Conflict erupts at Minneapolis, L.A. protests over George Floyd death

[Darth Yan]

My sister and dad attended a protest in solidarity with BLM on Saturday. While I was walking up to visit my folks I saw that people had made a makeshift BLM memorial on the sidewalk with chalk. For the record I'm a person who lives in San Diego, which for a while was fairly conservative (though democrats are making headway). This shit's going far

[The Romulan Republic]

As for the police abolition......I'm for overhaul and reforming but getting rid of law enforcement as a whole is never going to happen. Anarchism tends to be a rather childish ideal that doesn't really work in real life.

I believe that it would likely be possible to vastly reduce law enforcement over time (probably a period of years or decades), while shifting the resources to social programs that address the root causes of most crime: housing, poverty, education, addiction treatment and mental health care.

A court system of some kind would need to be retained in order to protect the right to due process and resolve disputes, and court officials would be needed to serve subpoenas, collect evidence, etc. Indeed, the court system should probably be better funded than it is, since right now its so overloaded that nearly all offenders are pressured to just plead guilty without ever getting a trial (though reducing the number of crimes and cops would also help address this, of course). But they would not need to be armed or have powers to arrest in the vast majority of cases.

Armed police and prisons should be limited to a small force, not for street patrols or detaining non-violent offenders, but reserved only for the most severe and untreatable violent offenders (ie serial killers/mass killers, rapists, terrorists). Their training should take years, not weeks or months, and should prioritize avoiding loss of life. I would suggest that under this model, a few hundred officers, and a single prison facility, would likely be sufficient for the United States. My preference would be for such a force to be federal, and standardized for the entire nation, rather than each state maintaining their own force (which the above-mentioned reductions in crime would probably render unnecessary).

My sister and dad attended a protest in solidarity with BLM on Saturday. While I was walking up to visit my folks I saw that people had made a makeshift BLM memorial on the sidewalk with chalk. For the record I'm a person who lives in San Diego, which for a while was fairly conservative (though democrats are making headway). This shit's going far

I think there have been three "holy shit" moments which showed how much the political landscape is shifting here for me:

The first was multiple former and serving military officials publicly breaking with Trump.

The second was Minneapolis city council voting to defund and abolish their police force.

The third was the fact that Mitt freaking Romney marched in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.

[The Romulan Republic]

Democratic Congressmembers protest illegal deployment of Predator drone to surveil protesters:

https://vice.com/en_us/article/bv8n4a/a ... protesters

WASHINGTON — House Democrats are furious over the deployment of a military-grade Predator B drone to surveil protesters in Minneapolis and possibly elsewhere.

And a group of lawmakers including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) are demanding answers.

The Trump administration had no right to send the drone over Minneapolis on May 29 because the city is far outside the 100-mile inland operational zone of the Customs and Border Protection, the Democrats wrote in a letter to Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, released Saturday.

Now they want to know where else drones might have gone, and whether any were using facial recognition software to monitor protesters demonstrating against police violence.

“The deployment of drones and officers to surveil protests is a gross abuse of authority and is particularly chilling when used against Americans who are protesting law enforcement brutality,” the lawmakers wrote. “This Administration has undermined the First Amendment freedoms of Americans of all races who are rightfully protesting George Floyd’s killing.”

The letter marks the opening salvo of an official investigation by the House Oversight Committee into the Trump administration’s surveillance of demonstrators, and a new political clash over the line between the rights of protesters and security measures taken by officials.

Attorney General William Barr has coordinated a vast response across multiple federal agencies to the unrest sparked by the killing of Floyd, an unarmed black man, by Minneapolis police on Memorial Day, including the deployment of mysterious riot troops without insignia on the streets of Washington, D.C.


That show of force had backup overhead, although the full extent remains uncertain. The National Guard and law enforcement flew surveillance planes over cities including Las Vegas, Washington, and Portland, according to flight data reviewed by Motherboard, but officials have yet to clearly explain the full scope of the flights.

Federal law gives the CBP a special zone of operation within a “reasonable distance” of any international border, where the agency frequently does things like set up checkpoints, conduct searches — and fly surveillance drones. Ever since 1953, the statutory language has been interpreted to mean a zone of 100 miles from the border by the Department of Justice. But Minneapolis is almost 300 miles from the Canadian border. And Democrats demanded to know what, if any, legal justification officials have.

