Fundamental reforms would begin with ending the “qualified immunity” of police, curbing the militarization of police forces, transferring funds and functions to social agencies, imposing residency requirements and finally making lynching a hate crime.
It would revise the “qualified immunity,” which has protected police from liability for excessive use of force, curb the transfer of military equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies, mandate data collection of police misconduct and a centralized registry of offenders, mandate racial training and outlaw chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
Similarly, as Campaign Zero has detailed in #8Can’tWait, local officials or city councils can simply order basic changes in police techniques: outlawing choke holds, mandating deescalation efforts, requiring warning before shooting, creating a duty to intervene against excessive force by other officers, banning shooting at moving vehicles and more.
Police are soldiers in the so-called War on Drugs when it is fought in poor and minority communities while deferring to public health agencies addressing opioid and drug abuse in suburban and exurban neighborhoods.
Mayors in Los Angeles to New York have announced plans to transfer some funds from the police budget to social services, but what’s required is a real commitment like that of the Minneapolis City Council to rethink public safety from top to bottom.
