ShineCero said:
- All Policemen are now required to obtain a license to become one. Don't have a license, you cannot become an Officer.
- All Policemen are now required a minimum of 5 years to become an officer and take numerous courses, training, internship, etc.
- If an officer has their license revoked, they cannot moved to another city to become an Officer. Revoked license means permanent disbarred from the police force.
- Installed National Standard for all Police--all state and local governments have to abide by that standard.
I'd agree more in line for these changes, all things considered. The current standard we hold our police to is consistently been proven to not be good enough for the results in their actions. I won't get into the demographics of this aspect, where there is an argument that the overall statistic on incidents like this low, but regardless of the stats at this point, we are at a stage in our country where we just simply need to be better.
I personally do not have a stance in the argument of how well our police do in reducing crime versus how many unfairly profiled citizens are harassed by cops, due to the fact that both sides have compelling arguments in the way of statistics. But regardless of who is truly right or wrong in this argument, it doesn't matter: our country and population have a clear stance that whatever state we are in now, it needs to be better. So we must hold our officers to a higher standard, and I do think these points you listed capture a method that could help us fairly improve our police system with one addition: better pay and rigorous requirements for physical standards.
Simply because the other side of the coin with officers is that they do deal with risks and overall job requirements that none of us will ever match intensity wise in our entire lives. So if we create a standard that works well in making sure we only have the best of us serving our communities, then we need to treat them well and pay them well. Simply because we do need to address the problem of, "well, half of those officers have that job because no one else will do it."
So better pay and benefits will create a system that will challenge people who seek this route in life to be their best, and at the same time, hold them to a standard that we need for officers. So if they fail, then there's no excuse for it and they will be met with harsh justice for performing the way those trash cans did with George Floyd.
As well, there's no reason we need four officers to ever contain one unarmed suspect. Period. This isn't me saying that there's a problem with being, "overweight" in general, but if you are required to perform the physical duties of an officer, you should not be allowed to be at such a hindrance from poor physical conditioning and allowed to be a police officer.
Seeing the amount of overweight officers involved and their inability to contain one man like that is infuriating to say the least. So one of the main standards I believe is that the officers currently in the force need to be required to live healthier and required to be a certain fitness level. Raising pay and benefits would make it easy to require such a commitment to diet and exercise, imo.
ShineCero said:
- Establish an independent inspector body with significant power that investigate misconduct and/or criminal allegations.
Technically, we already have institutions that should take on these roles already: the National Guard and the FBI, as well as the governors of each state being able to elect an entity to handle this. I'm not sure on this process in terms of thoroughness and what happens, but I do think that your point does hit this issue well with the fact that whatever methods we currently have in place for this, they do need to be more transparent, informative and overall just better.
We should not have to do in-depth research on why a police officer is cleared for the crime to understand the risks of the job, the situation, and the unavoidable outcome if the officer is proven to be in line with doing his job. It needs to be made clear effectively to the public, and it has to be done in a way that brings us together in a unified understanding of what real justice is.
IE, yes, maybe George Floyd was a forger and technically a criminal. But he did not deserve to be held in an illegal method of choke hold and killed as a result of his criminal activity and his physical response to the multiple officers containing the situation. So that was not justice, and I do hope that officer is held to the full extent of the law and put away for his entire life or executed for his crime. Based on what little information I know: it better be damn good reason why he had to hold him like that for it to make me believe it's warranted if there is something that can possibly explain the situation.
As well on the flipside, there was the incident of Michael Brown who had stolen from a convenience store, and actually fought with the police in an attempt to escape justice. Forensics evidence did conclude that Brown was charging at Wilson, at the very least, was attempting to injure or worse, kill him. Given the situation, I would say it is fair that Brown was shot for his actions. Yet history does not remember it that way: the amount of unrest that grew from his death grows in a similar manner to today. Where individuals that rightfully protest for reform on issues that need to be fixed, are marred and insulted by criminals that hide behind them and loot innocent businesses in the name of George Floyd.
So if we institute or reform our agencies to investigate these situations better, it needs to be done in a way that clearly informs our population and allows us to all come to a collective understanding about what truly happened and what real justice is in each and every complex scenario.
ShineCero said:
- All Police officers must hold individual liability insurance and cannot have civil suits paid for by the city, state or federal level.
I disagree with this, and while I do know that your vision on this one is to attempt to correct potential corruption, I feel as if this should remain a police benefit if we manage to reform the current practice of internal affairs investigations as well as improving the standard to which we hold our police. The job requirement is to literally risk your life in some situations, so it would be unfair and silly for us to require that officers manage their life insurance in a system like capitalism that would exorbitantly raise their rates for the sole aspect of the job they hold, if those companies were even willing to pay for it at all. As well for cases regarding civil suits: since the police are vouched for by the Force, then their benefits should be covered if they win cases. To have it managed by the government is fair, and since we pay for the service of the police, it should come from tax payers.
Do the police currently deserve the money we pay them? Perhaps not, but at the end of the day, I would still argue that we shouldn't change the fact that we're paying for it. Only that we deserve a better product than what we're buying.
ShineCero said:
- Passed a law that required Police Force to served the populace, interests and protect the people (to get around the Supreme Court case declaring "Cops don't have to protect you".
I disagree on this one mostly because of two reasons:
1) That's already the requirement of the job, in regards to stopping crime. Like federal security guards, you can be taken to court and criminally charged depending on the severity and situation. The terminology is "enforce the law", but that usually is a legal battle solely because police discretion in upholding the law is also important and usually creates too complex of a situation. IE, it would be foolish if the police had to text/alert a citizen that is suspected of a crime that they are sending a police officer to arrest them over a suspected crime one hour in advance of dispatching a unit. So in the case Castle Rock vs Gonzalez, that was a very slippery legal battle due to the current method of how we handle restraining orders. Which, I do think we need to reform and overall find a better way for our law enforcement to be able to effectively uphold restraining orders without infringing on all people's rights, this problem is described below:
2) The real reason why we have not implemented anything past current statutes, is because there was no clear and unexploitable standard for how a cop has to protect the population. IE, imagine if you walked up to a cop and demanded they escort you home in fear of potential crime happening on your way home. It's a real possibility, however unlikely, and under a court ruling that demands such an action, it will likely be an offense that you could prosecute.
But if we lived in a world that would bog down our police force with such inefficiency, crime would be so easy to manipulate through exploitation of a rule like that. IE, a criminal group paying others to tie up the police force with efforts like that so they can freely hit a target of their choice with a delayed response from the bogged down police. There are so many people in this world that work to understand the system to exploit it, and our justice system is probably the most researched topic for this reason. So while I can agree that again, we need a better standard for our police, I will say that this sort of proposition is just too naive. That's why it was ruled: the law already requires the police to be held at the requirement of stopping crime, which covers things like murder and types of actions that would put the population in danger.
So I'd say that if we manage to improve our standard of the police and we had better officers serving the community under the current guidelines, then I'd say that this point being suggested would be solved. We have a variety of well trained and very professional, good cops across our country. While at the same time, we have garbage like the current set of officers in play: out of shape, most likely abusive issues with spouses, poor training, and overall poor capability to enforce the law.
Get the trash out, and I think we'll be fine.
