What a Minnesota trial says about police officers’ responsibility to intervene

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• Judy Woodruff:

  This is the fourth week of the trial of three former officers who were on duty with Derek Chauvin when he murdered George Floyd in 2020.

  The officers are on trial for their role in his death and over questions about what they should have done at the time.

  William Brangham focuses on those questions.

• William Brangham:

  Judy, that's right.

  These three former police officers, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng, are charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights. Thao and Kueng are charged with failing to intervene. All three are charged with failing to provide proper medical care.

  For more on this and broader issues of police behavior, I'm joined by Christy Lopez. She oversaw investigations of police departments at the Department of Justice from 2010 to 2017. She now teaches courses on policing at Georgetown University Law Center and co-directs their Innovative Police Program.

  Christy Lopez, very good to have you on the "NewsHour."

  We all watched that nine-plus minutes of video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck. But we also watched those three other officers who were on scene and what they did and did not do in that moment.

  At trial, what have those men been explaining about their behavior that day?

  Christy Lopez, Former Department of Justice Attorney: They seem to be taking two tacks.

  One is to emphasize the hierarchy of the situation, that they were in the presence of a superior officer, and believed they should defer to that officer. And the other tack is that they seem to be saying that they were not trained in a way that would have informed them that they should be intervening.

• William Brangham:

  What does the law generally say about an officer's responsibility to intervene when something is being done that's unlawful?

• Christy Lopez:

  There's been a duty to intervene for over 50 years that makes it very clear that, where an officer knows or should know that someone's constitutional rights are being violated, and has the opportunity to intervene, the officer has a responsibility to take reasonable steps to intervene.

  And it doesn't matter. It's specific. There's an explicit case in the Eighth Circuit, where this trial is being held, that says it doesn't matter if the officer against whom you need to intervene is a superior. It doesn't matter — that any lack of training is not a defense to that. You are supposed — you have a responsibility to intervene regardless.

• William Brangham:

  That rule certainly makes sense.

  But we have seen this in so many workplaces, in the clergy, in medicine, in corporations. But, in policing in particular, this sort of quasi-military hierarchical organization, that's a very difficult stream to swim against, it seems, for junior officers to say to a senior officer, hey, what you're doing is wrong.

• Christy Lopez:

  Yes, that's such an important point.

  Every industry, every field, every walk of life, we all find it hard to intervene. But there are specific what we call inhibitors to intervention that are particular to policing. And one of those inhibitors is the hierarchy of a largely paramilitary organization, right?

  The other is sort of the insularity and this sort of sense that you have to have each other's backs. Both of those can be really powerful inhibitors. And it's really important to make sure that officers understand that they're going to confront those and teach them how to overcome those.

• William Brangham:

  I mean, the officers at trial here, one of them, I know his lawyer said, yes, they were given some training on how to intervene, but it was sort of perfunctory, a PowerPoint slide or two. It wasn't real training with scenarios and role playing.

  Does that training exist, and does it actually work to change this culture?

• Christy Lopez:

  Yes, well, I first want to note that — on the one hand, that there's — there's that's no excuse. No one needed training to know that there was a grievous harm that was happening here.

  And they had quite a long time to be able to intervene. So I don't want to be seen as saying that a lack of a particular type of training should excuse the behavior of the officers on the scene.

  At the same time, I think it's also true that we know that there is training. The ABLE Project, which we run right here at Georgetown Law, is seeking to educate officers regarding the inhibitors to intervention, and actually helping them develop the skills to intervene.

  And our belief is that — and this is based on research that we have done in other places and in our experience in New Orleans with the New Orleans Police Department — that, when you do teach these skills, officers can learn and will be more likely to intervene and prevent harm.

  There's a great example from Sunrise, Florida, of an officer intervening. And we have no reason to believe that this officer has any training in intervention. But that officer — it's a female officer. She steps in before a superior officer is about to pepper-spray a handcuffed individual in the back of a squad car.

  And, again, she steps up. She pulls him away. She is repaid for her good behavior by that officer. He grabs her by the neck. Again, there's no reason to think that she needed or had any particular training. And there is every reason to believe that there are officers who do this sort of intervention every day.

  At the same time, when you watch that video, you can see, this is a hard situation. This shows how difficult intervention is and why we need to make sure we prepare officers to know how to intervene in those sorts of circumstances.

• William Brangham:

  I know that you have called this particular trial unprecedented. And I know there was a lot of talk about that Chauvin's conviction for murder might change police culture.

  Do you think, if any of these men are found guilty of failing to intervene, that that will change culture in a meaningful way?

• Christy Lopez:

  I think that we often make too much of the potential for criminal trials to change police culture.

  But I think, here, this particular criminal trial might have the potential to do just that, even more so than Derek Chauvin's criminal trial. And that's because this is, again, the very first federal criminal trial of an officer for failing to intervene against a superior officer.

  And that sends a very powerful message to police agencies and to police officers that, when you're a police officer, you are given an extraordinary responsibility, extraordinary power. And with that comes an extraordinary responsibility to step in and prevent harm, no matter which of your colleagues is causing that harm.

• William Brangham:

  All right, Christy Lopez of Georgetown University Law School, thank you so much for being here.

• Christy Lopez:

  Thank you for having me.