Feds denies funds for Minneapolis rebuild

[Frodo]

Minneapolis (and Minnesota) should not give in to blackmail until the police department is fundamentally reformed, preferably as part of a federal package of police reforms passed by a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President.  Or else we are going to go through this vicious cycle yet again for the next several decades if Donald Trump and the Fuzzy Bears of this world have their way.  

[Frodo]

Are you seriously citing the National Review as a source? 

[Frodo]

Now for those not as blinkered:

Collective bargaining agreements for police officers provide protections that stand in the way of accountability, experts say
Killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer ignited protests and calls for change, but experts say police contracts threaten to undermine those efforts

[Frodo]

snip

Just so everyone knows, this is the same National Review that gave life to a conspiracy theory regarding President Obama's birthplace, and that suggested his parents had to be communists because there is no way a white woman and a black man would get together in the late 1950s unless they were into communist politics.  

This is also the same National Review that has consistently rejected the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change.  

The fact that Fuzzy Bear takes their word as gospel should tell you all you need to know about him.  

[Frodo]

Now for those not as blinkered:

Collective bargaining agreements for police officers provide protections that stand in the way of accountability, experts say
Killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer ignited protests and calls for change, but experts say police contracts threaten to undermine those efforts

You're fine with similar protections for public school teachers.

No one likes cops until they need one; until the time when THEY are being threatened or victimized.  Then, they expect that police officer to provide affirmative protection for them.  They expect that police officer to do something about the person that vandalized their home, or physically shoved and pushed them in a threatening manner.  They expect the police to do something to ensure that a group of unruly youths don't threaten THEIR kid (or them).  They expect the police to go into harm's way and take into custody people who have committed violent crimes, who pose a danger to others, and who can be presumed to be prepared to violently resist apprehension.  Police officers have lots of reason to view any encounter with a "subject" to go sideways any number of ways, no matter what they do.  Rayshard Brooks spontaneously began to resist a lawful arrest, when there seemed to be no reason to believe that would happen, and he grabbed an officer's taser and shot it at him.  That very few DUI stops go that way doesn't mean that the next one won't.  (And in case you wonder why those officers arrested him, the City of Atlanta would be open to massive  civil liability if, after allowing a drunk man to remain with access to car keys, he later went out and caused death/injury while still drunk.)  

Some people don't want police to do their job.  They want criminals to not be apprehended, for one reason or another.  I've already posted on other threads my views on how there is "overcriminalization" and what can be done.  I've certainly expressed my views on a number of policies that promote "mass incarceration", and I certainly think that we have far too Draconian penalties for too many crimes.  But the people that the residents of the neighborhoods with the most violent crime have the most to fear from are the remorseless criminals that live within their own communities, many of whom are members of violent criminal gangs who are heavily armed.  The statistics of who dies bear this out.  And the persons that would enjoy the most immediate benefit from defunding the police would be the criminal gangs that are causing most of the carnage.

Thanks, but no thanks. I will take the word and testament of African-American friends and co-workers I personally know over that of a frightened old white man on an internet forum completely oblivious to his white privilege who still thinks its 1969.  And unlike you, I don't view them as potential criminals.