Are you sure you want to abolish the police?

[Treedbear]

... Seriously, I've heard no reasonable ideas from anyone about how we can change things in a realistic way.
...

We're doing something in Connecticut:
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signs sweeping police reform bill
By Alec Snyder and Evan Simko-Bednarski, CNN, July 31, 2020

(CNN)Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signed comprehensive police accountability legislation into law Friday afternoon.

The law institutes a new statewide watchdog for police misconduct, bans "chokeholds" in most instances and puts limits on the ability of police departments to withhold officers' disciplinary records. It also allows individual officers to be held financially liable in civil suits over their actions.
The law requires all departments statewide to equip officers with body-worn cameras and places limits on the military equipment Connecticut police departments can acquire or use.

The bill, officially known as H.B. 6004 and titled "An Act Concerning Police Accountability," passed the Connecticut State Senate by a 21-15 vote early Wednesday morning after hours of deliberation.

"These reforms are focused on bringing real change to end the systemic discrimination that exists in our criminal justice and policing systems that have impacted minority communities for far too long," Lamont said in a news release.
"Ultimately, what we are enacting today are policies focused on providing additional safeguards to protect peoples' lives and make our communities stronger. Our nation and our state has been having a conversation on this topic for decades, and these reforms are long overdue."

The ACLU of Connecticut tweeted its support for the bill Wednesday evening.
"Ending police violence will not be solved by any one bill, but the bill passed out of the legislature today is a start," Melvin Medina, the ACLU of Connecticut's public policy and advocacy director, said in a statement. "To the legislators who instead voted to shield the profession of policing from accountability, do better."
...
The Connecticut law creates an independent Office of the Inspector General at the state level to investigate all uses of deadly force by police in the state, or all instances of death in police custody. The legislation grants the inspector general's office subpoena power, and charges it with referring possible prosecutions to the state's Division of Criminal Justice.

It also allows the state's police accreditation body to revoke a law enforcement officer's credentials if they have been found to have used excessive force.

To that end, the law bans neck restraints, or "chokeholds," unless a law enforcement officer "reasonably believes" such a hold to be necessary to defend from "the use or imminent use of deadly physical force."
The law requires officers who witness other officers using excessive force or banned holds to intervene.
One of the most heavily debated sections of the law is a blow to "qualified immunity," the idea that government officials are protected from civil suits while performing the functions of their job.
Under the law signed Friday, Connecticut police officers can be subject to civil suit and can only claim immunity if the officer "had an objectively good faith belief that such officer's conduct did not violate the law."
The law also stipulates that, should a court find against an officer for having committed a "malicious, wanton, or willful act," the officer in question must reimburse the government for his legal defense.

Other notable stipulations of the law include a ban on military designed equipment, which the law refers to as "controlled equipment." Several classes of weapons are included in that ban, ranging from flash-bangs and explosives to armored drones and "highly mobile multi-wheeled vehicles."

Officers' disciplinary records are also prohibited from being shielded by any future collective bargaining agreements. Records are also now subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

(Emphasis mine.) Not too shabby. And done without a lot of fuss. Kind of like the order to wear masks and social distance. No big deal. Just do it because it's the right thing to do. Did I mention our positivity rate is 0.7%? That's little Connecticut. The Constitution State -

‘never had a company of men deliberately met to frame a social compact for immediate use, constituting a new and independent commonwealth, with definite officers, executive and legislative, and prescribed rules and modes of government, until the first planters of Connecticut came together for their great work on January 14th, 1638-39.’

Not too proud.

 

[Derec]

Sure, you can find a few zanies on YouTube or Wherever that want to abolish the police.

Also on the opinion page of the New York Times. And KeepTalking agrees with the kook from the NYT article in this post.

But to pretend these zanies are rational, or real opinion-makers is to fall for right-wing caricatures.

Again, NYT is giving these zanies a platform. So are US universities under the discipline of "critical law studies" and similar. There is no university that I know that is offering critical Elivis studies (where you challenge the cis-normative, white, bourgeois idea that Elvis died in 1977). Likewise, universities are not bastions of "critical biomedical science" where cis-normative, white, bourgeois presuppositions about harmfulness of intervenous sodium hypochlorite are challenged.

