Defund MPD - thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one answered the original question. What have police actually done for you?

It shows that much of it can be replaced by unarmed authorities.

The Mad Max hyperbole is just ridiculous.

You realize the hope of police is deterrence. All of us would prefer never to have police do anything for us because their mere presence deters people from doing bad things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one answered the original question. What have police actually done for you?

It shows that much of it can be replaced by unarmed authorities.

The Mad Max hyperbole is just ridiculous.

You realize the hope of police is deterrence. All of us would prefer never to have police do anything for us because their mere presence deters people from doing bad things.

That sounds nice, but in reality a lot of crime in DC happens within a few blocks of a police station.

There's a lot of research showing other drivers for crime, like poverty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one answered the original question. What have police actually done for you?

It shows that much of it can be replaced by unarmed authorities.

The Mad Max hyperbole is just ridiculous.

1. Police caught the kids who robbed me at gunpoint.

2. Police recovered our stolen car.

But you know, that's just "Mad Max hyperbole."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one answered the original question. What have police actually done for you?

It shows that much of it can be replaced by unarmed authorities.

The Mad Max hyperbole is just ridiculous.

1. Police caught the kids who robbed me at gunpoint.

2. Police recovered our stolen car.

But you know, that's just "Mad Max hyperbole."

1. So they didn't prevent the crime. What if we could spend money more effectively on keeping kids out of that life?

2. Did there need to be armed police on patrol to do that? Or would unarmed investigators work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one answered the original question. What have police actually done for you?

It shows that much of it can be replaced by unarmed authorities.

The Mad Max hyperbole is just ridiculous.

They saved my friend's life in the Discovery Center hostage situation by killing the terrorist.

https://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/01/maryland.discovery.channel/index.html

They found and arrested the murderer who killed my friend's son for no reason.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/gaithersburg/man-found-guilty-in-murders-of-md-teens-killed-night-before-graduation/65-509236573

They responded when two guys in a van tried to talk to my 10 year old son who was playing out in the neighborhood. I don't know if they had ill intent, but why did they stop to talk to him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been seeing a lot more discussion about defunding MPD, and some of the articles written about it seem to have merit. One thing that struck me was the question: what has MPD actually done for you? How often are they useless? Here's my list, I'm curious about others.
Helpful:
-gave me a police report for a hit and run on my parked car, which I needed for insurance
-gave me a police report for a stolen bike, which was helpful to get it back later
-arrested a couple of people in a shooting by my house

Not helpful:
-they do nothing for traffic violence - people can do pretty much whatever they want and MPD does nothing. Leave it to the cameras...
-they refused to take a report of someone pulling out a gun and trying to rob me (the guy dropped it, I got away)
-they downplayed several other reported crimes "are you sure you didn't just lose it?"
-they harassed me for reporting other MPD officers misbehavior

It's clear that the "not helpful" list grows a lot if you're a young Black man or teen. What I'm wondering is why can't we cut down on the number of MPD officers vastly? These officers are paid a lot. More than needed for writing a report. Sure, we still need some armed officers, but not to write police reports.
Even the response to the shooting - when I saw details of it, it was clear that there were some violence prevention efforts going on, but not enough. I'd rather have more violence interruption efforts on the street to keep those kids from doing something stupid. They might at least have a shot at a life instead of dead / in jail.

Ok, flame away.

We could cut back on MPD. There are a number of federal police agencies that have jurisdiction in the District and they are quite focused on enforcing our laws.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Abolish the police??

Read again: reduce the number of armed police officers. Convert police officer jobs to administrative non-police jobs.

You mean like the rest of the hard-working, effective DC government bureaucracy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Defunding is idiotic. We need real consequences for misconduct, de-escalating training, and to remove the racists.

Start throwing cops in prison for misconduct. That will clean things up real quick.

THIS.

And refocus the police unions on wages and benefits, not on going to the mat with union dues to protect the bad cops.

[Anonymous]

The only time I interacted with a DC cop was when a pedestrian was struck in a crossing by a car going around stopped cars. I first checked on the pedestrian, who was conscious but shaken. I saw the cop (who must've seen the whole thing since he was right there) and called out, and he was like "who, me?", deer in the headlights. I even went up to him and asked for help, an ambulance, and he just could not be bothered. The victim was now up, and said she was okay. Unfortunately, I had to tell her she's on her own as far as the cops go, but I was on my way to work at Washington Hosp Ctr and could take her there is she wanted to get checked out.
So, yeah, cops can be pretty useless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one answered the original question. What have police actually done for you?

