Dangerous cops have been murdering with impunity for decades and little has been done to fix it. Black Americans are being murdered in the street by the men and women sworn to protect them. The system is broken and will require massive reform. Here’s some ideas I came up with. I’d love to hear your feedback about these plans as well as recommendations I should add. This is not a draft, but a work in progress. I will be sending a final copy of my reform plan to my elected officials and I’m hopeful for a positive outcome. Let’s change society for the better. Not for me, but Us.

KING DAVID’S POLICE REFORM PLAN

Restrict Non-Lethal Weapons

• Limit the use of tear gas

• No rubber bullets and beanbag shots

Rubber bullets are supposedly non-lethal weapons, but they have in fact have the ability to maim and kill in the right situations. I’ve seen grisly images of a woman with a black eye, entirely closed, with a bloody indent in her forehead after being struck by a rubber bullet. A well-known journalist in Los Angeles, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez was hit in the neck with a rubber bullet. While he came out with minor injuries, others have had it far worse. It’s clear that police do not have the maturity or understand the responsibility of non-lethal weapons. These weapons should be eliminated.

Tear gas has been used so frequently that Popular Science wrote an article about how to protect yourself from it! While tear gas isn’t quite as dangerous as rubber bullets, it’s clear that it’s been used far too often and excessively by police to inflict pain on protesters rather than disperse them. What kind of dystopia do we live in?

Massively Decrease Firearm Usage

• Allow only 10% of cops to carry guns

• Reduce police magazines to 6-10 rounds

If you’re Black in America, the police force is a danger to seriously consider. You can’t ride your bike, run, relax in your home and eat ice cream, or even go out to eat, without a risk of being harassed or killed. Most killings by police are done with a gun. It’s clear that police officers do not have adequate training to handle a gun and react too quickly. While they may excel in target practice, their training and reflexes aren’t sufficient enough for real-life emergencies, especially when working with African Americans.

In the rare case they do need a firearm, such as protecting themselves after a stolen vehicle pursuit, call in other officers and allow the use of firearms. There could also be an option where all police officers have guns in their car, but are only able to access them through additional bureaucratic steps. If the officer is truly in danger, they can take note of the individual or vehicle, call it in, and leave the scene.

Ban Chokeholds and other Dangerous Physical Restraints

• Harsh, appropriate punishments for using physical restraints that put individuals’ lives in danger

• No restricting of individual’s airway by any means

• No Chokeholds

George Floyd would still be alive today if these cruel punishments were eliminated. His life was worth saving.

Frequent Independent Audits on Police Misconduct

• Audits in the case of a police killing

• Audits in the case of alleged excessive force

• Audits on accurate reporting

• Audits on gun/non-lethal weapon use

I may not be a cop, but I’ve worked in a state or state contractor position to know long enough that we get audited for just about everything. As a counselor serving individuals on Medi-Cal, the state of California regularly reviews any discrepancies, or patterns that don’t make sense. Sometimes, audits are randomized. Sometimes, we have decent notice. Police have a tendency to form a brotherhood, which discourages whistleblowers from reporting wrongdoing despite state protections. Police have been caught in the act of lying, mayors have covered up investigations, and district attorneys have refused to prosecute police, like Laquan McDonald’s murder in Chicago. It took 11 months for McDonald’s murderer to be charged and FOUR YEARS to be convicted.

Mental Health Training

• Deescalation Tactics

• Counseling

• Behavioral Intervention

As a counselor, these strategies are permanently ingrained in my daily life. The clients I’ve worked with have become irritated, aggressive, annoyed, and on a rare occasion, will resort to physical violence. Counseling has helped me learn to listen to others. Police officers might have some training for deescalation, but when it comes time to use it, they use their weapons instead. By removing police weapons and forcing them to use behavioral intervention techniques, many lives would be saved, and far less people would be injured at the hands of the state.

Civilian Oversight Committees

• Police the Police

• File Civilian Complaints

• Neighborhood Discusses Current Issues and Improvements w/ Policing

Police accountability is minimal. Doctors have malpractice insurance. Homeowners have fire and earthquake insurance. Why not ensure that neighborhood police departments are functioning properly? Like a Neighborhood Council, implement citizens to review police conduct (and reported misconduct), make appropriate recommendations, and elevate this to the City Council. This would be a kind of town hall meeting where civilians and police of the neighborhood would be able to discuss current issues and how to effectively utilize the police force to deal with them. Whereas police abuses are ripe in our minds, this may take some time to implement, but it would allow for greater accountability. If a majority of the neighborhood takes issue with one police officer, chances are they’re a bad cop.

No Previous Gang Involvement

• No White Supremacy

• No Ties to Criminal Organizations

Police have a long history of being tied to white supremacist organizations. Cops tend to take a more conservative approach and while not all conservatives are fear-mongering racists, some are and they have an affinity toward careers in law enforcement. Especially in cities like Portland, with a long history of white supremacy groups terrorizing its inhabitants, racist police thrive. How do we solve this issue? A complete social media scrub over the past 10 years. Police already undergo department of justice and FBI background checks, but it’s clear that more matters than just their fingerprints. Some cops are found to have racist messages over chat, painful insults against minorities, in addition to emotional instability and a vindictive nature. This is the last quality we need when choosing a police officer. Search social media history thoroughly and question any racist or unstable posts.

This is just the start. Every day is a new day and a new day for change. Black Americans have been through painful times and continue to experience discrimination at far higher rates than White Americans. American ancestors have been bringing over slaves since the 1600s. Despite what many people think, slavery did not “just start” in the 1800s. It’s been over 400 years, 155 years since the end of the civil war, and 55 years since the end of Jim Crow. While this isn’t my fight, I want to help. I don’t want to live in a world where justice is sold to the highest bidder, where Black men lie are dying on the streets, and where a corrupt, vile, abominable president sits in his bunker, spewing out empty ultimatums to the world.

Demand. Equality. Now.

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Sources:

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/dec/19/rubber-and-plastic-bullets-too-dangerous-for-crowd-control-says-study

https://twitter.com/aguzmanlopez/status/1267269781805137920

https://www.popsci.com/story/diy/tear-gas-guide/

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865261916/a-decade-of-watching-black-people-die

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/laquan-mcdonald/ct-graphics-laquan-mcdonald-officers-fired-timeline-htmlstory.html

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/the-fbi-has-quietly-investigated-white-supremacist-infiltration-of-law-enforcement/

https://www.revealnews.org/article/inside-hate-groups-on-facebook-police-officers-trade-racist-memes-conspiracy-theories-and-islamophobia/