Quote Originally Posted by dantheman4248 View Post
Umm no.

This is not one incident. Did you even read? Breonna Taylor is another case entirely.

How you can say there are no need for protests when after a week these people were charged due to the outrage and had level of severity gone up. All over the country there are slowly starting to be laws and ideas passed in response.

This is just an all around naive post.
I've stayed silent long enough. I've been in law enforcement for 20 years (not as a first responder) so it has allowed me to view what is happening through two different lenses so here is my take (I will link stat sources in the bottom):

Between 2017 and 2020 3,416 people were shot and killed by law enforcement officials. Approximately 755 of those were black (approx. 22%). Of those 2% were unarmed or had no weapon. That equates to 15 unarmed, black individuals killed by the police over a 4 year period (or approximately 4 a year). Of those I know of at least 6 that made national headlines and were investigated and (in some cases) the officer was charged and/or lost their job. I will have to dig deep to find info on the others. It is an important stat here that is uncomfortable but it is a statistic none-the-less and is not inherently racist. The black population accounts for almost 50% of violent crimes in the US though they represent less than 20% of the overall population. Because of this it stands to reason that the black population actually comes into contact with law enforcement at a higher rate (per capita) than any other race.

On the flip side of that there are over 800,000 active law enforcement officers in the United State today....800,000. I understand that those that have abused their power and made a mockery of the values and codes we hold dear are all over the news but they do NOT represent 99.999% of law enforcement officials. Really. Look at the stats. Let's say that of those 15 unarmed cases that FIVE officers were involved in each incident and they were not justified in that use of force. They would represent .009% of all law enforcement. So all cops are bastards, then? All cops should die? We should defund and dissolve all law enforcement agencies?? Of those 800,000 58,866 were assaulted in 2018 alone with approx. 18,000 sustaining injuries while approximately 163 officers die in the line of duty each year.

The level of stupidity in this country is at an all time high. Minneapolis is talking about dissolving police departments and sending SOCIAL WORKERS and PSYCHOLOGISTS to go to scenes and de-escalate a situation. Good luck finding someone stupid enough to try that. Folks will discover that theory versus application are two very different things. It's very easy to sit in the ivory tower and tell people how things SHOULD be done...it's entirely different in application.

I'm not saying that law enforcement doesn't have room to grow. We need to EVOLVE our police force. We need to stop militarizing our police force to the point we are now and focus more on communication, mental health, and race relations. We need to communicate better with the communities that we serve. This will come down to training and the way hiring is done. I'm not knocking what our military personnel has done for this country but (and this is my opinion) individuals with military experience (especially combat experience) don't need to be on a police force. That entire mindset needs to change.

Also, there MUST be judicial reform. Many things that law enforcement and first responders are blamed for happen at the court setting. Little known fact here...law enforcement has very little to nothing to do with sentencing someone. That happens between prosecutors, defense attorneys, and a judge. Also, I have a big issue with police unions. But that is another matter entirely.

This is all a very complex issue that is being misdirected based on anectodal evidence and not real stats.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018/topic...cers-assaulted

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...olice-by-race/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ty-and-gender/

https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/law-enforcement-facts