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JFC - This is so easy. Remove the legal shields of being a cop. The consequences of your actions as a cop should be the same as the citizens. Body (tamper proof) cameras for all interactions, a public policy that allows citizens to be part of enforcing standards about police decorum, demilitarize the police (use the national guard for those needs), a more stringent weapons ban. This isn’t hard but actually takes a spine from our elected officials to proper and deliver.
Demilitarize the police. No tear gas. No autos/semiautomatic weapons .
Hire officers who LIVE in the area they patrol. Across the board this needs to be done.
Promote officers of color into high ranking /leadership positions.
Pay low level / entry level officers more.
Retrain officers. We have pushed dog owners to stop using throat collars for dogs - Can we all agree that restraining humans by their throat is barbaric and can cause unintended consequences?
Create a task force that deals with people suffering from mental breakdown/disorders/ trauma. We have specially trained police officers who are trained to talk people off of ledges when they threaten sucide . We need specially trained people to handle those who are in the thick of their mental illness .
End cash bail.
End qualified immunity for officers.
Blacklist officers who have been removed from duty (now cops can easily obtain work in other locations even after they have been fired).
Federal and state level accountability for police. Police should never investigate themselves. Hold them to a higher standard than civilians. Fire bad cops. Spend more money on training them (and increase local taxes to pay for it). More time spent in de escalation training.
Fixing qualified immunity and ending police unions would be a step in the right direction. Lots of data indicate that police unionization results in more abuses (and higher pay).
Conversation Starter
I think Obama explained it best when he said there is no top-down, federal response or legislation that is going to make this situation better. It has to come from local grassroots leaders and elected officials.
Holding officers accountable with independent reviews of wrongdoing, officers should be actual members of the communities they police (community policing), de-escalation should be emphasized during training, de-militarization of the police period. End to the cash bail system. Remove arrest quotas.
Applying the same rules and consequences to officers and caucasians. We can start by holding the same level of accountability for ALL citizens despite race, gender, ethnicity, job title, etc.
Require cops to have malpractice insurance the same as doctors do, demilitarize the police, require officers live in the communities they police, raise the difficulty of the exam and physical requirements, retrain them on nonlethal use of force, stricter penalties for misuse of body cams, pay out police settlements from their pension VS having the taxpayers foot the bill, etc
Enthusiast
Officer-funded (although regulated) insurance for police officers. When citizens sue them for malpractice (as you would do with a doctor) money comes out of the officer’s pocket, not the taxpayers’. Marginally increase officers salaries to cover for this. “Bad” cops would be pushed out of the profession due to skyrocketing insurance costs
Rising Star
https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/us/lapd-change-since-la-riots/index.html this article is from 2017 and things have even changed since then (all LAPD officers do wear body cams now) but it’s a good thing to look at. The 92 riots forced a positive transformation in the LAPD and have made their department a leader in transparent and community policing, but that was only because of the magnifying glass put on them. Many other departments across the country haven’t had that moment. It shouldn’t be patchwork anymore and shouldn’t just be LAPD, NYPD, Minn PD getting reform only after a shooting or beating. It needs to be nationwide and now. You can’t bring a life back once it’s gone, so reform shouldn’t be done only after a department has an incident, every department is capable of an incident.
Chief
Widespread adoption of Peelian principles into police training and practice
Require cops to live within the communities they govern. If it requires a pay raise so be it.
Stop giving surplus military supplies/training to police. We don’t need police with fucking tactical vehicles.
No one is asking for people to be executed. Police officers who show unreasonable use of force need to be arrested, prosecuted and jailed. There need to be effective review boards that help ensure that officers who have shown signs of using force in situations where it’s not required aren’t able to get to the point where they are murdering people on the street. Police tactics of handling arrests and crowd control need to be reviewed. So many things I can think of just as it relates to police, which is just the tip of the iceberg when you think about systemic oppression (e.g. discriminatory housing practices/red-lining) that is designed to limit opportunities to improve one’s environment.
Chief
Mandatory body cams for all officers
Police need more training and a longer probation period, it feels like the barriers to entry are too low that anyone can just become a cop. Then again, this would only help screen incoming officers. Corruption is already deeply entrenched within the government, heck it was even possible for someone like Trump to become President. Unless the government overhauls itself entirely and does something about systemic/institutionalized racism, firing corrupt cops is just putting a bandaid on a gashing wound.
I’d also favor ending police traffic stops. Maybe you handle traffic violations like red light cameras... If a cop (with dash cam) sees a violation, type the license plate into a computer and the ticket is sent, no contact.
Won’t solve everything, of course—cops will still need to stop cars with tags that come back stolen, or that are drunk driving, but would help address the “didn’t use turn signal, now I smell pot, probable cause to search” nonsense that goes on.
Enthusiast
I like your parking enforcement idea — it’s creative and pretty sharp. They wouldn’t need to be granted all the powers of arrest or incredible levels of qualified immunity. Segmenting minor mistakes from serious crimes is a great idea, and I think that could be a really meaningful step. I’ll remember your thoughts on this going forward as a possible solution.
Rising Star
Executing 4 officers won’t solve the problem but it’s the beginning to holding officers accountable for their actions.
This thread has a good compilation of evidence-based asks that can help reduce violence from the police... many of the asks also repeated above https://twitter.com/samswey/status/1180655701271732224?s=21