I'm kinda mixed on this one.
I believe that de-funding the police is
a step, but I don't think it should be one of the first steps. A blanket reduction in funding could potentially cause further issues. I feel like it's safe to say that many US departments have issues with how officers are trained, and I'd be willing to bet that if budgets are cut, the first thing(s) departments would do in response is cut officer's pay, cut funding for training, and cut benefits to officers. That would make it to where significantly fewer quality individuals would willingly sign up for the position, especially since occasionally putting one's life on the line also comes with the territory. We'd be left with basically bottom-rung officers with sub-par training who lack the know-how and confidence to properly deal with high-intensity situations. Basically, we'd have even worse police (both size- and quality-wise) and more frequent incidents. Also, while I do think the barrier of entry is unnecessarily low on average, this is also a job that's very stressful, both physically and mentally, requires the employee to regularly go into highly-dangerous areas, and does come with the risk of them getting seriously injured or even dying for basically no reason at all, likely through no real fault of their own. With those in factors in mind, I do think a higher-than-average pay is reasonable (maybe not $100G's a year, though LA also has a notoriously high cost-of-living, so that's likely a factor as well).
As
@Danoff said, the problem seems to be that police are trained to cover their butts, rather than to fully protect and serve. While I
do think that police officers should be well trained in self-defense, subjecting officers to constant training videos of officers losing their lives because of "a lack of vigilance" just makes police also more reactionary, because it truly occurs to them how easy it is for something to go wrong, and they're more worried about the situation going hot rather than keeping it from getting there. I think that in lieu of (or even alongside) a budget de-funding, the public should demand the police (as well as their officials and representatives) to re-purpose their excessive funds to better, tougher, more comprehensive training and screening processes, as well as giving police officers access to much higher-quality resources when it comes to work-related stress. The public should also
regularly remind the police that it's their duty to protect and serve their fellow citizens, and that citizens, suspects and prisoners do have rights and need to be shown a certain amount of respect, because mutual respect both makes the public trust the police more, while also making cops' lives easier.
Trevor Noah touches on that point a bit here
(NSFW Language), which I think also highlights some of the disdain people have towards police.
This may sound controversial, but I also think that veterans, especially ones who have seen/taken part in combat, shouldn't be allowed to become police
unless they go through mandatory, comprehensive mental health checks from a reputable physician (possibly one of the cities/counties choosing) to make sure that they're mentally fit for the task. They might be more disciplined, but I don't know how I'd feel if I found out that the cop responding to my emergency has a history of PTSD, but the department just went "well, he
said he was good, and it looked like we could trust them." I think that if a person applies to be a police officer, and something in their screening makes the department go "yeah, you seem good, but we're not
super confident" than that route should also be extended to such applicants (At the departments discretion, obviously). Just the act of the department saying "hey, you need to go and do this thing, otherwise no dice" will weed out a healthy number of applicants who aren't fully committed to the idea and risks of being a cop, and those that do go are likely to be better officers. Granted, I'm only a civilian. I'm not a solider or cop, I've (thankfully) never been shot at or in a truly life-threatening situation, so I could be completely off-base with this one.
As far as weapons and equipment and all, I personally find that a bit harder to talk about, since I feel like those decisions are based on the needs of the department, but I also think the populace should have somewhat of a say in that as well. For instance, my city's SWAT team has (to my knowledge) a single Bearcat, which I think is reasonable for St. Pete. If I popped on the news and saw that the SPPD acquired something like a de-commissioned Bradley, or a CRASH-style mobile battering ram, then I'd be pretty concerned, and would start asking questions.
IMO, We basically need to get police to a point where their quality of training is higher and more comprehensive, and that the police have more reliable, more trustworthy, and have more readily available options other than whip out their service pistol in a panic. The idea is that police should be of such a high quality that the use of force can reliably be justified, and that cops are put under significantly higher scrutiny when they screw up.