Actually, the 100-mile rule is often flouted, according to the ACLU, even though Congress rarely gets quite this irate about it. “In practice, Border Patrol agents regularly ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority,” the rights group has written.

The CBP said in a statement it sent the drone over Minneapolis to provide “live video” of protests on May 29 “at the request of our federal law enforcement partners.” After arriving on the scene, law enforcement officials decided they didn’t need the help after all, and the drone returned to base, the statement said.

The CBP insisted nothing out of the ordinary had really taken place, noting that the agency regularly uses drones to help with less controversial missions like hurricane disaster response or search and rescue. The agency insisted that it “carries out its mission nationwide, not just at the border, consistent with federal laws and policies.”

The agency declined to comment publicly on the Democrats’ letter Monday. “Correspondence between members of Congress and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is handled through official channels, and will be addressed directly with the members,” a CBP spokesperson wrote in an email to VICE News.

House Democrats were hardly appeased. They demanded documents by this Thursday, and a briefing by Monday, June 15. It’s not clear they’ll get that, though: The Trump administration has flatly refused to hand over information to Congress in other instances, however, so it remains to be seen whether they’ll be more forthcoming this time.

[Darth Yan]

Even European Countries like France Germany and the UK have police forces. They aren't going away for better or ill.

[The Romulan Republic]

Even European Countries like France Germany and the UK have police forces. They aren't going away for better or ill.

I tend to believe that, unless human nature fundamentally changes, there will be a need for some sort of legal system, and enforcement. Its form and scope, however, can be drastically changed.

And the omnipresence of something today is not proof that it must always remain so. Legal chattel slavery was once common around the world. "Arranged" marriages (read: selling women like livestock) was once common around the world. Spousal rape being legal was once common around the world.

Everything familiar is inevitable until enough people decide that it isn't. And everything unfamiliar is impossible until enough people imagine that it is.

[loomer]

While it's a worthwhile discussion that needs to be had, a detailed discussion and exploration of the possibilities of abolition and anarchism is for another thread.

[Darth Yan]

Even European Countries like France Germany and the UK have police forces. They aren't going away for better or ill.

I tend to believe that, unless human nature fundamentally changes, there will be a need for some sort of legal system, and enforcement. Its form and scope, however, can be drastically changed.

And the omnipresence of something today is not proof that it must always remain so. Legal chattel slavery was once common around the world. "Arranged" marriages (read: selling women like livestock) was once common around the world. Spousal rape being legal was once common around the world.

Everything familiar is inevitable until enough people decide that it isn't. And everything unfamiliar is impossible until enough people imagine that it is.

This isn't quite the same thing. Law enforcement has evolved over the years and smaller more informal forms have their own weaknesses. While the vast over expansive system we have now should definitely be overhauled.....I do think that making completely small groups is a naive pipe dream. Official police forces aren't going away. A lot of the reforms mentioned in the new bill (making body cams mandatory, having independent oversight) will definitely help the problem even if it can't be completely removed. Miranda was seen as radical at the time but now people accept it.

And while it can be drastically changed it's never going away. Anarchists seem to think it will.

[loomer]

Yan, you don't have the faintest grasp of what anarchists think. We neither desire nor work towards a world without law, but instead seek to address the root causes of 'crime' and engineering forms of collective law enforcement that replace the existing hierarchical, centralized, brutal ones with democratic institutions. This is why I said the discussion would be valuable, but also need a different thread, because explaining all this requires considerable detail.

[Civil War Man]

On top of the Cody Johnston video Straha posted a few pages back (which I would have recommended if he didn't do it first), John Oliver dove into a lot of the same issues on his last show. Oliver's video is about half as long and focuses a bit more on long-running issues as opposed to the current police riots, so it doesn't dive quite as deeply, but it still manages to touch on a lot of problems, from its roots in white supremacy, to the Warrior Training programs that encourage police to be violent thugs, to the lack of consequences that render attempts at regulating cops completely toothless, to the bloated police budgets devouring all of a city's money and starving programs designed to help people, which leads to police being tasked with addressing situations that they are woefully unprepared in handling.

[Nicholas]

I don't think the democrats are inept. They are cowards. They are terrified of being painted as anti-law & order, horrified at the idea of being seen as weak on crime, and absolutely scared shitless to take on police unions.

They are right to be terrified of being seen as anti-law & order. No one is in favor of crime and chaos.

