United States | The too few and the less proud

American policing has changed since George Floyd’s murder

It needs to change further, and be better funded

Police guard the entrance of a subway as people protest the death of Jordan Neely, a man whose death has been ruled a homicide by the city's medical examiner after being placed in a chokehold by a fellow passenger on a New York City subway train, in New York City, U.S., May 8, 2023. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly — Image: Reuters

May 25th 2023|Minneapolis

TALK WITH Chris Thomsen and Rick Zimmerman, two longtime homicide investigators with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), and they’ll tell you their job has changed markedly over the past three years. Restrictions now forbid officers from stopping drivers for expired tags or something dangling from a rear-view mirror; those stops often yielded guns, drugs or people evading arrest warrants. A chokehold ban and body-worn-camera footage of every interaction mean officers worry that accidental contact with a suspect’s neck during a physical altercation could be grounds for a lawsuit or dismissal. Prosecutors and jurors used to defer to cops’ words in court; now they demand video or audio evidence.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “The too few and the less proud”