Correlation, not Coincidence

        I have, from time to time, written opinion pieces in which I found that one set of characteristics seemed to coincide with a set of actions to a higher degree than simple random chance would suggest possible. Generally, I have met with no criticism in such cases, as the congruence of the two separate characteristics, beliefs, what have you, was relatively obvious.

        Having said that, I have on a few occasions found such syllogisms riposted with a statement that I have noticed recently seems to be the new “Oh yeah?”  This is a statement, true in the absolute but, too frequently applied whenever one person’s assertion simply conflicts with the other’s personal narrative, that “Correlation does not imply causation.”  There is little doubt that the statement can be relevant in the abstract, but….

        Like Schrodinger’s cat there are examples where it may be true and others where it is not. Here for the sake of illustration are two examples both accepted as factual at the time, one true, one not.  Once upon a time in America there were two pronouncements related to highway fatalities which were proffered at the national level as factual. The first: Teenage drinking led to increased incidence of highway deaths. The second: “speed kills”. Both were supported at the time by that most impartial of juries – Insurance actuaries.

       Consequently, the Federal Government used leverage in the form of threatening to withhold Federal highway monies to states which failed to comply with two “strong suggestions.”  The first was to raise the legal drinking age in the state to 21, in those instances where it was 18.  The second, to lower speed limits to 55, even, initially on Interstates. No brainers, right?

        As it turns out, the number of U.S. teenagers involved in fatal drunk-driving accidents has declined because of laws that raised the legal drinking age to 21. Researchers found that two “core” drinking-age laws which made it illegal for anyone younger than 21 to buy or possess alcohol (passed in all U.S. states in the 1980s) were responsible for an 11 percent decrease in the number of drunk teenage drivers involved in fatal crashes.  Correlation and causation? So it would seem.

       The second “obvious solution turns out to be diametrically disproved. Reams of traffic studies related to speed limit reduction distill down to “Accidents at 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits (statistics, remember?) for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 11 percent to an increase of 26 percent.  Causation/correlation? Not so much, in fact not at all.

        Why am I telling you all this? Simply to show that even with the best of intentions and analytical thinking, assertions which seem logical/rational may be incorrect, in fact, proof of such attempts at causation/correlation usually is provided by evidence of counter causation.

        One more example: Opponents of  HPV vaccination for young  girls as a lifetime protection against cervical cancer initially did so (and some still do) on an assumed, coincidence, that being that protection against cervical cancer would somehow lead to increased teen promiscuity and teen pregnancy. A Canadian study, involving more than a quarter of a million early teens, half of which were vaccinated, half of which were not, yielded this:  “strong statistical and anecdotal evidence that HPV vaccination does not have any significant effect on clinical indicators of sexual behavior among adolescent girls. The results suggest that concerns over increased promiscuity following HPV vaccination are unwarranted and should not deter from vaccinating at a young age.”

        So, what have we learned so far? First, that causality and coincidence may or may not corroborate (or debunk) statements. Second, that tightly held beliefs are not valid indicators of factual result or conditions.

         Now the matter at hand. I see a marked deterioration in US race relations and especially race related violence which coincides with the Trump Presidency. Some will play the “causality and coincidence card” in attempts to distance their worship of All Things Trump from the reality of the current situation as it is playing out in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

        I would posit also, that Trump’s generally vocal use of race baiting language and encouragement of those like him have contributed markedly to this current mess. I would also make the claim that as Congresswoman Val Demings said in yesterday’s WaPo op-ed, there are serious gaps in what is and what should be in Police training.  Finally, I would assert that there are some in positions of power and with the opportunity to use deadly force, who are emotionally and psychologically unfit for such positions.  

        Taking the last statement first: That some personality types should never be in positions to use deadly force (or the correlating observation, that their peers should feel empowered to call attention to any instance where this mental deterioration is apparent, without braking some mythical “code of honor” (the Blue Wall?) which allows such rogues to continue bad actions.

        It isn’t just police I’m referring to. The Military trains men and women in the use of deadly force, I myself did with Submarine topside watch standers. Sadly, the more proficient and senior an individual gets, the more leeway they seem to have to continue bad actions. Individuals who glory in killing are a detriment to any force or service in which they serve.

        Such a one was Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher. Senior Chief Gallagher had been charged in September 2018 with ten offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice over accusations that he had stabbed to death an injured, sedated 17-year-old ISIS prisoner, photographing himself holding the head of the corpse by the hair and sending the photo to friends. He was also accused by fellow Navy SEAL snipers of randomly shooting two Iraqi civilians: a girl walking with her friends on a riverbank; and an unarmed elderly man.

         As we all know, Donald Trump lauded this assassin as a hero, and interceded with the Navy to mitigate the punishment Gallagher deserved. Gallagher was protected by Presidential intervention, while policemen who act similarly have the protection of legal precedent which presupposes the ludicrous position that police are all honorable and therefore any action they deem appropriate is “OK.”

        In the early morning of February 4, 1999, Amadou Diallo was standing near his building after returning from a meal. At about 12:40 a.m., four police officers all in street clothes, passed by in a Ford Taurus. One later testified that Diallo matched the general description of a serial rapist who had struck a year earlier, or that he might have been a "lookout."

