What is the higher value here? Police/Policing or the rights of the citizens?.

@Rodatheist Both.

@Storm1752 There are thousands on the streets that seem to disagree with your answer. Human rights are above all.

@Rodatheist I doubt they all want to disband police departments. That's insane, in my opinion.

@Storm1752 No, they want to end police brutality and to end the disregard for the lives of black men. If that means reorganize police departments or disbanding them to re-organize them on the community policing model the so be it.

From wikipedia: Community policing is a philosophy of full service personalized policing, where the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralized place, working in a proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems.

@Rodatheist That’s not a reasonable reply.

@Gatovicolo Of course it is. When you said “ So who does the policing now? The county sheriff? There’s not enough deputies to cover the entire city.” , it appeared to me that you did not know what Community Policing was, which warranted a definition.

@Rodatheist Community policing is a policy. Policies don’t substitute facts. If the dept is being disbanded, then some group will have to fill the vacuum.

@Gatovicolo I am not sure what do you mean when you say community policing is a policy, as if to dismiss it. As far as I can see, everything is a policy. So, I think that it would do us good to read the definition of community policing a few times to understand that it is a different way of policing that brings more closeness of the police to the community and therefore more respect and accountability..

@Rodatheist No police is probably foolish.

@Gatovicolo Of course. That is why no one is talking about “no police”.

@Rodatheist No, they’re talking about disbanding the police. Oddly enough, though , it’s an easy logical step for most people to assert that results in no police.

Incremental change does not work because it allows the police departments ti work around new reforms and continue using harsh methods or ignore human rights.

Well, vacuums fill fast. But community policing should allow for more close ties of the community to those doing the policing and therefore protecting from bad apples that could find their way through.

@Rodatheist Philosophically I think communities policing themselves makes the most sense. And I think in more civilized and well educated populations, like in Northern Europe, it might work quite well. I just don't think most Americans can pull it off yet. I hope that can change, or that I am wrong. It will be an interesting experiment to see them work on, I hope it goes well!

@SeaGreenEyez well, disband sounds more like getting rid of them all which is very different from reorganize.

@SeaGreenEyez yes, had to look it up and it means distributing budget to other institutions that are better suited to assist and help citizens like housing and health than giving it to the cops, I believe they should use a different term in order to convey the idea so much better

@SeaGreenEyez hate to say it but republicans are so much better at communicating than progressives, the clearest example I can think of is when the started using Death Tax in order to gather opposition to the Estate Tax.

@SeaGreenEyez excuse my french but these magas are fucking cocksuckers and it also pains me to see that shit!

It will be interesting to see how the new system will look. I think they will look to other counties who have had successful Public Safety Law Enforcement histories and emulate one of them. But I don't think this is over yet. It will likely end up in court.

@twshield Precisely! Hire better people. Do the mental health testing before they even receive any training. Weed out the bad apples before they make it onto the street with a badge and a gun.

You seem to think that there will be no police, but that is not what community policing is.

I think it was a courageous move to take on such a powerful institution. Big changes are needed to correct such a deeply corrupt culture. I hope it works well and it spreads to the rest of the country. What do we have to lose?

It is not just getting rid of police, it is to replace it with community policing.

@Rodatheist Right, but I’m still curious about if the city council has that power. I doubt they do.

@indirect76 Each city has its own parliamentary rules. In Minn it looks like 9 out of 13 or so, voted in favor so that they had veto proof majority. It looks like, legally, they can.

@Rodatheist Thanks for enlightening me. The article does little to explain the implications. Perhaps Forbes should be defunded.

@indirect76 My source for news is NPR.