Cops’ Wall of Silence Seen as Intact Even After Chauvin Verdict

The image of Derek Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s neck briefly cracked the vaunted Blue Wall of Silence, but police reformers say the murder conviction may not do much to change law enforcement’s reluctance to call out its bad actors.

Rehabilitating a police culture that prizes solidarity and views outsiders with extreme skepticism will take more than one galvanizing incident where even police unions praised the guilty verdict, reformers said.

Facing new calls for public accountability and the prospect of losing legal shields for violating civil rights in several states, police departments intent on cleaning up their ranks need to create a culture where officers feel comfortable calling out wrongdoing, according to advocates for better policing. Leaders at the very top—like Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo who took the stand against one of his own—have to set the tone and ensure that whistleblowers—especially Black officers—won’t face retaliation for going public.

Otherwise, reformers say, the temptation to view Chauvin’s actions as a one-off event and backslide into old habits will be hard to resist. Minneapolis police officers faced heavy public scrutiny to speak up, attorneys said.

“They had to do something because it was either Chauvin or them,” said Jilisa Milton, an attorney and BLM Birmingham member.

‘A Leadership Decision’

Arradondo’s April 5 testimony that Chauvin’s actions “absolutely” violated the city’s police policy was a bombshell in the trial—and something good policing advocates say they rarely see. The chief’s testimony sent a clear message to other officers in the department that they could come forward against one of their own.

“This was a leadership decision. It was leadership by example. And that made it safe for his department to come out and testify as they did,” said Lenese Herbert, professor at Howard University School of Law and former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Being the first person of color to be a head of the Minneapolis police may also have been a factor in Arradondo’s decision to testify after the city grappled with social justice protests and riots in the wake of Floyd’s murder, Herbert said.

“What you have to do when you’re the only one, the first one—he understood that,” she said. “Too many generations have gone on where people of color didn’t speak up and couldn’t speak up.”

Nothing stops white police chiefs from taking the same steps, but many “don’t need the headache” and fear the potential blowback, Herbert said.

Immediately after Chauvin’s verdict was announced, some police groups pushed back on the need for further oversight and reforms. The conviction proved that accountability measures are already in place, they argued.

“At the most basic, a man lost his life needlessly at the hands of an officer,” the National Association of Police Organizations said in a statement immediately after the verdict. “At the same time, the assertions by so many who wish to demonize all police officers because of the actions of one officer have been shown to be hollow.”

Several police organizations declined to comment further.

Black or Blue

For Black police officers, who often feel pressure to shed their identities when they don the uniform, Arradondo taking the stand was a small positive step.

“This is going to be a step by step process,” said Shawn Kennedy, information officer of the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers and a former sergeant in the Chicago Police Department.

“You might have some officers who feel more empowered to do something,” Kennedy said. But others may “feel like, ‘I know this is the right thing I should do, but I also know the reality of these people who I work with.’”

The Blue Wall of Silence “goes back to the beginning of policing. We’re supposed to support each other and understand each other,” said Lynda R. Williams, national president of The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

“However, as we move forward, we cannot ignore the behavior that we see that has become the norm. Now, these things have always existed, but now that they’re being documented by cameras and body cameras, it’s harder to hide. When you see something as egregious and heinous and inhumane as what we saw when Officer Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes, that’s unacceptable.”

Breaching the Blue Wall can be especially perilous for Black officers. Kennedy and Williams pointed to Cariol Horne, a Black former police officer in Buffalo, N.Y., who in 2006 stopped a white colleague from “choking out” a handcuffed Black man. Her fellow officer struck her in the face, forcing other police at the scene to separate the two. Horne was terminated in 2008, just months before she was eligible for her pension.

Buffalo in 2019 enacted a law to protect officers from retaliation that Horne had pushed since her dismissal. Horne recently won reinstatement of pension, but her firing sent a clear signal to police, Kennedy said.

“That sent an unwritten message to other officers—never cross that thin blue line,” he said. “Even for the officers who want to intervene, they may think, ‘If Horne did the right thing and she actually saved someone’s life, but the department still terminated her, why should we stick our neck out and do what we know we are mandated to do when we know that this is going to happen?’”

Temptation to Backslide

Police may face additional pressure to clean themselves up after the Attorney General Merrick Garland announced April 22 the Justice Department will probe Minneapolis police practices in light of Floyd’s murder. Reviving federal oversight, which had waned under President Donald Trump, could mean consent decrees forcing police departments to change their practices.

“Without that participation of other police officers, we’re going to slide back to where we were before this trial,” said Arthur Ago, director of the Criminal Justice Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “We will see if that’s what happens.”