Look, this is not a hill I'm gonna die on. I may be wrong. I do recall the Pinkertons. I also recall that the very start of the police was to hunt down escaped slaves. I also think that Jocko Willink (and others like him) needs to be put in control of police training no matter which way it goes. But here's the thing- I don't cause shit. I don't go around stealing or starting fights. But even I have had abysmal interactions with the police. I've also had the misfortune to try to befriend one and found out what a rotten human being he really was. I've heard and seen police actions time and time again that were so wrong. And don't get me started on corrections officers. My mind is open to there being good cops. I trust Rip if he says the WF police have acted decently. But I've never personally interacted with a police officer who wasn't a total asshat. I see that as a function of who they serve-who hired them. They don't actually answer to us citizens. They answer to the politicians. And I think changing that might be a good way to reign in their power.
It's automatically a fraught thing. Pretending that someone has the right to control another's behavior. We shouldn't do it lightly. It should only be done for the protection of rights. Right now we have way too many wolves with that power and not enough sheep dogs. I'm not sure this is going to change under current voting circumstances because a lot of these people voting don't actually have a dog in the fight. I don't really give a shit what illegal immigrants and college students think. They aren't forming ties in my community. They aren't buying property and starting businesses and generally putting down roots here. But they get a say in this shit anyway. There's no way to hold people accountable under these circumstances. Never mind the enormous amounts of money in politics which dictates what the politicians do which then dictates what the cops do. We've all seen this as this pandemic has gone on. If the cops were privatized would Atlas Gym be fighting its legal battle? Would LA restaurants have had to watch as they closed up while the rich were hosting all kinds of parties?
More and more private police is taking a role, whether we agree with it or not. Unions and pensions are where the money is going which means that department after department is closing and shifting the burden. Camden, Sacramento, Millbrea. Good luck getting a cop to respond to a burglary call. Same here. The other day when I went to the corner store the lady had closed it up because some shit went down and she got hurt. She was waiting on the cops while still bleeding because the ambulance wouldn't come till the cops cleared them and the cops hadn't shown up yet even though the precinct is in walking distance. I had to drive down to the precinct (cuz it's hot and I'm lazy) and bitch at them to come see about it. Yet, the neighborhood association pays a security company to patrol the neighborhood. Guess whose patrol car I see more often? I see no way in which my current safety situation is improved by the police. Or hers. This scenario is repeated in neighborhoods everywhere. More and more it's the private firms taking care of people's needs. When Whole Foods came to Jackson (not that I'm a fan but it was a big deal to win the contract) guess where they went? To the Highland Village area where the security is. South Jackson which relies on the police hasn't seen a new grocery store in over a decade and the ones that were there have left. It's practically a wasteland of payday loan places and small corner stores with short Indian men behind glass. So no, I'm not sure that privatization is the answer but I don't think "holding politicians accountable" is possible even with civic engagement. I don't think we can out-money the corporations to pull the political loyalty back to us.