Cops: Defund Or Defend?

In the wake of the documented killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the subsequent protests, a number of cities across America are moving to reform their police forces. Even Congress is getting into the act.

This is generally a good thing, but it must be done carefully and reasonably. Above all, it should not be done as a knee-jerk reaction to one case, however horrific, of police brutality.

It must be done in consideration of the public's safety. All the public: black, white, Asian, Latino, straight, gay, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, rich, poor, homeless, addicted--the entire panoply of this remarkably diverse nation.

Unlike several other countries, the United States does not have a paramilitary national police force. Instead, we have insanely over-armed local forces who routinely deploy battlefield weapons on the streets, including their favorite, tear gas, which was outlawed as a weapon of war by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. But it's OK to use on civilians.

Following the 1965 Watts riot, some larger police forces began increasing their armamentaria to include heavy automatic weapons and grenades, armored personnel carriers, and adopting military-style gear and tactics. This militarization increased during the 1980s drug wars, which saw the proliferation of SWAT forces. Since the late 1990s, police departments have been able to acquire excess military equipment of all kinds, bulking up their arsenals sufficiently to fight a small war. And they've been getting away with murder.

Since 2003, more than 1,000 Americans have been killed by police each year,¹ and the vast majority of them were not criminals. There is ample evidence that militarization is both ineffective and unequal. One study from 2018 showed that "militarized 'special weapons and tactics' (SWAT) teams are more often deployed in communities of color, and—contrary to claims by police administrators—provide no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction, on average."²

Not surprisingly, there are very few government programs that keep track of civilian deaths by police. There are a few in the private realm, but none of them agree exactly just how many non-criminals have been killed by police. One thing they do agree on is that people of color are disproportionately at risk, and that about 90% of such deaths are caused by gunshot.

I do not agree with any action that would abolish a police force or reduce it to ineffectiveness. That would invite chaos and vigilantism. But reform is unquestionably needed in many American police organizations.

Police officers are not soldiers, and police forces should not look at their communities as battlefields. Many police forces have adopted the "Protect and Defend" motto. They should take it seriously. They should know the people they claim to protect and defend. They should pay attention to the dynamics of their neighborhoods.

Needless to say, the Warmonger-in-Chief wants the police to go out and "dominate the streets." And of course he thinks they're all "great, great people."

Police should be our neighbors, not an occupying force. In the past couple of weeks we've seen the enmity that exists between communities and the forces who are supposed to be protecting and defending them. Too many Americans view the police as an enemy, in some cases with good reason.

Attitudes on both sides need to change. If an improvement in police-community relations can emerge from the recent strife, we will all be winners.


---Diogenes, 6/9/2020



¹ https://fatalencounters.org/

² Jonathan Mummolo, "Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation," https://www.pnas.org/content/115/37/9181.