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More Women on the Beat Would

Stem Violence

Katherine Spillar is the executive director of the Feminist Majority, which runs the National
Center for Women and Policing.
Updated November 26, 2014, 10:05 AM
We would not be asking these questions as frequently if we solved the very basic problems of
both racism and sexism within the police ranks of America.
Research conducted nationally and internationally for more than four decades has found that
women police officers not only do their jobs as well as men, but are less authoritarian, use force
less often, communicate better and are better at defusing potentially violent confrontations than
their male counterparts.
The gross under-representation of African-Americans and women in police departments
nationwide increases police violence against people of color.
As a result of the unrest in Ferguson, the Department of Justice announced a federal initiative to
study racial bias and reduce tensions between law enforcement agencies and the communities
they serve.
But the department must investigate how the gross under-representation of African-Americans
and women in the Ferguson Police Department and in police departments nationwide
increases police violence against people of color, especially against black women and men.

Among the 53 officers serving on the Ferguson police force, there are only five women and only
three African-American officers. As the Justice Department conducts its civil rights investigation
of the Ferguson Police Department, it should examine issues of both race and sex, as the
Feminist Majority Foundation urged the Christopher Commission, formed in the aftermath of the
Rodney King beating, to do two decades ago.
The commission did just that. Within the Los Angeles Police Department, there were no women
officers listed among those with the highest number of use-of-force reports, personnel
complaints and officer-involved shootings. The commission also found deep-rooted sex
discrimination and sexist attitudes within the Los Angeles Police Department, concluding that
this discrimination aggravated the excessive force problems within the L.A.P.D. by creating
entrenched disdain for womens less violent approach to policing.
That approach needs to be more widely adopted.

Signature Assignment

Berkeley Battle

Katherine Spillars brief but poignant article for The New York Times The Opinion
Pages online current events forum titled Room for Debate strikes an important note as police
brutality is still a touchy subject, even two decades after the Rodney King beating and
subsequent riots in Los Angeles. Walter Katz, Seth Soughton, Kami Simmons, Vincent Warren,
Irwin Chemerinsky, Alfred Blumstein and Katherine Spillar all weighed in on this discussion;
each giving thought out cries for justice, transparency and professionalism. Spillar is assuming
her audience is well informed of the more recent headlines detailing the deaths of black men Eric
Garner and Michael Brown at the hands of white police officers. The shooting death of unarmed
Michael Brown in Ferguson, M.O. by white police officer Darren Wilson has been an explosive
topic since it occurred on August 9, 2014. It was followed by protesting after the Grand Jury did
not indict police officer Wilson on November 24, 2014.
Equally disturbing to the black community was the acquittal of white Daniel Pantaleo in
the chokehold death of black Eric Garner in New York City. Officer Pantaleo used a prohibited
chokehold technique to take down Garner who was suspected of illegally selling cigarettes on the
street and when Garner repeated many times that he couldnt breathe Pantaleo and the other
officer seemed to disregard his pleas as video later showed Garner collapse from cardiac arrest
and be pronounced dead by EMS that arrived shortly on the scene. Pantaleo was originally
indicted for using the chokehold which is currently prohibited from use by the New York City
police but was later acquitted resulting in numerous protests and civil unrest in the city, some of
which were represented by the sit-in at Grand Central Station by both white and black concerned
citizens.

Locally, the death of a young black man, Darrien Hunt, received considerable attention as
the family of Hunt believed that the police were racially motivated and used excessive force
when they shot and killed 22 year old Darrien in the back when he ran from (white) police
officers who attempted to question him when they were called to investigate a 911 call that
involved a young man was seen brandishing a knife or sword in a small shopping center in
Saratoga Springs, Utah on September 10, 2014. All of these deaths of black men by white male
police officers in the past year alone, are seen as part of the larger problem of excessive force
used by racially biased police officers that leads to undue harm and even death.
Collectively those three examples, and many more seen in print and on t.v. and reposted
on Twitter and Facebook every month since the Rodney King incident, have led citizens to be
concerned over the fairness and safety for black men in question in our society. The issue has
brought about huge arguments over what to do to curb the police brutality aspect. While the issue
of what the black men are doing to be questioned or apprehended in the first place is tied to the
consequence; Spillars approach is to offer a solution aimed at stopping the incident from
becoming tense and violent and questionable in the first place; to nip it in the bud, so to speak.
The issue is that white male police officers are routinely the officers accused of using
excessive force and even prohibited techniques in the course of their jobs. The argument that
female police officers do their jobs just as well without using force, by defusing potentially
dangerous situations and by being less authoritarian than their male counterparts is a viable
argument, and solution to curb these incidences going forward. Stillar proposed that women on
the job do this by being better communicators; perhaps women are more ameliorators in these
circumstances than men in the same scenarios and that is exactly what is needed at this time for
our society and our civil well-being. Katherine Spillar is the executive director of the Feminist

