Why I Want to Defund the Police

Call me crazy, but I think that they could do a better job. Most Police only have a few tasks that they have to accomplish each day. The parking cop, has to give parking tickets, right? Thats the one thing they have to do. In order to do this job, shouldn’t they know the parking laws? I received a parking ticket some time ago for parking in downtown San Diego in a commercial (yellow) space. Before I did, I verified online for the hours parking is free there, which is 6pm. I got the ticket around 7pm. I went online to contest the ticket citing the city’s own website describing the laws of parking. I got a response several weeks later stating that I still have to pay. Basically an administrator determined that I was guilty. So now I have to contest it again. Suddenly a $60 ticket is going to cost me, and the city a lot more because the issuing officer didn’t know the laws around the one job they had to do.

Now this is just one occasion that in my opinion, is too easy to fuck up.

Now in the case of the BLM protest and the events in the Capitol as well as all the needless deaths at the hand of the police, I can’t help but feel the police were negligent of their duties, and so they must be let go. I’m not a police expert, but they really only have a few things to do. Know the law, enforce the law. Why is this such a challenge? It’s not rocket science, is it? Maybe I am oversimplifying, but damn.

Now I have come to understand that to become a cop, the bar is set really, really low. Why? Shouldn’t it be set really high? After all, they are representing the values of their jurisdictions, are they not? They are ambassadors of peace, the bridge between the community members.

Instead of arming them with tools to wage war on the citizens, shouldn’t they be armed with the tools to wage peace? Isn’t having military grade weapons too much for a group of people who are untrained, unworthy of wielding them?

In the Army, the soldiers are given time to train with their weapons and then the weapons are placed in an armory until the time comes to use them. They don’t carry them around casually because they are powerful tools of destruction. Why then are the police able to use similar weapons on citizens during a time of peace, or at all? Do cops really need all that?

The simple answer is no.

What are your thoughts?

With Love,

Charlie