There has been a lot of talk among the American far left about police reform. I actually agree that the American police is in dire need of a reform. However, I disagree with many of the details. These are the things that I strongly believe the American police should stop doing:
- Stop putting officer safety above the safety of innocent people. Yes, I'm primarily referring to the Robb Elementary school shooting (where fully armored police twiddled their thumbs in the hallway of the school for a whopping 70 minutes instead of stopping the shooter, because of "officer safety"), but that case is by far not the only one. Your primary duty as a police officer is to protect those who can't protect themselves and stop the bad guys. If you can't do that, then don't become a police officer.
- Stop standing by on the sidelines just watching as mobs of people egregiously break the law (such as looting, arson, property damage, assault, harassment, blocking traffic, etc.) right in front of you, without doing anything about it. Your duty is to uphold the law and arrest those who commit crimes. Your duty is not to just stand by watching as it happens, doing nothing about it. If you do nothing to stop the crimes you are complicit in those crimes, which makes you criminals, and you should be prosecuted for it. If you can't perform your duty and uphold the law, don't become a police officer.
- Stop protecting corrupt police officers who commit crimes. Protecting them and doing nothing about it, and especially helping to cover up the crimes, makes you complicit and is one of the most egregious failures of duty that a police officer can commit. You are supposed to fight crime, not commit and be complicit with it. And yes, that means even if the corrupt officers are your chiefs and other higher-ups. Even if your boss commits crimes it is your duty to do something about it. Your police chiefs are not above the law.
- Stop with retaliatory charges. Stop using "disturbing the peace", "loitering", "trespassing" and other bullshit charges against people who you can't charge with anything else. Stop using those as excuses when you can't pin anything else on someone. If someone isn't actually guilty of any actual crime or misdemeanor, then you let that someone go free. You don't charge them with some bullshit "disturbing the peace" just to justify your arrest and get petty revenge.
- Stop with the handcuff fetish. Stop equating "arresting someone" with "putting that someone in handcuffs". That barbaric practice has to stop. Only use handcuffs when they are actually needed, when the person being arrested is violent or is a very clear flight risk. In most European countries (such as Finland) you almost never see police handcuff anybody. Especially if it's just some petty crime or minor offense, but not even if the crime is more major, if the person being arrested is clearly not violent nor trying to escape. And if you put a child in handcuffs you should be prosecuted for child abuse and thrown in jail. You absolutely must stop that, immediately! You are nothing but child abusers. (Yes, there are way too many examples of this. Just google it.)
- Stop with the ID fetish. Constantly demanding ID from random people just because you think they are "suspicious" is something that happens in totalitarian police states, not in a free democratic constitutional country. Like with the handcuffs, you almost never see police in most European countries demanding people's IDs for the most minor of incidents, or even because the person is "suspicious". Generally the police demands ID only when they have actually arrested someone or giving someone a fine. The United States is not supposed to be a totalitarian police state. The police in totalitarian regimes constantly demand ID from people to intimidate them, scare them and to keep them in check. Stop with the ID fetish.
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