What some liberals have proposed is to start over with police. To abolish the existing police departments — which are full of racists, sadists and improperly trained goons;

Presupposes facts not in evidence.

and which have too many duties beyond policing —

That may be true, but often the examples used do not fit. For example not sending police for domestic violence calls but sending social workers instead. Domestic violence is a violent crime and therefore the proper bailiwick of police. Not to mention that often domestic partners who are going at it can quickly form a truce to go after the third party that showed up, i.e. responding to domestic calls can be dangerous.
That is also the reason why police should respond to mental health calls. Accompanied by mental health professionals of course, but there should be armed backup, since mental cases can be violent and can even be armed. Like for example Keaton Otis who, while suffering from profound mental illness (and really should have been institutionalized), was no less dangerous than somebody sane armed with a gun. In fact, I would argue that a crazy with a gun or other weapon such as a sword is MORE dangerous because crazy people may lack the instinct of self-preservation. Note also that in these two cases tge crazies were encountered "in the wild" and not as a part of a mental health call.

I see it a bit differently. The way to reduce the unnecessary (and harmful) actions by police is at the legislature. Police are tasked with enforcing laws passed by lawmakers. If lawmakers want to reduce the number of hostile interactions between the police and the citizens they are tasked with protecting, repeal a number of unnecessary criminal laws. There is no need for consensual sex work to be criminalized. Both it and marijuana should be fully legal. Other drugs? Make possession of personal use quantities no longer a crime. Jamee Johnson was rightly shot by the police officer defending himself, but Jamee would not have dived into his car for his gun if he wasn't carrying a felony quantity of marijuana.

and immediately build new police departments, using the buildings, equipment and what personnel can be salvaged from the abolished departments.

And rename them as "Workers and Peasant's Militia" while we're at it.

Several recent exposés have shown that many American police departments are rotten to the core. Reluctantly, informed Americans must agree the time has come for drastic action.

I have seen claims to that effect by left-wingers. Not anything that "informed Americans" must be in agreement with.

A thread discussing how to make the transition to better police departments might be useful. But let's not just joust at strawmen.

Unfortunately the abolition movement is not a "strawman". It is part of the left-wing politics, especially in academia.

 

[Politesse]

So is gun abolition. But it has never been a major goal of the liberal political party, despite being a perennial talking point among supposed conservatives. Neither will any politician ever succeed in pushing the Democrats toward fulll-stop abolition of the police force. I'd sooner expect a full-blown Communist revolution. And you know there is a communist party, politically active and not scant in numbers. But it has and will have no power.

What I'm saying is, the majority of conservatives and centrists are kind of stupid or at least less than strategic in one respect, and I think the avalanche of media over-coverage of outliers is to blame for it. But for whatever reason, they prefer tilting after windmills that give them an opportunity to go into histrionics, rather dealing maturely intelligently with threats that actually exist, and the conversations policymakers are, in fact, having in the proverbial room where it happens. In doing so, they manage to cut themselves OUT of the conversation rather than menaingfully gaining ground on behalf of their earnestly held ideological beliefs and projects.

 

[Derec]

They need to be held accountable for killing unarmed citizens,

A bit of a caveat here. "Unarmed" is not really what should be used here. Rather, the question is whether the suspect was a threat that justified the use of deadly force.
There have been cases of unarmed perps attacking police officers and taking their guns. This is one example, but there are many similar ones. You also have equivocation about who qualifies as "unarmed". A 3 ton motor vehicle can be used as a lethal weapon even if the perp has no other weapon. And often perps armed with realistic-looking firearm replicas will be called "unarmed" by activists even though there is no real way for police to distinguish such replicas (not "toys" as activists like to call them!) from genuine firearms.

and for using harsh methods to suppress protests etc.

I think people have the right to peacefully protest, but that right, just like all other rights, is not absolute and unrestricted. Rioting, looting, arson etc. is NOT peaceful protest and harsh methods are justified. More controversially, I do not think protesters have the right to block interstate highways and the like either. Some of these "protests" have been going on for month, and freedoms of other citizens are seriously impacted by a small minority of radicals taking over city streets for weeks on end. I do not think rights of protesters to protest should trump rights of other citizens to move freely around their cities.

But when one says that want to defund the police, it gives some the impression that means ending the police. Without funding, there will be no police. I realize that's not what is meant, but I've seen some of my liberal friends say that they wish the term "defund" the police was never use because it gives people the wrong impression.

