In the spring of 2020, the nation was roiled by protests as people reacted to disturbing video footage showing Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kill George Floyd, a Black man he arrested and subdued who posed no plausible danger to him or anyone else.
In the months following, activists, politicians and ordinary citizens began debating the role of police, race and the best use of public dollars to keep communities safe. Some of the politicians who embraced reducing police funding now express regret over those positions. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, recently echoed that reassessment, invoking a local city council member’s description of the era: “Woke 1 was crazy.”
Some of the calls for changes in 2020 went beyond what most
Americans were ready to accept. It’s understandable how a call to “defund the police” was easily turned into a political weapon, especially as crime increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But in the years since, we’ve seen a growing backlash to any change to policing, even as we saw the highest number of police killings on record in 2024. The effort to make police reform itself radioactive conflates a huge spectrum of policy ideas into an oversimplified binary of "pro-police" versus "anti-police."
We must reject that false choice and return to the core question that remains: How do we reduce unnecessary police violence while preserving public safety?
Department of Justice has 'defunded' Civil Rights Division
Police brutality is a scourge that undermines public safety and reduces victim and witness cooperation with law enforcement.
Even when lawful and appropriate, police use of force can unduly harm a suspect, bystanders and the surrounding community. If you care about public safety, you must care about how law enforcement uses its power against the community – not just in protection of it.
These questions are even more important at this moment, as federal agents act with impunity as they use force against communities during immigration operations. Just as we watched George Floyd murdered on camera six years ago, we’ve seen videos of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and, more recently, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine.
Yet, even in 2020, our government demanded more scrutiny of police power than it does now. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, traditionally a careful and effective reviewer of police misconduct nationwide, has been “defunded,” losing 75% of its attorneys and no longer serving as a backstop that will reliably investigate law enforcement officers for wrongdoing.
So as the federal government exercises more coercive power, it is simultaneously weakening the mechanisms that keep that power in check.
In 2025, there were just six days when police did not kill someone
This lack of effective accountability is particularly troubling as police killings remain stubbornly high, with most data showing more than 1,000 people killed by officers each year. According to Mapping Police Violence, there were just six days in 2025 when police did not kill someone.
Particularly as the federal government rejects its oversight responsibilities, local and state prosecutors must stand in the gap. When police cross the line and use violence unlawfully, prosecutors can and should be there to hold them accountable. We’ve seen more prosecutors willing to take on these cases – including shootings by ICE agents – and build the specialized expertise needed to handle them fairly.
But we can’t rely on reactive approaches alone.
We also need policymakers across the country to remain committed to the important goal of preventing police use of force, particularly police killings.
Though more research is needed, we know there are concrete ways to reduce police violence. To ignore them is a policy choice:
- Camden, New Jersey, saw excessive force complaints drop 94% from 2014 to 2024, following the adoption of a more restrictive use of force policy that emphasized de-escalation and the sanctity of life, while prohibiting tactics like choke holds and shooting at moving vehicles to only "as a last resort."
- As part of a federal consent decree, Seattle adopted a policy that required de-escalation, proportional use of force and limited use of deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect, which reduced use of force without increasing officer injuries or crime.
- The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department cut police shootings from 17 in 2024 to seven in 2025, by adopting more restrictive use of force measures and instituting a critical incident review team to learn from use of force incidents.
Policy is just one part of the equation. Training programs like Georgetown Law school’s Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement may better prepare officers to intervene in situations that are needlessly escalating. Mental health first responder programs can reduce the likelihood of a mental health episode snowballing into a deadly confrontation.
While we can and must do more to reduce police brutality, we recognize that we ask officers to preserve public safety, and at times this does mean using violence. It's an awesome authority, and most officers use it sparingly and appropriately. Floyd’s killing forced the country to confront what happens when that authority is abused.
Whatever the excesses of Woke 1, the underlying issue has not changed: When police use unnecessary force against the community, it undermines our safety.
There was never a real choice between holding police accountable and supporting law enforcement. Public safety requires both. And that work starts in our own communities, where residents, police leaders and elected officials can move beyond slogans and ask what is working, what is not and how to make policing safer for everyone.
Cristine Soto DeBerry is the executive director and Greg Srolestar is the director of research and technical assistance at the Prosecutors Alliance, which hosts the nation’s only annual convening dedicated to improving knowledge and practice concerning police prosecutions.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Woke 1' is over. Its core problem isn't. | Opinion