In addition American elections are one and lost in smaller cities and suburbs. In those areas the vast vast majority of voters have positive experiences with their local police and are likely to react badly to a political movement that is seen as trying to screw their local cops over. Reforming police departments far away which have a reputation for problems will go over well. But being seen as trying to hurt the local cops with whom the voters are quite happy would be a political disaster.

Nicholas

[Zaune]

I don't think a sedition charge or the death penalty is necessary to enforce voting rights, but I do think a law criminalizing voter suppression and attaching criminal penalties to such acts might be worth pursuing. More useful, though, would be making voter registration automatic, and moving to all-paper/mail ballots, as well as restoring the portions of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court gutted, by constitutional amendment if need be. As well as campaign finance reform, of course. And killing the Electoral College.

This is what I'm talking about when I worry that the Democrats are unwilling to go far enough. Yes, those reforms are all very good and necessary, but... criminalising conspiring to fix an election "might" be worth pursuing? Voter suppression is no better than destroying or altering ballot papers, at minimum, even if the individuals involved didn't have demonstrable links to the fascist movement. Their endgame involves doing away with universal sufferage entirely.

I'm only using the word "sedition" because US law has an overly narrow definition of treason.

This is veering rather off-topic, though.

On the contrary, I say the systematic disenfranchisement of non-white and/or poor Americans is at the heart of how the country got into this mess in the first place, because if they'd been allowed to elect people who represented their interests and grievances without a certain bloc throwing up every bureaucratic roadblock they could come up with then they wouldn't have had to set a police station on fire just to get someone to listen to them.

[Darth Yan]

I don't think the democrats are inept. They are cowards. They are terrified of being painted as anti-law & order, horrified at the idea of being seen as weak on crime, and absolutely scared shitless to take on police unions.

They are right to be terrified of being seen as anti-law & order. No one is in favor of crime and chaos.

In addition American elections are one and lost in smaller cities and suburbs. In those areas the vast vast majority of voters have positive experiences with their local police and are likely to react badly to a political movement that is seen as trying to screw their local cops over. Reforming police departments far away which have a reputation for problems will go over well. But being seen as trying to hurt the local cops with whom the voters are quite happy would be a political disaster.

Nicholas

In practice “law and order” really means “keep those uppity ****er’s in place”.

[Nicholas]

I don't think the democrats are inept. They are cowards. They are terrified of being painted as anti-law & order, horrified at the idea of being seen as weak on crime, and absolutely scared shitless to take on police unions.

They are right to be terrified of being seen as anti-law & order. No one is in favor of crime and chaos.

In addition American elections are one and lost in smaller cities and suburbs. In those areas the vast vast majority of voters have positive experiences with their local police and are likely to react badly to a political movement that is seen as trying to screw their local cops over. Reforming police departments far away which have a reputation for problems will go over well. But being seen as trying to hurt the local cops with whom the voters are quite happy would be a political disaster.

Nicholas

In practice “law and order” really means “keep those uppity ****er’s in place”.

I'm confused. What does this have to do with what I said?

Nicholas

[bilateralrope]

Even European Countries like France Germany and the UK have police forces. They aren't going away for better or ill.

Sure. But people working towards that goal in an intelligent manner should still improve society, even if they never reach their end goal.

By an intelligent manner, I'm thinking of making changes to society to reduce the need for police. Then reducing the police force after those changes mean it's larger than necessary.

[Formless]

I don't think the democrats are inept. They are cowards. They are terrified of being painted as anti-law & order, horrified at the idea of being seen as weak on crime, and absolutely scared shitless to take on police unions.

They are right to be terrified of being seen as anti-law & order. No one is in favor of crime and chaos.

In addition American elections are one and lost in smaller cities and suburbs. In those areas the vast vast majority of voters have positive experiences with their local police and are likely to react badly to a political movement that is seen as trying to screw their local cops over. Reforming police departments far away which have a reputation for problems will go over well. But being seen as trying to hurt the local cops with whom the voters are quite happy would be a political disaster.