I do not think it is the wrong impression seeing that many of the anti-police protesters see "defund the police" as not merely a call to reform. See this sign for example.

And, abolishing the police is exactly what some of the protesters in Seattle wanted. The point is that it didn't work out very well.

Exactly. Portland, too btw.

From what I've read most cities that talk about defunding aren't talking about doing away with the police, but that term is one that can be interpreted to mean just that.

Either that, or a significant reduction of police funding such that their ability to effectively enforce the law and protect citizens would be severely impacted. For example, see the demands of PAALF, an anti-police group from Portland.

Camden, NJ did a pretty good job when they reformed their police department. Is that the model that others should consider?

Camden did not really it do it themselves. It was imposed on them from outside, by the state government. There are many good things that came out of the Camden example, but anti-police activists are not quite happy with it.

To be perfectly honest, I wish a lot of these things had waited until after the November election because some of these confusing terms are simply giving Republicans an opportunity to use them to attack Democrats. Protests are fine, but a lot of what is happening now could end up making things worse. I hope not, but I am concerned.

Not all protest is fine. If you are taking a city hostage for months and months, I do not think that's "fine" even outside the issue of rioting, looting and arson.

 

[Metaphor]

Okay, so you're up to... one, so far.

Is Mariame Kaba in any position to implement or even influence such a policy change? What is her position within the government? I notice that in her first three sentences, she confesses that the entire liberal wing is united against her proposal. She cannot be that much of a threat, with the so-called left wing of American politics standing against her.

So yes, this is another "they'll never take my guns". That is, an attempt to build hysteria over a threat that isn't really a threat, phrased in terms of a wild generalization about a political party that is in fact unified in not advocating for the position in question.

You asked who was advocating the abolition of police, and then when evidence of such a person was produced, you shifted the goalposts to "who in formal political power is advocating the abolition of police".

 

[Politesse]

You asked who was advocating the abolition of police, and then when evidence of such a person was produced, you shifted the goalposts to "who in formal political power is advocating the abolition of police".

I stand by my original question, sir. If the answer to "who" is a well-intentioned but radical group with next to nonexistent public support and no means to implement any of their goals, then this is the new groundless-hysteria-du-jour and not a serious issue.

 

[Metaphor]

You asked who was advocating the abolition of police, and then when evidence of such a person was produced, you shifted the goalposts to "who in formal political power is advocating the abolition of police".

I stand by my original question, sir. If the answer to "who" is a well-intentioned but radical group with next to nonexistent public support and no means to implement any of their goals, then this is the new groundless-hysteria-du-jour and not a serious issue.

Oh, I don't doubt the majority of the population would never support such an obscene and ludicrous proposition. Getting rid of police is plainly, deeply, obviously and a brutally batshit insane policy. It's so bad a policy I have difficulty believing the holders of such a policy are "well-intentioned", but they could just be very stupid and naive.

But that does not mean that the holders of radical and fringe views don't have access to power. Indeed they do, and the amplification of these views in establishment media is evidence of it.

 

[Derec]

Because "reforming the police" has been the dogma of the Left since the Progressive Era, and a full century of banging on that particular gong has yet to do a damn thing for communities of color.

Really? Nothing has changed for the so-called "communities of color" since the "Progressive Era" which ended in 1920s? Is that really a claim you want to be making?

 

[Politesse]

Because "reforming the police" has been the dogma of the Left since the Progressive Era, and a full century of banging on that particular gong has yet to do a damn thing for communities of color.

Really? Nothing has changed for the so-called "communities of color" since the "Progressive Era" which ended in 1920s? Is that really a claim you want to be making?

I said nothing of the sort. But it is certainly true that harassment of communities of color by the police has never stopped, or even been significantly curbed, by attempted liberal reforms.

 

[Derec]

I said nothing of the sort. But it is certainly true that harassment of communities of color by the police has never stopped, or even been significantly curbed, by attempted liberal reforms.

Can you be specific in what way so-called "communities of color" (we white people have color too goddammit!) are being harassed today? Especially how that is not significantly different in how these same communities were treated in 1920. Please be specific. Thank you!

 

[southernhybrid]

I'd like to thank Treedbear for explaining in detail what Connecticut is doing to make pricing better. That's what I wanted to know. Where is the solution between the two extremes?

