The protests about racial violence by police departments is all around us. I saw some incredible protests in the UK and Hong Kong yesterday. I have been wondering, what does police reform look like? What should police departments do? What are protesters asking for?
It seems like the best answer is we want, at a minimum, a massive reduction in police violence. After all in 2019 and 2020 in the US, a third of all people killed by strangers were killed by police officers. That’s crazy.
So, there’s a good answer for how we could reduce the violence and killings. In fact, there are 8 specific policies that could be implemented at each police department. There’s even a website called 8CantWait.org which highlights these policies.
If a department implements all 8 of these policies, there’s lots of data that shows police violence will go down 72%. Seventy-two percent. That’s a pretty good start.
The policies are fairly simple things:
Some thoughts:
- Requiring techniques for de-escalation and banning chokeholds and strangleholds. This seems obvious but only 28 of the largest 100 police departments in the US have done this. These are pretty much allowed everywhere. Minneapolis currently doesn’t ban them.
- A duty to intervene? If officers see other officers going against policy, they have a duty to intervene. This is why Minneapolis officers who were just watching Floyd get murdered were able to be arrested, because they had a duty to intervene.
- Shooting into moving vehicles. You shouldn’t do it because if you kill the person driving, they simply run into others and kill innocent people. 62 people this year died because of this.
Basically, citizens should know the ways that police are legally allowed to kill you and we should know what we, as protesters, want to change of our current police force.
This seems like a great start.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis
Minnesota is doing more than just 8 new policies, the Minneapolis City Council just voted to completely disband the entire police department and radically change how crimes are approached in the city. Wow.
BREAKING AND HISTORIC: A veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members will announce today their commitment to disbanding the awful Minneapolis Police Department, following the police killing of George Floyd https://t.co/HjwCR49f7Z
— Matt Ferner (@matthewferner) June 7, 2020
Apparently, this happened before in Camden, NJ:
Minneapolis isn’t the first city to disband its PD. “In 2013, the Camden Police Department was disbanded, reimagined, and born again as the Camden County Police Department, with fewer officers, lower pay—and a strategic shift toward “community policing.” https://t.co/wYwNf0xB0j
— Grace Panetta (@grace_panetta) June 7, 2020
Other Stuff
Skateboard protest is rad:
philly skate protest for BLM pic.twitter.com/ntpFXG8si4
— courtney (@tennisC0URTney) June 7, 2020
Funny, In all fairness, they had been in trouble with the law since the day they was born.
The craziest thing about Dukes of Hazzard is being asked to believe cops would bother two white dudes in a car with a Confederate flag on it.
— James Fritz (@fritzisdead) June 7, 2020
I hope so, Dan:
I’ve seen and reported on many “this time”s. But this time really does feel different.
— Dan Rather (@DanRather) June 7, 2020
Cases
It does seem like the U.S. looking at around 5000 coronavirus deaths a week for the foreseeable future, and most Americans are apparently OK with that.
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) June 7, 2020
New York is doing better:
US cases are flat but deaths are down. We’ll see if there’s a rise in the next week or two.
Happy Monday everyone
Only 64 more days to go
