16 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: JULY 2017 OPINION/EDITORIAL American Police Beat Chairman & Publisher: Cynthia Brown Chief Executive Officer: Sarah Vallee Editor-in-Chief: Mark Nichols Advertising Sales: Dave Quimby Digital Manager: Jeremy Lange Office Assistant: Brendan O’Brien Designer: Karin Henderson Insurers will call the shots If you read APB you’ve seen plenty of stories recently about controversies swirling around the decisions to jazz up the appear- ance of official police vehicles with stickers and decals. In Pittsburgh, the FOP President doesn’t like the new decals on the cruisers one bit. Bob Schwartwelder told reporters that “police are supposed to be neutral law en- forcers, not supporters of any cause. This is an extremely slippery slope.” So why would a police association presi- dent stick his neck out and risk all the blow back and public criticism that would come with taking a public stand against “In God We Trust” stickers on cop cars? It’s because the stickers aren’t about reli- gion or even the vigilante comic book char- acter “The Punisher,” whose likeness has been plastered over some official vehicles in certain corners of the country. Instead Pittsburgh police vehicles are displaying “Pittsburgh Police Supports Pride 2017” decals. The decals were temporarily placed on the Pittsburgh fleet for Gay Pride weekend and related events. Mr. Schwartwelder, arguing that police vehicles should not be the place to promote worldviews, political or religious identity or specific groups, is on solid ground. In this country, we have freedom from religion and freedom of religion. It’s OK to be gay in America – unlike Yemen. It’s also OK to be not OK with people being gay. We’ve got so much freedom you can liter- ally worship a flying spaghetti monster, a vigilante comic book character, or the God of Abraham, not to mention Allah, Buddha, or Krishna. They might not be around for too much longer, but these religious freedoms require that we all know and trust that our protectors – the police – will not be thinking “Is this kid even Christian?” when they dive into the murky waters of a lake while a drunken driver attempts and fails to get out of the window while the car goes under. So let’s keep it simple. Forget the Jesus stuff and the gay pride stickers and especially the Punisher crap. Projecting professionalism can be difficult when you’re preoccupied figuring out what you want to say on a personal level. How about no stickers? POLICE WEEK 2017 Honor Guards stand watch on May 13, 2017, at the 29th annual Candlelight Vigil on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 2017 National Police week activities in DC. When it comes to the issue of “police re- form,” usually what people focus on is poli- tics. For instance, former President Barack Obama’s Commission on 21st Century Policing was perceived in many quarters as politics as usual. You announce a blue ribbon panel, put together a report and somehow this is sup- posed to bring about change. But like most blue ribbon panels, the Obama group merely made recommenda- tions, such as more training for officers and a focus on de-escalation, without enough resources to accomplish those goals. In Missouri, where forfeiture practices and the fees and fines associated with the crimi- nal justice system have been criticized, the officials that rely on those revenue streams naturally shot down recent attempts to make the system more equitable. In short, police reform will be difficult to accomplish for the local, state or federal government. Rather it’s starting to look like it all might be dependent on a law enforce- ment agency’s ability to maintain insurance coverage. In cities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, and California, police departments and sheriff’s offices have been shut down after lawsuit pay-outs made insur- ance companies engage in some cost-benefit analysis. The City of Irwindale, California was headed down the same road until Anthony Miranda was sworn in as police chief of Irwindale, California, four years ago. In August 2013, the city’s insurer, the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority, was looking at pulling the city’s coverage after $2 million in settlements involving the department in just five years. So what did Miranda do to turn things around? Basically he did what the insurers told him to do. There were biweekly meetings with an outside risk manager. Officers received hundreds of hours of training on sexual harassment and use of force. There was an outside review of all in- ternal-affairs investigations. The insurance company said the agency had an 18-month window to clean up its act in order to main- tain coverage. The dynamics between law enforcement agencies, local government and insurers are different when you’re talking about big cities like Chicago or Baltimore. But for places the size of Irwindale it’s the potential loss of coverage that spurs change – not yet another fact-finding panel. One of the problems in Irwindale was a shocking lack of training. The insurance company said, “fix that pronto or you lose your coverage.” So the city dedicated money from asset forfeitures to provide more training sessions for officers. Members of the police depart- ment participated in around 1,000 hours of training in a single year after CJPIA (Cali- fornia Joint Powers Insurance Authority) got involved. So while the police advocates and the “experts” on the panels talk past each other with sound and fury, it looks like it will be the insurance companies who will be calling the shots on police reform.