There are extremists on both sides of this debate, but nobody else has offered an attempt to a solution.

And, Derec, I don't give a fuck why Camden totally revamped its price department. Who cares if it was mandated by the state. I'm from NJ. I'm extremely aware of the racism that exists in that state. The fact is that crime was lowered by around 40% after the new police department was trained. No solution will make everyone happy, but at least what Camden did helped.

There is no perfect solution and what happened in Seattle should be enough to help the small minority that wants to abolish the police realize that's not a solution. I would support cutting back the number of police and the amount of funding that law enforcement gets. But, Seattle voted to cut it back by 50% and that wasn't enough for some people. That does seem a bit nuts to me. When funding is cut, it should be cut gradually. I've never lived on the West Coast, so I"m not aware of the problems that exist there. I'm mostly familiar with the South and the Northeast.

And, Politesse, you've objected to the word "reform", but so far, you've given us no idea of what you think would improve policing. Do you have any ideas as to what type of solution might decrease systemic racism and have the potential to make policing more humane? I've given a few of my own ideas, but I'm waiting to see if others have ideas.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I'd like to thank Treedbear for explaining in detail what Connecticut is doing to make pricing better. That's what I wanted to know. Where is the solution between the two extremes?

There are extremists on both sides of this debate, but nobody else has offered an attempt to a solution.

And, Derec, I don't give a fuck why Camden totally revamped its price department. Who cares if it was mandated by the state. I'm from NJ. I'm extremely aware of the racism that exists in that state. The fact is that crime was lowered by around 40% after the new police department was trained. No solution will make everyone happy, but at least what Camden did helped.

There is no perfect solution and what happened in Seattle should be enough to help the small minority that wants to abolish the police realize that's not a solution. I would support cutting back the number of police and the amount of funding that law enforcement gets. But, Seattle voted to cut it back by 50% and that wasn't enough for some people. That does seem a bit nuts to me. When funding is cut, it should be cut gradually. I've never lived on the West Coast, so I"m not aware of the problems that exist there. I'm mostly familiar with the South and the Northeast.

And, Politesse, you've objected to the word "reform", but so far, you've given us no idea of what you think would improve policing. Do you have any ideas as to what type of solution might decrease systemic racism and have the potential to make policing more humane? I've given a few of my own ideas, but I'm waiting to see if others have ideas.

How would cutting the police and their budget help? Most police atrocities are committed by bad police officers or poorly trained ones. To prevent these situations, we should hire do a better job of screening, train more, evaluate them more, train more, make them more accountable, and train them more. Clearly the officer who killed Lloyd was a crooked police officer who never should have had a badge. But the guys around him were incredibly poorly trained and not knowledgable about their duties.

Officers often arrive in situations where there are a lot of unknowns. Poorly trained officers have difficulty diagnosing the situation, deescalating the situation, and etc. Sometimes they overreact when they get scared. Reducing the cops in numbers will further isolate them and make them even more scared.

 

[Politesse]

And, Politesse, you've objected to the word "reform", but so far, you've given us no idea of what you think would improve policing. Do you have any ideas as to what type of solution might decrease systemic racism and have the potential to make policing more humane? I've given a few of my own ideas, but I'm waiting to see if others have ideas.

I do not object to reform; but, I do empathize with those who are wary of it. All I'm saying is that they are not unjustified in feeling skeptical that "reform" actually means anything, or that whatever it accomplishes won't be undone by the same union-fueled "old boy's network" that has rebuffed so many attempts at institutional reform in the past.

In terms of realistic solutions, I don't know how much my personal opinion should really matter, given that I am of that class and race with perhaps the least stake in the outcome (unless, I suppose, I foolishly move to a red state at some point). Policing police is everyone's business, but not everyone faces the same consequences for themselves and their children if we try and fail, and we are more likely to fail if elite experiences of police action are allowed to lead our considerations rather than those most frequently targeted by it. What I'm saying is, to be quite frank, that I think black, indigenous and latino voices should probably lead when it comes to both observing the problem and crafting meaningful solutions. Luckily, many are doing so, and there have been successful projects of reform in various departments around the nation, usually occurring as the immediate result of a period of civil unrest followed by one of genuine conversation between those who police, and those at whom the policing has too often been disproportionately aimed.

