Depraved indifference to human suffering is a more apt term to describe the horrific scenes we have been witnessing: choking restrained people to death, shooting unarmed kids, killing pets, gassing peaceful protests, or taunting people as they die.
That’s not misconduct. Misconduct is when you push someone, or you yell at them for no reason, or you make fun of their weight. The story of the man whose daughter’s ashes were defiled by the police as he was forced to watch, helplessly handcuffed begging them to stop really brought this home to me.
We are not witnessing an increase in police misconduct. What we are witnessing is an epidemic of depraved indifference by law enforcement. If we are going to change the public debate, we need to introduce this term and make it the common description for conduct that is not acceptable — even by troops in wartime. If we are going to turn this around, we need to make depraved indifference the term used to describe this conduct, not some anodyne label that allows people to ignore the atrocities being committed on a routine basis.
This attitude of depraved indifference is being embraced within the policing community. Cops wear the logo while in uniform. They put it on their patrol cars. This is permeating the culture. It needs to be called out.
The legal definition of "depraved indifference" is clearly more appropriate than “misconduct” in many of the cases we have witnessed.
To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant's conduct must be so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting. [emphasis added]
Words matter. If we fail to use the more appropriate description of the kind of stomach turning behavior we have witnessed so many times in recent years, it will become increasingly acceptable. Let’s call it by the proper name.