Majority and runs the National Center for Women and Policing and cited four decades of
national and international research for this conclusion.
Respond with Fallacies:
First as a female veteran I am an expert on women in uniform and can say that women are just as
brutal as men and cannot be held up as the moral balancer for the police force. Women beat their
own children, stab their ex-lovers and shoot boyfriends just as often as men misuse force; just
open the paper every single day in America.
Secondly, Katherine Spillar is a dyke and closeted so we cant listen to her. Everyone saw the
pictures from that Halloween party where she dressed up like Fred Flintstone and her girlfriend
came as Betty so no argument presented by Spillar on gender issues should be listened to. On a
third note, Katherine has a half black bastard nephew who was shot and hospitalized by his white
cousin while playing with the cousins dads firearm in the basement of their cabin. That incident
a decade ago changed Spillar and obviously Katherine is now terrified of guns and thinks affects
her reasoning and she thinks that guns shouldnt even be around period. Spillar probably wants
America to be more like Britain and just use whistles and politely ask criminals to stop shooting.
Yeah, lets try that in this country.
So, either we hire all female black police officers or we dont have any police at all? Is that what
Spillar is proposing, I mean really: Lets face it, we dont have the population to support her
argument. Even if we hired white, Hispanic and black female officers we still dont have enough
women available to fill the job pool. There are roughly 900,000 police officers employed now in
the U.S. and only 12% of them are female. It is not possible to unemploy approximately 90% of

the force and rehire all women to fill that same percentage back without some disturbance to the
community.

Identify the Fallacies:

False Appeals to Authority fails 1st condition: I am not an expert just because I was in the Navy;
I worked at the National Naval Medical Center and actually wore scrubs almost the entire 4 years
and put the uniform on twice a year for inspections so this is ridiculous: First as a female veteran
I am an expert
This is clearly an Ad-Hominem Jon Stewart style; insert mischievous style now: Secondly,
Katherine Spiller is a dyke and closeted so we cant listen to her
Ad Hominem Psychological: one incident cannot be taken to represent a persons entire belief
system nor decision making process: That incident a decade ago changed Spillar
Classic Strawman: Spillar probably wants America to be more like Britain and just use whistles
False Dilemma: So, either we hire all female black police officers or we dont have any police
at all?

Response
This is a topic that we might be ready for in our society; we need more female counterparts in
every professional field and law enforcement is no different. Women change the dynamic and
reduce the aggression that is quick to surface in many situations and a lesser amount of conflict,
assault, strife and definitely death by cop or violent scenarios is absolutely a good goal. Spillar
and the other debaters bring up the issue of trusting police officers too much; or giving them
more benefit of the doubt than any other criminal case would get. Also racism is an issue that
needs to be brought into the light and addressed.
K. Simmons mentioned a good point in that where these investigations take place and who is
prosecuting them makes a lot of difference and sometimes the ultimate decision legally and
punitively would affect the same police officers that the district attorneys office must continue
to work with so we need to be absolutely sure before we decide who is prosecuting the cases.
Actually I dont disagree; the only thing I think should be considered is that sometimes men are
needed because men and women are not equal, physically, and a police officer might need to be
able to confront someone much larger and or stronger physically in order to do their job. I do
think that more women on the workforce will offer a different point of view; an angle that might
be more looking to help rather than save in a particular scenario; sometimes bulging muscles and
heroes dont mean everything; de-escalation and communication and resolving differences would
be a much better aim.
Local prosecutors should not be forced to prosecute the officers in the community which they
work with every day and must trust and respect on a daily basis.