The Grand Jury: A Shield of a Different Sort

According to the Washington Post, 991 people were shot todeath by police officers in the United States during calendar year2015, and 957 people were fatally shot in 2016. Adisproportionate percentage of the citizens killed in these police-civilian encounters were black. Events in Ferguson, Missouri;Chicago, Illinois; Charlotte, North Carolina; Baton Rouge,Louisiana; and Staten Island, New York-to name but a fewaffected cities-have now exposed deep distrust betweencommunities of color and law enforcement. Greater transparencyis necessary to begin to heal this culture of distrust and to informthe debate going forward about police practices in America.The recent spate of deadly police-civilian encounters hasgenerated enormous media coverage, national discourse, and aproliferation of recommended solutions.

Perhaps the most notableand comprehensive set of recommendations was issued by thePresident's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Created byPresident Obama in December 2014, the task force consisted ofnine members drawn from police, academic and other lawenforcement-related professions. In its Final Report, issued inMay 2015, the committee proffered a number of recommendationsthat stressed, among other things, the need for altering lawenforcement culture, improving training, and forging better police-community partnerships. But the committee defined its principaltask in terms of needing to improve police-community trust.

Itdeclared that trust "is essential in a democracy" and central to the"stability of our communities, the integrity of our criminal justicesystem, and the safe and effective delivery of policing services."