Don’t tell the “defund the police” crowd, but if you want officers who are smart, empathetic, and well trained, you’re going to have to pay. On the other hand, if you want the Keystone Cops to be running around with badges and guns, just do what they did in Minneapolis in December — defund the police.
Yes, the police must be held accountable. They have to be held to a high standard of conduct. This means that they must also be paid a decent wage. You need to invest a lot of time and money into training them, too. Otherwise, you’re not going to get the best candidates.
Yesterday’s police shooting of black motorist Daunte Wright in a suburb of Minneapolis, which threatens to ignite a powder keg amid the Derek Chauvin trial, illustrates as much.
“Holy s—. I shot him,” the officer can be heard saying before the video ends.
The officer responsible for the incident has been placed on administrative leave. The state has promised an investigation.
The Brooklyn Center police officer who shot Wright apparently thought she was using her Taser on him. This is a pretty serious procedural screw-up, and it has needlessly cost a man his life. The incident evinces lax training and discipline in the local police department.
Yes, it’s stupid to resist arrest, even slightly. Wright did the wrong thing. That doesn’t mean he had it coming. Deadly force is supposed to be a last resort, which is why the police have nonlethal measures available to them — including Tasers.
If you want the police to kill more people in such a manner, then just do what nearby Minneapolis’s radical city council did after George Floyd was killed — defund your local police force. There’s no surer way to make sure you’re getting bottom-of-the-barrel recruits who like the power of the police force but can’t tell a handgun from a taser.
