It’s the nature of the job. Police officers are going to be second-guessed — sometimes even third- or fourth-guessed — for decisions often made in a split second.
And each time it builds a little more trust.
So it is for members of the Salt Lake City Police Department, who have had a high-profile autumn.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced Wednesday that he has asked the FBI to review the death of Patrick Harmon, who was shot by Salt Lake City Police Officer Clinton Fox in August after Harmon bolted from officers who were trying to handcuff him. The shooting has triggered protests and calls for Gill to be fired and Fox to be prosecuted.
That announcement came a day after public disclosure that Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown fired Officer Jeff Payne and demoted his supervisor for their roles in arresting a University Hospital nurse for refusing to let the officer draw blood from an unconscious patient in July. Video of that incident ricocheted across the internet when it became public six weeks ago.
In Harmon’s case, the FBI has been asked to not just second-guess the officer who fired. It also would be second-guessing the person who asked for the review. Gill has already ruled that the officer was justified in shooting Harmon, but that ruling doesn’t wash for protesters who see it as yet another example of a black man needlessly dying at the hands of police.
We can also expect a review of the Harmon case by Salt Lake City Police Civilian Review Board. That board, which works independently of the police department and the DA’s office, only makes policy recommendations and does not have any authority to discipline anyone.
In the case of Payne and the nurse, Brown’s decision is the culmination of an internal affairs investigation by his department. Meanwhile, the Unified Police Department is still looking into possible criminal charges, and the FBI is also reviewing the case. Attorneys for both men have maintained they followed both police policy and the law, and they are appealing the disciplinary actions.
The two cases are vastly different, but they are similar in one respect: they were caught on camera. It is the age of police body cams, and it was supposed to bring certainty. Instead, we see vastly different interpretations, in Utah and in high-profile incidents elsewhere. Even in the case of the nurse video, which brought nearly universal rejection of Officer Payne’s actions, his attorney sees someone merely carrying out his job.
That is where we have arrived. Even with ubiquitous cameras, photographic evidence is still just evidence, and justice still requires human judgment, lots of it. First responders need second guessers, and so do the rest of us.