        The officers also allege that they loudly identified themselves as NYPD officers, but a witness, testified categorically that they started shooting without warning. The officers claimed that, "Diallo ran up the outside steps toward his apartment house doorway at their approach, ignoring their orders to stop and 'show his hands'. (remember these are 4 guys in street clothes with guns!) The porch lightbulb was out and Diallo was backlit by the inside vestibule light, showing only a silhouette. Diallo then reached into his jacket and withdrew his wallet. Seeing the man holding a small square object, the officers opened fire, claiming that they believed Diallo was holding a gun. During the shooting, the lead officer tripped backward off the front stairs, causing the other officers to believe he had been shot." No objective evidence was presented in support of these allegations. Only the testimony of the defendants. The four officers fired 41 shots with semi-automatic weapons, more than half of which went astray as Diallo was hit 19 times.

       While all four were eventually charged, after a flood of negative public response to their initially being cleared by supervisors, they were eventually found not guilty and found to have been “operating within departmental policy.”

       Ten years earlier when the Central Park Five were being railroaded, future President Trump spent $85,000 on newspaper ads saying: "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY AND BRING BACK OUR POLICE.”   He was, apparently less concerned later, by the actual killing of an unarmed black man, remaining mute on the issue. Meanwhile, after being cleared, one of the shooters remained on the force and was actually promoted.

       In 2009 Oscar Grant was shot dead by Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle in 2009 in Oakland, California. Mehserle and other police officers had been responding to reports of a fight and arrested and handcuffed Grant and several others in a subway station. Grant was cuffed, unarmed and lying on the ground when Mehserle pulled out his gun and shot him in the back. In court Mehserle claimed he thought his gun was his Taser. He was sentenced to two years in jail and let out on parole in June 2011.

        Robert Davis, a retired schoolteacher, was beaten and arrested by four police in New Orleans. He was 64 at the time of the assault in 2005. The beating was captured by passing Associated Press journalists, one of whom was also beaten by police. He was accused of public drunkenness. One officer was fired over the incident, one was suspended, and another was acquitted of all charges. None were prosecuted! Davis said he was teetotaler and had not had a drink for at least 25 years.

        A 2018 study by Boston University School of Medicine, cites  socioeconomic factors such as poverty, unemployment, education, and segregation which create disparities and connections to police who commit serious crimes almost exclusively  in minority communities where the police shootings of unarmed African-American/Black males continue to increase.

       About 70% of the victims of police brutality in the United States who are African American/Black were suspected of a non-violent crime and were unarmed as reported in 2017. Newsweek reported in 2018 that African Americans/Blacks are three times more likely to be a victim of police shootings than those of other races. Currently, according to the Washington Post, an average of two fatal police shootings take place in the U.S. every day.

        I could go on, but you either get the picture or don’t want to. The reasons this bad behavior are severalfold, most social, one critical one, however, is legal.

        Obviously, racial bias is a huge factor, with officer training and the Blue Wall of silent support a close second. A friend and former student of mine is a law enforcement officer like both his parents before him.  He uses the term “badge heavy” to describe those cops who see in the badge and the authority it confers, the opportunity to be what (and wouldn’t you like to see an academic  study on this?) they were in their younger days – bullies. I would posit that much of what we see today is the result of persons like this becoming bad actors in the military, as cops, or in some cases as mercenaries. One of these persons placed in a training position can pollute much of an individual department. Former Orlando Chief Val Demings, a black women,  says it thus:  “As a nation, we must conduct a serious review of hiring standards and practices, diversity, training, use-of-force policies, pay and benefits (remember, you get what you pay for), early warning programs, and recruit training programs. Remember, officers who train police recruits are setting the standard for what is acceptable and unacceptable on the street.”

        Hiring standards and practices is critical, but so is the continued scrutiny and “self-policing” which ensures the willingness to call a bad apple what it is, vice close ranks. Bad cops (and bad SEALS) disgrace themselves, the uniform and the force. Protecting them is, in my estimation in and of itself, criminal in nature.

        I’ll skip to the legal issue and return with one last social commentary which is really the focus of this entire exercise.

        That legal issue is the concept of  Qualified Immunity – “The  legal doctrine in United States federal law that shields government officials from being sued for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity, unless their actions violated "clearly established" federal law or constitutional rights.”  For police officers, qualified immunity is designed to protect all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law. Law enforcement officers are entitled to qualified immunity when their actions do not violate a clearly established statutory or constitutional right. 

        As objection to the almost unfailing application of this  “shield,” justified or not, increases in the wake of more recent bad behaviors, an increasingly broad coalition says the doctrine has become “a nearly failsafe tool to let police brutality go unpunished and deny victims their constitutional rights”. In recent years this doctrine has been upheld by high court decisions which seem to be no-brainers, but consistently seem to protect all cops who err, guilty or not of incompetence or far worse. The Supreme Court has more recently indicated it is aware of the mounting criticism of its treatment of qualified immunity.

        Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the court’s most liberal members, and, (surprisingly to me) Justice Clarence Thomas, its most conservative, have in recent opinions sharply criticized qualified immunity and the court’s role in expanding it. In a dissent to a 2018 ruling, Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote that the majority’s decision favoring the cops tells police that “they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished.”

       In 2017, Justice Sotomayor in another dissent called out her fellow justices for a “disturbing trend” of favoring police, writing:  “We have not hesitated to summarily reverse courts for wrongly denying officers the protection of qualified immunity, but we rarely intervene where courts wrongly afford officers the benefit of qualified immunity.”   In this case, she was referring to a majority’s decision not to hear an appeal brought by Ricardo Salazar-Limon, who was unarmed when a Houston police officer shot him in the back, leaving him paralyzed. A lower court had granted the officer immunity.

       An independent analysis by Reuters researchers supports Sotomayor’s criticisms of the biased application of justice in such cases. Over the past 15 years, The Supremes heard 12 appeals of qualified immunity decisions from police, but only three from plaintiffs, even though plaintiffs had petitioned the court to review nearly as many cases as police did. The court’s acceptance rate for police appeals seeking immunity was three times its average acceptance rate for all appeals. In the cases it accepts, the court nearly always decides in favor of police. The high court has also “put its thumb on the scale” in several ways.  It has allowed police to request immunity before all evidence has been presented. And if police are denied immunity, they can appeal immediately – unlike most other litigants, who generally must wait until after a final judgment to appeal.  University of Chicago law professor William Baude, expresses it thusly: “You get the impression that the officers are always supposed to win, and the plaintiffs are supposed to lose.”

       Of course, with a biased court featuring two “new” Justices nominated by the current administration, we probably shouldn’t be surprised.

        Now here’s the graphic which stimulated this rather long op-ed.

        The above shows that from 2005-2007 courts hearing excessive force complaints typically granted relief to complainants by a 12% margin during that span, A Republican administration. While George W. Bush was several things I didn’t care for, I would never place “bigot” among them. Barack Obama was in the unique position, as a Black man, of being affected and concerned by police excessive force and vocal about the need to confront the issue. He also, however, was measured in response and attended one slain officer’s funeral in Texas, where a camera caught Mr. Bush holding Mrs. Obama’s hand.

       Enter 2016 and the campaign waged by committed white supremacist, Steve Bannon and passively acceded to by candidate Donald Trump. Since the election we have been treated to “good people” carrying swastikas and confederate flags while watching their confreres run down counter-protesting pedestrians in Charlottesville, predominately black nations characterized as “Shitholes”, and the list goes on featuring discriminatory acts and verbiage against persons of color, including some in Congress. As the graphic clearly indicates, over the 2-year period 2017-2019, the courts have shifted to favoring Police 14% more than plaintiffs. Coincidence?

         Trump racism is hardly surprising, and undoubtedly learned at home, as Trump and Trump senior, had expensively settled out of court some years ago on a federal lawsuit regarding their racial profiling of rental applicants. It would seem to me that the tacit (and not so tacit) approbation from Trump has led those in law enforcement who already have biases and personality issues which should have made them un-hirable or at least “fireable” have felt comfortable letting their demons out, no matter the cost.   

        FBI data shows that since Trump’s election there has been an anomalous spike in hate crimes concentrated in counties where Trump won by larger margins. It was the second-largest uptick in hate crimes in the 25 years for which data are available, second only to the spike after September 11, 2001.  

       Based on data collected by the Anti-Defamation League, counties that hosted a Trump campaign rally in 2016 saw hate crime rates more than double compared to similar counties that did not host a rally.

       Most recently and tragically, we see armed men with masks (again, “good people”) attempting to intimidate a state governor while police stand idly by, making no effort to disperse this armed mob. Meanwhile the President himself, unable to refrain from fanning flames in Minneapolis described protestors, using a favorite racist descriptor, as “thugs”. I will bet you Donald Trump has never called a White person a thug.  He probably thinks that the cop who knelt  on George Floyd’s neck until he died was a “good person,” too.   

       Most of what discussed above has centered on correlations; they are suggestive of a link between Trump and racist attitudes and behavior, but do not actually demonstrate that one leads to the other. However, there is also causal evidence to point to.

        In one survey, researchers randomly exposed some respondents to racist comments by the president, such as:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

        Other respondents were exposed to a statement by Hillary Clinton condemning prejudiced Trump supporters. Later, all respondents were asked their opinion of various groups, including Mexican people, black people, and young people.

       Those who had read Trump’s words were more likely to write derogatory things not only about Mexican people, but also about other groups as well.  By contrast, those who were exposed to Clinton’s words were less likely to express offensive views towards Muslims. Words do matter, and data proves it.

        I would not propose that the Trump years have actually made Americans more racist numerically, since many people I know have actually become are more polarized in opposition to that point of view. What I will state, and believe data proves, is that  that those who might have kept bigoted racist, social, and xenophobic attitudes “under wraps” have become emboldened by the thug in the White House, while those  mentally ill  among us (and yes, I consider racial / sexual/gender preference, etc.  bigotry a mental illness) who were already hateful, and showing it, have felt empowered by the malevolent coach who tweets his encouragement from the sideline.