Nicholas

I would dispute your assumptions here. The average suburbanite doesn't necessarily have a good relationship with the cops, they more likely have no experience with them whatsoever outside of traffic cops. Why? Because the nationwide average for police response times is 11 minutes. Many businesses, especially retail, don't bother calling the cops over petty crime because this figure is so well known; hence the ubiquity of private security in shopping centers and other businesses. And with lower crime rates in the suburbs, the cops really don't have much to do most of the time except patrol the streets looking for traffic violations, because speeding tickets in many cases make up an obscene amount of their revenue. Thus if a suburbanite has any experience with the cops it was probably an unpleasant affair with a traffic cop. I fully expect that any survey of Suburbia's opinion of police will show it to be effectively neutral; people think we need them by default (status quo is a powerful mentality), but are largely apathetic to their local department. And in many cases, the cops don't even work in the city or township they live in, so its not like it will effect your neighbors. For many suburban towns, I also expect that the locals just don't know how much money the local police department is allotted, and would be fine with a budget cut as long as they know the money will be used for other useful things, like much needed road maintenance. Most people don't pay attention to local politics or municipal budgets unless they live in a big city. Suburbia just kind of... exists. People who live here don't really think hard about it.

[Nicholas]

They are right to be terrified of being seen as anti-law & order. No one is in favor of crime and chaos.

In addition American elections are one and lost in smaller cities and suburbs. In those areas the vast vast majority of voters have positive experiences with their local police and are likely to react badly to a political movement that is seen as trying to screw their local cops over. Reforming police departments far away which have a reputation for problems will go over well. But being seen as trying to hurt the local cops with whom the voters are quite happy would be a political disaster.

Nicholas

I would dispute your assumptions here. The average suburbanite doesn't necessarily have a good relationship with the cops, they more likely have no experience with them whatsoever outside of traffic cops. Why? Because the nationwide average for police response times is 11 minutes. Many businesses, especially retail, don't bother calling the cops over petty crime because this figure is so well known; hence the ubiquity of private security in shopping centers and other businesses. And with lower crime rates in the suburbs, the cops really don't have much to do most of the time except patrol the streets looking for traffic violations, because speeding tickets in many cases make up an obscene amount of their revenue. Thus if a suburbanite has any experience with the cops it was probably an unpleasant affair with a traffic cop. I fully expect that any survey of Suburbia's opinion of police will show it to be effectively neutral; people think we need them by default (status quo is a powerful mentality), but are largely apathetic to their local department. And in many cases, the cops don't even work in the city or township they live in, so its not like it will effect your neighbors. For many suburban towns, I also expect that the locals just don't know how much money the local police department is allotted, and would be fine with a budget cut as long as they know the money will be used for other useful things, like much needed road maintenance. Most people don't pay attention to local politics or municipal budgets unless they live in a big city. Suburbia just kind of... exists. People who live here don't really think hard about it.

You appear to be telling me the following things.

1) Most suburbanites and residents of small cities think they need cops to prevent crime.
2) Most suburbanites and residents of small cities believe their local cops are effective at preventing crime. The logic here is cops are necessary to prevent crime, crime isn't a problem therefor the cops are effective.
3) Most suburbanites and residents of small cities have little contact with cops except for the odd traffic stop, public relations events (directing traffic at major events, visiting schools to talk about drugs being bad and warn about drunk driving, fund raising for the local poor and the union), and police spokesmen on the news. These lead them to assume their local department is professional and free of corruption (American government is still good enough most people assume honesty until they have evidence otherwise).
4) Most suburban and small urban police departments are largely self-funded via fines and so there is little money to be diverted from the police budget to other causes.

The above seems to me to be a set of beliefs that the local police union could easily and quickly mobilize into opposition to any effort to reduce police funding and to any political party that gets a reputation for being hostile to the police. Which amounts to what I said earlier that "voters are likely to react badly to a political movement that is seen as trying to screw their local cops over." So I don't see where we disagree.

Nicholas

[Formless]

You appear to be telling me the following things.

1) Most suburbanites and residents of small cities think they need cops to prevent crime.
2) Most suburbanites and residents of small cities believe their local cops are effective at preventing crime. The logic here is cops are necessary to prevent crime, crime isn't a problem therefor the cops are effective.

I didn't say either of those things. In fact I would suggest that the latter is an outright strawman of what I actually said, so don't do that. I said that suburban residents believe they need cops because that is status quo. There is a major difference between that and what you just said. People tend to preserve the status quo without thinking. They tend to think the status quo is good without thinking. If they believe that the cops are necessary its because they have never lived in a society without cops, so they have nothing to compare the status quo to. There is a world of difference between that and actually believing that the cops are good or effective.

