Let’s face it, in most major cities and even small and middle size ones police departments are coming under fire. There are just too many George Floyds happening. But then again, maybe with the certainity that any police abuse will be recorded has just brought it to the fore front.

I recently put out a post where I said 95% of any police force are those that have the mentality of “protect and serve”. But, it seems that we are seeing more evidence of the “policing the enemy” that I envisioned. I don’t know what the true number is 1 out of 20 is probably too low.

How do we make the necessary changes to make police departments truly “protect & serve”? From all the discussions I have seen to date a couple of answers seem to stick out.

Privatize IAD – I’m sure it is hard for the police departments to police themselves. Maybe the answer to that is to take the disputes and malfeasance reports to an independent organization. I don’t know how to do that but I’m sure someone much more knowledgeable than I have good ideas about it. It needs to be an organization that balances the needs of both the police and community.

Make Lying on a Police Report Have Consequences – From what I have learned it looks like making false reports on incidents is pretty rampant in most police departments. The report says “I was attacked” when the body cam show just the opposite. Something has to be done to make those who lie on police reports accountable. The most immediate example is the 75-year-old man who was pushed to the ground and then left unattended while he was bleeding profusely from his ears. The police report filed says he “tripped and fell”. Of course the videos show otherwise. The article from which the graphic above was pulled shows that lying on police reports is a widespread problem in many, if not most, police departments.

Reform Police Unions – Right now police unions are all about protecting their members. I saw the statistic that 60+% of those officers who were fired due to excessive force or other extreme issues eventually end up back on the job because the union will not allow them to be fired. Something is basically wrong with that! Not allowing the bad seeds to be eliminated has only exasperated the problems we see today.

The Minneapolis city council is about to basically start from the ground up in remaking their police force. I need to keep an eye on that to see how it progresses.