So here's a wild idea: cops should never kill anyone for any reason in any circumstance. A cop killing someone represents, at best, a failure to correctly deescalate the situation. Any cop who kills anyone should be immediately banned from being a cop ever again AND put on criminal trial (no internal investigations). If they are found not guilty of murder, then they can go get another job doing something else. But no one who has ever killed another person should still be a cop.
Why not just no cops at that point and just make space to connect and enable the community?
I mean, yes.
But also, I'm really confused that people seem to think that if cops cant kill people then cops like CANT exist?
Thats literally the point. Cops are allowed a lot more reasons to murder. Civilians arent. What if we all had access to anything good a cop supposedly did as a community service? Why cant a community fulfill the same needs? What good things do cops do that people cant? What prevents people from being able to? And how can we bridge that gap?
Cops ARE civilians, by the way.
And again- yes. I'm all in favor of alternatives to police forces.
But this idea that cops HAVE to kill people to function as a traditional police is ALSO not true.
Hot take, but cops absolutely have to be able to kill people to function as a traditional police force. The threat of violence is what makes them able to do their job. But then, I’m getting more and more convinced these days that we should just outright abolish the police.
Again, I’m all in favor of alternatives to traditional policing.
But other countries have police forces that aren’t even like...armed.