Insofar as anyone believes that the cops are good or effective, it is because society has told them that they are, and most people don't want to believe that they have been systematically lied to. And on one hand, people can believe what they have been told to believe while also knowing that in practice the cops never show up when you need them to, even though that contradicts the lie. We call this phenomenon Cognitive Dissonance, and when you point out the contradiction it causes much discomfort for people, because it forces them to get off the proverbial fence and decide for real whether the police are good or at best a waste of money. Fortunately, rhetoric exists in part to help people get over the need to stick with the status quo and understand when the money being spent on utterly useless SWAT teams or entirely corrupt police departments can be spent elsewhere, because that's taxpayer money. Your money. Point being, the fact that suburbanites are, in practice, actually apathetic to the cops means they aren't necessarily the roadblock you say they are. The real roadblock is people's belief in the status quo.

Because seriously, what suburb really needs a SWAT team? None. None whatsoever. All they ever get used for is drug busts, and they aren't needed for drug busts. Its just an excuse to put the equipment through its paces, but the equipment is a waste of money (remember, a SWAT team isn't complete without a ten thousand dollar armored vehicle!). SWAT isn't even useful for mass shootings, because experience has taught the police that active shootings are too time sensitive, you just need to get a couple ordinary cops on the scene as fast as possible and be sure they know what to do in such a situation. When protestors are talking about demilitarizing police, they are largely talking about SWAT, and it would be absolutely trivial to abolish most SWAT teams.

3) Most suburbanites and residents of small cities have little contact with cops except for the odd traffic stop, public relations events (directing traffic at major events, visiting schools to talk about drugs being bad and warn about drunk driving, fund raising for the local poor and the union), and police spokesmen on the news. These lead them to assume their local department is professional and free of corruption (American government is still good enough most people assume honesty until they have evidence otherwise).

Again, the only one of these things I actually said was the traffic stop. Because interaction with police on a face to face basis is the only thing that counts when determining a relationship. The rest reinforces a belief system, but a belief system is easier to change or destroy than a relationship. This is the one silver lining when it comes to propaganda: its fragility in the face of contradictory rhetoric. Why else do you think BLM has made a big deal out of tragedies like George Floyd's murder? Because the visceral emotions of seeing a man die horribly on camera at the hands of police officers has a bigger impact than any nonsense statement a police union can come up with. The only thing that can compete with it is a personal relationship with someone in uniform, which is why I agree with those saying the protestors and BLM should ban cops from participating in protests. The police know.

4) Most suburban and small urban police departments are largely self-funded via fines and so there is little money to be diverted from the police budget to other causes.

Again, no, you are extrapolating things I did not say. Their main funding still comes from municipalities and local taxes, especially funding for the most wasteful expenditures like SWAT teams and military style equipment. Traffic stops make up an obscene amount of police revenue for some police agencies, but not all. What it does mean is that most people have no personal relationship with the cops. And the 11 minute response time has as much to do with how spread out the suburbs are in the first place, as well as a police tendency to hang around certain neighborhoods more than others, frequently those inhabited by minorities (a subtle but important form of racism).

That's 4-0, you should stop using straw man arguments immediately before you actually make me mad. Because you don't want to know how many creative ways I can call you a dishonest fuckwit.

The above seems to me to be a set of beliefs that the local police union could easily and quickly mobilize into opposition to any effort to reduce police funding and to any political party that gets a reputation for being hostile to the police. Which amounts to what I said earlier that "voters are likely to react badly to a political movement that is seen as trying to screw their local cops over." So I don't see where we disagree.

Nicholas

No, we absolutely disagree, because you started this with an argument that its the relationship with police that is he problem, and now you are backtracking to a completely different position that police unions can use propaganda to change the minds of people who are currently watching protests in the streets over police behavior. What you don't understand is that its a war of propaganda on both sides (propaganda merely being rhetoric by another name), and there is no guarantee that the police unions are going to be more effective at defending their position when the agencies keep teargassing (white!) protestors for no reason. In order for propaganda to work, you need to pay attention to the optics of your actual actions. Once upon a time you might have had a point, but nowadays there is the internet and cell phone cameras all over the goddamn place, and even the normal news agencies are mad because police keep assaulting their camera crews!

[Straha]

Or you could look at polling that indicates that suburban white folk trust police only somewhat more than Urban whites while suburban minority groups are the least trustful of the police. This is especially true now when "seven out of 10" people in the suburbs agree with the protests.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't think the democrats are inept. They are cowards. They are terrified of being painted as anti-law & order, horrified at the idea of being seen as weak on crime, and absolutely scared shitless to take on police unions.