One lesson worth taking is that there is no one trick pony that is going to solve every community's problems in the same way. In fact, a one-size-fits-all approach has often typified the least successful attempts at executive justice reform in the past. But, there are a few measures that are generally salutory, and would be a good focus for everyone as they work to uncover and mitigate the problems in their local policing system. I am an ardent supporter, ideologically and financially, of the advocacy group known as Campaign Zero, which tries to take a research-based and community-evaluated approach to advocating in local situations. One of their "dogmas" is a ten-stage process of reform that I think is a good start for anyone beginning to explore these issues. The ten points can be summarized as follows:

1. End broken windows policing
It is impossible to address racial parity issues in the prison-industrial supply chain if the police are constantly swamping the system with an influx of thousands of new convicts booked for minor crimes that would likely be ignored or addressed via community mitigation in a more affluent neighborhood. The police would be in less danger themselves and more helpful to society if they focused their efforts on violent crimes rather than vandalism, loitering, drug possession, and traffic stops.

2. Community Oversight
Citizens need to realize that at the end of the day, the government has neither the means nor the initative to police the police; that is fundamentally our job and our right as citizens, and while process of creating positive civilian oversight structures can be stressful and must be watchful, it doesn't have to be negative; departments that establish GOOD lines of communication with the peoples they police usually see the advantages of the situation immediately.

3. Limit the Use of Force
Unless you are a blind police advocate, in which case you've likely started skimming by now, the virtues of de-esclaation over conflagoration should be obvious, now even if they weren't before the latest round of civil unrest over unjust killings by the police that could have, in most cases, been easily and safely prevented. Hands up, don't shoot.

4. Independent Investigation and Prosecution
This one should also be pretty obvious to anyone who isn't already emotionally invested in the question. If the police are under suspicion, they cannot as a practical or even logical matter be the ones to clear their own name.

5. Community Representation
Police tend to use better discretion when their own ranks are populated by the members of the communities they police, or at least have some kind of structure in place for regularly interacting with members of the community in a non-accusatorial context. When policy is being considered, community voices must be actively included in analysis.

6. Body cameras
The present crisis is what it is because citizens and police alike wear cameras on their person at all times, clearing officer's names far more often than they damn them, so this one should be uncontroversial (though of course it seldom is).

7. Training
We need to think critically and honestly about the lessons imparted during police training. This is one of those issues where giving specific yet universal advice is impossible, because training strategies differ wildly between states, cities, and departments.

8. End For-Profit Policing
Bad behavior cannot be safely incentivized.

9. Demilitarization
The merit of this one has recently been very well-documented. In exactly zero cases has the sudden appearance of tanks and heavy weaponry resulted in the lasting reparation of civil peace and order in those places where rioting has occurred, and individual arrests similarly tend to be esclated into greater violence by such tactics, rather than resolved.

10. Fair Police Union Contracts.
Unions can be a force for good, for police as well as for any other worker, but they must operate within the bounds of the law, and not advocate for what would otherwise be considered transparently illegal activites by the police if contract negotiation with cities and policy-makers didn't write in exceptions by supposed consensus.​

There are a few other things not in the top ten list that I would consider important, especially an immediate and total end to the bail forfeiture mechanism that financially incentivizes false or dubious arrests generally. I also think there should be a zero-tolerance policy for officers who use the police force structure to conceal crimes of their own such as drug trafficking. Cops who commit crimes should not be protected by their unions and departments, whom they have betrayed in spectactular fashion. They should go to jail.

And I DO support at least some versions of the Defund movement. The police cannot be rule-enforcers, psychologists, and social workers simultaneously. It's an unreasonable ask of them, and an overt danger to their community for such a paradox of conflicting responsibilities to be allowed to fester unresolved. Getting this through the thick heads of political moderates will probably require a rebranding, which I'm fine with as long as the basic ideas are maintained.

 

[Patooka]

Wow, I didn't see this coming:

Ammon Bundy Comes Out in Support of BLM, Calls to Defund the Police

He said in the video that he had considered attending, near his home in Boise, Idaho, “a rally with the Black Lives Matter in support of defunding the police because yes the police need to be defunded.” He decided not to attend the rally, citing concerns about potential violence from fellow “Patriots” who have criticized his stance on the issue.

Anyone who doesn’t understand his support for the movement “must have a problem,” he said.