It shows that much of it can be replaced by unarmed authorities.

The Mad Max hyperbole is just ridiculous.

They saved my friend's life in the Discovery Center hostage situation by killing the terrorist.

https://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/01/maryland.discovery.channel/index.html

They found and arrested the murderer who killed my friend's son for no reason.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/gaithersburg/man-found-guilty-in-murders-of-md-teens-killed-night-before-graduation/65-509236573

They responded when two guys in a van tried to talk to my 10 year old son who was playing out in the neighborhood. I don't know if they had ill intent, but why did they stop to talk to him?

Thanks for responding.

For the hostage situation, the security guard (armed?) was unable to help. That position is more like using armed police as a preventive measure and clearly didn't work. I'm sure there will always be a need for a highly trained team for extreme situations. I couldn't tell from the article, but maybe there's a way for a better funded mental health system to keep people like the hostage taker from taking such drastic actions.

The article about the murder says it was a revenge killing. This is what violence interrupters are there to reduce the likelihood of. You'll notice that the police investigation got nowhere to break that cycle. How much farther could someone with more credibility in the community go?

Did the police need to be armed to respond to a shady van? It sounds like anyone official would suffice to document shady actors and scare them off.

These are all important scenarios to consider. If there's really a better way to handle them that doesn't involve more armed police, would you have an open mind to it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only time I interacted with a DC cop was when a pedestrian was struck in a crossing by a car going around stopped cars. I first checked on the pedestrian, who was conscious but shaken. I saw the cop (who must've seen the whole thing since he was right there) and called out, and he was like "who, me?", deer in the headlights. I even went up to him and asked for help, an ambulance, and he just could not be bothered. The victim was now up, and said she was okay. Unfortunately, I had to tell her she's on her own as far as the cops go, but I was on my way to work at Washington Hosp Ctr and could take her there is she wanted to get checked out.
So, yeah, cops can be pretty useless.

This is my experience also as a bicyclist. "What do you want me to do about it?"

At first, I thought I wanted them to help protect me. Now, I'd rather they just get out of the way and we spend money on other areas where we can better support ourselves and our neighbors. The police aren't it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one answered the original question. What have police actually done for you?

It shows that much of it can be replaced by unarmed authorities.

The Mad Max hyperbole is just ridiculous.

1. Police caught the kids who robbed me at gunpoint.

2. Police recovered our stolen car.

But you know, that's just "Mad Max hyperbole."

1. So they didn't prevent the crime. What if we could spend money more effectively on keeping kids out of that life?

2. Did there need to be armed police on patrol to do that? Or would unarmed investigators work?

You asked, "What have police actually done for you?" I provided two specific examples. You then moved the goalposts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one answered the original question. What have police actually done for you?

It shows that much of it can be replaced by unarmed authorities.

The Mad Max hyperbole is just ridiculous.

1. Police caught the kids who robbed me at gunpoint.

2. Police recovered our stolen car.

But you know, that's just "Mad Max hyperbole."

1. So they didn't prevent the crime. What if we could spend money more effectively on keeping kids out of that life?

2. Did there need to be armed police on patrol to do that? Or would unarmed investigators work?

You asked, "What have police actually done for you?" I provided two specific examples. You then moved the goalposts.

Those are the goalposts in the original post/question. What do the police do for you? Is the current setup the best way to do it? Or are there other better ways to do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Defunding is idiotic. We need real consequences for misconduct, de-escalating training, and to remove the racists.

Start throwing cops in prison for misconduct. That will clean things up real quick.

THIS.

We already do.

What we don't do, is make cops personally responsible for financial damages if they are found liable for serious misconduct. Doing so could change some behaviors (but also might make it much too risky to join the force)...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cops don't do anything. They don't prevent crimes. They don't solve crimes. DC has the biggest police force in the country, on a per capita basis, and I have no idea what they do all day.

Correct.

The DC MPD is nothing but a public employment project. The cops are paid extremely handsomely and they do very, very little. And if you ever make even the most legitimate complaint, there will be payback: you will receive harassment calls at three AM for a month (I did).

On the other hand, Trump would love to see DC MPD defunded, because that would be his excuse to fully Federalize policing in DC. That means that we would get the Park Police thugs as neighborhood cops, shooting civilians and stealing personal property.

One reason they do very little is because political leadership has ordered them to stand down. That, plus the personal and career risks of trying to apprehend a criminal when the standard behavior in DC is to resist arrest, attack the officer, and claim racism