The Slatest

Head of Police Chiefs Group Apologizes for “Historical Mistreatment of Communities of Color”

Protestors march during disturbances following the police shooting of a man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. August 14, 2016.
Protestors march during disturbances following the police shooting of a man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. August 14, 2016.

Aaron Bernstein/Reuters

Part of what fuels hostility toward law enforcement in this country is the perception that police officers, as a group, won’t acknowledge that some communities have good reason to distrust them. That rather than exhibiting some humility or at least a willingness to accept good-faith criticism, law enforcement instead dismisses that criticism out of hand as hateful, irrational, and uninformed.

That’s why a recent speech by Wellesley, Mass. police chief Terrence Cunningham, who heads the largest police organization in the country, is attracting attention. Delivered at the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the speech amounts to an unequivocal apology to minority groups that have found themselves on the wrong side of law enforcement power throughout American history. Here are Cunningham’s exact words:

There have been times when law enforcement officers, because of the laws enacted by federal, state, and local governments, have been the face of oppression for far too many of our fellow citizens. In the past, the laws adopted by our society have required police officers to perform many unpalatable tasks, such as ensuring legalized discrimination or even denying the basic rights of citizenship to many of our fellow Americans.

While this is no longer the case, this dark side of our shared history has created a multigenerational—almost inherited—mistrust between many communities of color and their law enforcement agencies.

Many officers who do not share this common heritage often struggle to comprehend the reasons behind this historic mistrust. As a result, they are often unable to bridge this gap and connect with some segments of their communities.

While we obviously cannot change the past, it is clear that we must change the future…For our part, the first step is for law enforcement and the IACP to acknowledge and apologize for the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of color.

One could plausibly argue that Cunningham, who is approaching the end of his one-year term at the top of IACP, leaned too heavily into “past sins” and should have gone further toward apologizing for contemporary ones. But he deserves credit for saying the things he did say, if only because in doing so, he risked alienating some of the officers he oversees as chief back home in Wellesley. That’s what it means, in this time of heightened tensions, for a police leader to give even an inch to critics of law enforcement.

Still, it’s hard to see how the spirit of Cunningham’s remarks will filter down to the rank and file officers who actually determine the texture of American policing. The real transformational milestone will be when we hear this kind of thing coming from police union leaders. When those guys start coming around, you’ll know something has changed.