“You must have a problem in your mind if you think that somehow the Black Lives Matter is more dangerous than the police,” he said. “You must have a problem in your mind if you think that Antifa is the one going to take your freedom.”

Sean Hannity must be shitting an aneurysm right now.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Who is advocating for abolition of the police? Is this the new "I'll never let them take away my guns"?

Quite a few, though not all, activists. Here's one noted activist printed in the NYTimes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html

Opinion

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police
Because reform won’t happen.

By Mariame Kaba
Ms. Kaba is an organizer against criminalization.

I hate this way of using the news and looking at society. Just because a newspaper manages to find a couple of morons and the skilled journalist manages to wrangle juicy quotes from non-media trained young activists doesn't mean anything. It doesn't represent a position or actual opinion.

Nobody thinks we should ban firefighters no matter how widespread rampant racism might be among them. I'm not saying it is. But we all agree that even the most horrible firefighter on the job is better than letting fires do their thing unchecked.

 

[KeepTalking]

Also on the opinion page of the New York Times. And KeepTalking agrees with the kook from the NYT article in this post.

No, I didn't, but we are hashing that out in that thread, and I would advise you not to bring your ignorant musings about what I do or do not agree with into this one.

 

[southernhybrid]

Mayor Keisha Bottoms has given her plan for police reform in Atlanta.

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/atlanta-mayor-issues-seven-orders-around-police-reform/85-3d63865d-e61e-4534-8527-a2f344825b09

The mayor wants the city to create guidelines that would:
Allow officers to intervene when other officers use unreasonable force
Curb retaliation against officers intervening
Develop techniques to de-escalate conflicts
Revise evaluations of officers which would disincentivize certain arrests and incentivize alternatives
Create an online dashboard with ongoing use-of-force data and other police records

The president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Local 624, Jason Segura, said that changing the use of force guidelines will make officers lose confidence. In the days after fired APD Officer Garrett Rolfe was charged with murder, many of his former co-workers called out sick. Some even called out sick for multiple shifts.
"That becomes dangerous," Segura said. "So if you don’t want us to arrest people who resist, then we just need the mayor to tell us, don’t arrest people who resist. We’ll follow that order. It’s not gonna make the city safer. But it’s going to make officers jobs a lot clearer."

These seem like modest proposals but there is already a backlash from the police.

Read the link for more details.

 

[southernhybrid]

The New York plans to reform are interesting because it's actually some Black leaders that oppose defunding the police. The defunding plan is trite considering that the NY City police budget is about 88 billion dollars.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/nyregion/defund-police-nyc-council.html

Several Black City Council members have lashed out at progressives, comparing calls to defund the police to “colonization” and “political gentrification.”

With New York City on the cusp of cutting $1 billion from the Police Department, a city councilwoman, Vanessa L. Gibson, told her colleagues that enough was enough.

She acknowledged that some Council members, spurred by the movement to defund the police, were seeking to slash even more from the department’s budget. But she pointed out that her constituents did not agree.

They “want to see cops in the community,” Ms. Gibson said.

“They don’t want to see excessive force. They don’t want to see cops putting their knees in our necks,” she said. “But they want to be safe as they go to the store.”

Ms. Gibson is not a conservative politician speaking on behalf of an affluent district. She is a liberal Black Democrat who represents the West Bronx, and her stance reflects a growing ideological rift over policing in one of the country’s liberal bastions.

Apparently, there is widespread disagreement as to how police reform or defunding should be done. I guess this is part of the reason why attempts to reform policing are so difficult to accomplish.

 

[Treedbear]

...
Nobody thinks we should ban firefighters no matter how widespread rampant racism might be among them. I'm not saying it is. But we all agree that even the most horrible firefighter on the job is better than letting fires do their thing unchecked.

I'm not in favor of disbanding police departments either. But bigoted police officers have the same kind of effect on public safety as would arsonist fire fighters who target gas stations.

 

[DrZoidberg]

...
Nobody thinks we should ban firefighters no matter how widespread rampant racism might be among them. I'm not saying it is. But we all agree that even the most horrible firefighter on the job is better than letting fires do their thing unchecked.

I'm not in favor of disbanding police departments either. But bigoted police officers have the same kind of effect on public safety as would arsonist fire fighters who target gas stations.

I highly doubt that.