So Far, Police Reform Hasn't Stopped Police Violence

Just last week, in Charlotte, NC, Keith Lamont Scott was fatally shot by police, and disruptive protests followed in the city amidst conflicting narratives. The police said Scott had a gun and his family insists that he didn't—and commenters have pointed out that it's not unheard of for police to plant a gun on an unarmed black man. That people are suspicious of the official report and that people—not just in North Carolina—are responding to the ongoing violence against them with anger is understandable: There are virtually no reasons left for the black community to trust cops. Time and time again, it's been proven to people of color that the police aren't for their protection. (A recent court ruling said that black men have a legitimate reason to run from the police.) And as of yesterday, it's confirmed that black people can't even count on the police not to kill them during a medical emergency.

There have been calls for police reform, demilitarization, and transparency across the country since Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson in 2014. The problem is that it's not exactly clear whether that reform is working or even happening; it seems like a person of color is murdered by the police daily and there are no consequences.

In Charlotte, the Washington Post reports, police reform started three years ago after Jonathan Ferrell was killed by an officer. Ferrell, a college football player who was black, got in a car accident and pulled himself out of the wreckage, hurt. He tried knocking on the door of a nearby house for help, but apparently he scared the residents, who assumed they were victims of a home invasion. They called the police, and an officer shot Ferrell 10 times, claiming the injured student posed a threat. In the aftermath, the Charlotte police chief admitted that the officer, Randall Kerrick, "did not have the lawful right to discharge his weapon," but a grand jury declined to indict him.

The Charlotte police have since vowed to be better and initiated a training program for their officers. Brentley Vinson, the cop who killed Keith Lamont Scott, had gone through one of those new programs and had been "been trained on ways to de-escalate tense encounters with citizens," but it apparently didn't stop him from using fatal force. The Washington Post notes that most reforms in the city—from police-review boards to cultural training that officers most have yet to complete—seem to be of little help so far.

The El Cajon he police department, too, has committed to being better. They have been previously accused of racial profiling to meet arrest quotas and when the new police chief, Jeff Davis, took over, he asserted his dedication to "evolving" the police department, including improving how the police deal with encounters with the mentally ill and San Diego's diverse population. "[We've] evolved to the 21st century Police Department and our training and our attitude towards community involvement and it's more prevalent now than ever before," Davis said in a local news interview in December 2015. He also discussed his support of body cameras—which the police department has discussed implementing since 2014—but to date the El Cajon police has not been equipped with them; the officer who fatally shot Olango was not wearing one.

There seems to be a pretty drastic disconnect between how police departments view what constitutes successful reform and what will actually stop police violence against people of color. The final report from President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing has been called a "roadmap for reform," but it doesn't appear that many police departments are following that roadmap. It recommends that law enforcement officials publish demographic data on all stops and arrests, adopt policies that prohibit racial profiling, conduct independent criminal investigations into officers involved in fatal shootings, and work to seriously build positive relationships with the communities they are in, among other things—but there's no way to enforce any of these guidelines, rendering the plan a mere collection of suggestions. According to Time, only 15 police departments have agreed to implement them. There are 18,000 police departments in the US.

But even federal oversight might not be enough. Another article in the Washington Post notes that the Department of Justice has overseen reform in 16 police departments that had a pattern of civil rights violations and any improvement isn't noticeable. (The Department of Justice declined to comment.) In fact, reform itself might not be enough when policing can be called in earnest "a war against black people."

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the cop who allegedly shot Alfred Olango as a San Diego police officer. He is a El Cajon police officer.