consciously and subconsciously the humanity in the person they're policing, they simply wouldn't be able to put them in a chokehold," Hutchins said.
 
"It's also going to take an investment in the type of people we bring into the police department," Jones said.
 
Dr. Patrick Oliver agrees. He is the Director of the Criminal Justice Program at Cedarville University, a Christian college in Ohio. He says officers must be selected carefully.
 
This job is only for people who are honorable men {and wome}, who love truth, who will judge rightly, and will do what is right," Oliver said.
 
Experts say better training and more checks and balances will also help lessen these deadly incidents that we've seen. Also, they say, the standard has to be set and enforced from the top down.
 

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About The Author

Eric
Philips

Eric Philips is the White House Correspondent for CBN News and is based in the network’s Washington DC bureau. There he keeps close tabs on the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice, breaking down any international or domestic threats to the United States. Prior to his tenure at CBN, Eric was an Anchor and Consumer Investigative Reporter for the NBC affiliate in Richmond, Virginia. While there, he won an Emmy for best morning newscast. In addition, Eric has covered news for local stations in Atlanta, Charlotte, Norfolk, and Salisbury, MD. He also served for five years as a