Just so you get an idea of how we’ve been conned into a police state, outfitting the cops w/ weapons of war as you see in this photo is a much higher priority than outfitting the nurses & doctors(wearing the garbage bags) who are actually fighting a real killer that’s taken over 112K US lives. In LA, 54% of the city’s “unrestricted funds” budget goes to the police - nearly $2 BILLION a year! Libraries in LA? 4% of the budget. A country that makes it more important to arm its cops like an invading army than fund its libraries is a country that has lost its soul. Imagine if the LA Police had to operate on only ONE BILLION dollars a year! And that other BILLION went to libraries, schools, mental health services, and, yes, some goddamn gloves and masks for our nurses. I am personally demanding (and I beg you to join with me) the following:
1. Defund all police depts by 50% RIGHT NOW. Shift the money to help citizens in need.
2. Demilitarize all police depts. Take away their tanks, assault weapons, and most of their guns. This is not a war. Black Americans are not the enemy. YOU are. YOU are the terrorists. We, the peace-loving citizens of this country, are going to shut you down.
3. Reconsider how we do policing altogether. Get rid of the system we have. Crime is already at its lowest level in yrs. Police don’t prevent crime. They show up AFTER the crime. Let’s switch to neighborhood peace & safety patrols run by NEIGHBORS, not racists from the suburbs. I’m guesssing most of what we call crime these days is mental health or addiction related. Or brutally aggressive husbands or boyfriends or exes.
4. Do what one city had to do a few yrs ago—have all the cops resign & then reapply, w/ each of them having to be re-interviewed & vetted by a racism review board.
5. When you’ve got a new force that reflects the diversity of the community & they’ve been retrained and the white cops are highly educated, compassionate, & have a functioning conscience—and they look more like Serpico or Andy of Mayberry (or Andrea of Mayberry), then pay them a good wage with good benefits cause they’ll deserve it.
In the meantime, let’s not wait another damn minute to fix this.
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