The streets are alive! It is time for solutions not symbolism!
After all the protests and the overreaction from the police plus the many many cases of racial abuse there is now a call to de-fund police departments.
First, I feel this is the wrong term to use for this leaves it open to interpretation and twisting of the meaning as it is always done…..I figure there will be lots of mental midgets that will jump on the term and turn it into something it is not. A great term for the “spin masters”.
The idea is starting to catch hold…..only the department is not going to be de-funded just parts of it and the funds go elsewhere….like to Community Services……
Some city PDs are starting to respond….
A veto-proof majority of nine Minneapolis City Council members vowed Sunday to “dismantle” the city’s police department, the New York Times reports. Standing on a hill before hundreds of people, they said the current department was beyond reform and will be replaced with a new public-safety system. “It shouldn’t have taken so much death to get us here,” said Kandace Montgomery, who heads Black Vision. “We’re safer without armed, unaccountable patrols supported by the state hunting black people.” The move comes a day after protesters cried “Shame! Shame!” when the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, said he didn’t favor “the full abolition of the police.”
It also coincides with a grim Star-Tribune article on the city’s Third Precinct, which headquarters the officers who killed George Floyd. Calling it a “playground for renegade cops,” the paper looks at confirmed abuse incidents there—like officers kicking a handcuffed suspect until his jaw broke, pistol-whipping a low-level drug suspect, and letting prostitution suspects touch officers’ genitals before arresting them. The city also paid out $2.1 million between 2007 and 2017 to settle lawsuits against the precinct. “We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,” tweets Jeremiah Ellison, a representative in the city’s Ward 5. “And when we’re done, we’re not simply gonna glue it back together.”
New York City has decided to take things seriously as well…….
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday he would accede to protesters’ demands by moving to shift funds away from the NYPD toward social services.
During his daily briefing, the mayor addressed the demonstrations that have gripped the city and nation for almost two weeks following the death of George Floyd while in police custody. De Blasio announced a number of reforms as proposed by a task force on racial inclusion, one of which was to shift funding from the police force to youth initiatives.
“The details will be worked out in the budget process in the weeks ahead. But, I want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people,” de Blasio said.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/de-blasio-nyc-to-cut-nypd-funding-shift-it-to-social-services
Is this a real opportunity or just another in a long list of promised reforms that have fallen into the trash heap of political promises? Is this just a way to try and calm the protests?
I think all that “reform” is a good idea….but there should be more emphasis on the personnel…..hire good stable people and put the trash out.
All over this nation the city governments have had ample time and ample notice that this was needed and yet they all looked away and allowed the abuses to continue…..what makes us think they are serious this time around?
Keep in mind that this situation we have today was seen some 50 years ago……
The scenes are similar to the 1960s. In response Pat Gillham, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Western Washington University, says President Lyndon Johnson commissioned the 1968 Kerner Report, offering recommendations to police for managing protests.
But seeing the response this week with military-style vehicles and tear gas, Gillham thinks the report has been ignored.
“These things don’t create positive relations between the police and the community they promise to serve and protect,” says Gillham. “Just exacerbates things, which is exactly what the Kerner Report found 50 years prior.”
https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2020-06-05/social-justice/50-year-old-report-warns-against-police-tactics-used-today/a70445-1
Dems step in to save the police departments with a bill that would “reform” the PDs……
Democrats proposed a sweeping overhaul of police oversight and procedures Monday, the most ambitious change to law enforcement sought by Congress in years, per the AP. Before unveiling the package, House and Senate Democrats held a moment of silence at the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall, reading the names of George Floyd and others killed during police interactions. They knelt for 8 minutes and 46 seconds—now a symbol of police brutality and violence—the length of time prosecutors say Floyd was pinned under a white police officer’s knee before he died. The Justice in Policing Act would:
- Limit legal protections for police. For example, it would revise the federal criminal police misconduct statute to make it easier to prosecute officers who are involved in misconduct “knowingly or with reckless disregard.”
- The package would also change “qualified immunity” protections for police “to enable individuals to recover damages when law enforcement officers violate their constitutional rights.”
- Create a national database of excessive-force incidents.
- Ban police chokeholds.
- Ban racial profiling and boost requirements for police body cameras.
- Grant subpoena power to the Justice Department to conduct “pattern and practice” investigations of potential misconduct and help states conduct independent investigations.
- The measure stops short of calls by activists to “defund the police,” a push to dismantle or reduce financial resources to police departments that has struck new intensity in the weeks of protests since Floyd’s death.
- It is unclear if law enforcement and the powerful police unions will back any of the proposed changes or if congressional Republicans will join the effort
Please stop calling them “police unions”….nothing about them is about the worker and their protection. At best they are associations to protect cops when they do wrong.
The Dems still are naive enough to think that good policy will win the day….sadly it NEVER wins out…..if it does it is then quickly changed…..
Again I think this move is just a political ploy to give them cover with the voter.
All the leaders are jumping into this and onto the bandwagon…..most of them have had how many years to get something done and yet now is the time they pick….could it be that the election looms?
This is an idea of what society and community could be……
At first blush, the notion that modern police departments could be defunded and dismantled seems, to many, like a misguided impulse from out of nowhere. Without police departments, how will we deal with violent crime? Sure, many on the left would agree that the war on drugs that has put so many people behind bars — especially people of color — must be radically overhauled or completely ended. But what about murder? Are we not going to arrest murderers anymore?
This concern has been raised by lots of people online, including some of my liberal colleagues. Few on the left would disagree that modern, hypermilitarized police forces have shown little regard for anyone or anything that doesn’t directly relate to the police or the protection of the interests of corporations and other business owners. (Even then, police departments nationwide haven’t done a great job of preventing theft.) And few on the left would disagree that heavy police reform is necessary, possibly at a federal level, or that the right to peaceful assembly guaranteed by the Constitution’s First Amendment should be reinforced as well. But getting rid of the police? How would you do such a thing?
https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/6/8/21281069/abolish-the-police-black-lives-matter-george-floyd-protests-minneapolis-new-york
A regular to IST Political Change was posted on the ideas to reform the police…..https://politicalcharge.org/2020/06/08/what-policies-does-your-city-need-to-adopt-to-decrease-police-brutality/
Please….any thoughts?
“lego ergo scribo”