Community policing, civilian review boards, better training for police, making sure unlawful

[Lee-Lee]

3. If your focus is police, here are my suggestions

From someone who has done the job.

Eliminate all job/career specific pensions. Only an employee owned 401k or other very portable retirement plans. Why? Because retirement plans that lock people in for X amount of years lock people in who are burned out and will do a crappy job just to stay around long enough to retire or hit a milestone. Also, a system that doesn't pay into a plan a person may have already and requires 25-30 years to be fully vested discourages any mid-career, more experience and mature applicants.

The worst officers in my agency were the "good ol boys" who were counting the days till they could retire. They didn't want to be there and were going to take less personal risk and put forth less effort for the sake of public safety.

A system that locks people into the career for X years also discourages rocking the boat or being a whistleblower- if you know that you have to stay for 6 more years or you won't get your retirement that's a big discouragement to go against the leadership or culture when it fails. If you own your retirement it's yours if you have to leave and seek other employment.

Maintain and keep high standards for the job. Don't cut standards to fill positions if you can't get enough applicants, raise the pay and benefits until you attract the good ones.

Eliminate the concept of part time or special officers who don't have to meet the same minimum qualifications as full time ones. That's how it is in NC, full time or one shift a month you must meet the same standards to start and the same ongoing in-service standards. States that allow less qualified or trained officers on the street as part time or "special" officers baffle me.

Eliminate swing shifts and 12 hour shifts. When I was working I had been up at least 2.5 hours before I started my shift to get showered, dressed, eat, pack a lunch and drive to my assigned patrol sector. If I got a call near the end of shift my ass was dragging and tired and that affects judgement.

A much better disability system for cops injured on the job. People question often why cops use as much force as they do often- and a lot of time it's simply using the force to avoid a chance they will get hurt. Because where I was working it was get hurt, go on light duty until you recover- that meant no overtime (our shifts all and overtime built in) so that was a pay cut. If you can't recover your out on SSDI, nothing else. So the vision was a cop got hurt and ends up out on disability living in a run down trailer with no money. So they don't take any personal risks to try and avoid a use of force that whole legally justifiable may have been resolved otherwise.

More mental health training on an ongoing basis. Cops shouldn't be the people called when someone is in then midst of a mental health crisis, but we often are.

Stricter codes of conduct- I would be ok with a UCMJ type system on a stage level for cops.

Absolutely, positively eliminate local/municipal court systems where the same municipality runs the police force and court and makes money from it. In NC the state runs all courts, local tickets and arrests come before state court and the agency that writes a ticket or makes an arrest doesn't see a dime of the money. Never, ever should an agency get any money from any arrest, ticket or forfeiture. Ever. It creates too much potential for abuse like we saw in Fergeson, and that just eliminates any chance for a community to trust it's officers.

There is more, I will add later.

And now, for what everyone else can do-

Educate yourself on the law. Know what's right and wrong. Don't spread bad information that causes people to make bad choices. Every single persons who argued the law with me had it wrong. Many made things worse resisting or being belligerent because they were sure I was wrong. I wasn't- bad understanding of the law did them no favors.

Don't try and fight an arrest in the streets. You won't win and you will just stack other charges. Fight it in the courts where you may win.

Quit assaulting cops when getting arrested.

Quit using the police as a mental health provider. Refusing to get proper care for a loved one because you don't want them "labeled" or "in the system" is setting them up for a disaster, then when it was real bad you call ten cops who are not the mental health professionals you should have been using.

On that note here in NC they are now creating mental health Mobile Crisis Teams that are on call 24-7 in every county. So that families have someone other than cops to call when they are in over their head, and cops have people to call. Expand and emulate this everywhere.

Quit telling kids, especially minority kids, that cops are all racist monsters out to get them. If you want a more diverse police force in the future for this county this will make the opposite happen, kids don't hit 18-21 and suddenly decide they want a career as the person their family, peers and educators all said was evil and out to harm them. Encourage minority youth to aspire to be cops.

Quit using the cops to discipline your kids. It's not or job to come tell your son or daughter to behave, it creates a bad situation, and it teaches them that the cops are the bad guys. If you are a parent have the Damm fortitude to discipline your own kids, don't play "good mom bad cop".

Quit filing bullshit complaints- most complaints are filed either to try and get out of an arrest by claiming the cops acted wrongly or out of vengeance for a previous encounter- or as I mentioned above because people don't understand the law. I made an arrest once for possession of stolen property and the mom kept screaming "show me the arrest warrant your breaking the law arresting him without a warrant", but of course no arrest warrant was legally required. She filed a formal complaint and I and the agency had to waster time and money dealing with it to have the DA explain to her when I caught her son with 5 recently storm bicycles in the driveway and the bolt cutters he used to steal them I didn't need a warrant. Hopefully body cameras will go a long way toward that just as dash cams did when they were first introduced, but still- use complaints for actual, real misconduct so that complaints are taken more seriously and more resources are available to investigate the ones that are real.

When you have an encounter with a good cop who does his/her job properly and with respect- file a report with their agency as well. Help keep good cops on the job and get promoted into leadership positions by calling attention to them. Just dealing in complaints only manages half the issue- reward good cops too. Let their bosses know they are good, get that on the record and help them et promoted to build a better culture around their agency. When you see a cop that makes you say "why are all cops not like that", take steps to help make that so by sending praise to her/his bosses.