They are right to be terrified of being seen as anti-law & order. No one is in favor of crime and chaos.

In addition American elections are one and lost in smaller cities and suburbs. In those areas the vast vast majority of voters have positive experiences with their local police and are likely to react badly to a political movement that is seen as trying to screw their local cops over. Reforming police departments far away which have a reputation for problems will go over well. But being seen as trying to hurt the local cops with whom the voters are quite happy would be a political disaster.

Nicholas

Trump is predictably trying to paint Biden as pro-defunding, even though Biden has opposed it. Of course, there's a danger in opposing it for Biden (moral considerations aside)- he risks losing substantially more support among young voters and progressives, including younger black voters.

Ideally, I'd like to see Biden take a strong stand in support of drastic reductions to law enforcement and redirecting the funds to other social programs over, say, a ten or fifteen year period. Practically... this seems like a good time for Biden to use the ol' States' Rights dodge- simply say (accurately) that the composition and size of state and local police forces (ie, most police in America) is up to the state and local governments to determine, according to what they feel is in the best interests of their constituents. He can support Minneapolis or Seattle making the decision to defund, and support other cities choosing not to. That way, the only thing he has to answer for personally is whether to defund Federal law enforcement agencies. (Though he's going to have to answer some tough questions on the subject of ICE and CBP).

[Darth Yan]

Republicans ain’t consistent on State’s rights at all. They’ll go after Biden no matter what

[The Romulan Republic]

Republicans ain’t consistent on State’s rights at all. They’ll go after Biden no matter what

No shit, but the point is to placate the independents and Centrists he was nominated to appeal to, without taking a stance that is overtly hostile to the protesters.

[Solauren]

The problem with cutting funding to police departments is, they'll just increase their enforcement of stuff that results in fines and the like. That would increase the amount of money they bring in, and give them a reason to go to city council "And now, imagine if you increased our budget!"

It wouldn't happen immediately, as it would be obvious, but a few years from now, I can see it happening with any police force that had it's budget cut.

It will take more then just budget cuts to fix the problem with corrupt police forces.

Suggestions I've seen include -
- Sacking all local police forces, turning law enforcement over to State police. (Alot of smaller towns were already doing this to save on budget)

Do not automatically roll the local police force into the state police. Make them go through training etc.

Ironically, the cop being charged with George Floyd's deaths record of complaints would probably prevent him from working for state or federal level law enforcement.

- Independent civilian review organization, that handles all reviews of the police of any kind, even if the police handle the matter themselves usually.
i.e complaint about police brutality, incidents where a cop is hurt/a cop hurts or kills someone, etc. They get full access, and anyone that doesn't co-operate with them, loses their job. The Civilian review organizations decision take weight over the police's decision. (So, if the police say 'nah, that wasn't brutality, and the civilians disagree, then the justice system ignores the police decision.) In cases where a certain department/group of reviews and the civilians are always at odds, fire that department/group of reviewers.

- Any instances where police equipment, i.e body cameras 'were not working properly', automatically finding against the officers in question, and send it to court for a jury trial. And in the meantime, fire them from the force for not properly maintaining their equipment, and ban them from ever having a job in law enforcement, or security, again.

- Increase de-escalation training for all levels of law enforcement, successful completion (including a written exam with a 90% pass) is a requirement to keep their job, and they get full retraining every few years. To a set national standard, inline with the militaries training for occupancy forces.
(Some of you may remember a thread here about that subject a few years ago).

[Darth Yan]

Those are the kind of things I think should be done first

[bilateralrope]

The problem with cutting funding to police departments is, they'll just increase their enforcement of stuff that results in fines and the like. That would increase the amount of money they bring in, and give them a reason to go to city council "And now, imagine if you increased our budget!"

I have always thought that letting the police keep any money they collect through fines is a major conflict of interest. I'm not saying that the police should stop issuing fines, just that if they do then the money goes elsewhere.

The only money I think the police should get for their budget is whatever the state or federal government decides to allocate to them. The only equipment they get is what they purchase with that budget.

[Zwinmar]

My opinion is that there are many cops that should be treated like Barney Fife, i.e. carry on one bullet in their pocket, they get to patrol their beat with no body armor just their uniform, badge, and maybe a nightstick. Force them to interact with people.

To the one bad apple argument: It doesn't hold water. Cops are supposed to be trained, they are not like normal citizens at a protest or riot, they have no excuse for getting out of hand.