I'm a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing

Virtually everybody has a friend of a friend who ran into a cop who lied or abused them. It's foolish to inject race into the discussion of police abuse. A lot more people would support reform if the discussion wasn't narrowed to just police abuse of minorities.

The real cause of the problem is that many communities are racially segregated and that we don't require police officers to live in the communities they police. It causes cops to police neighborhoods like troops occupying a foreign country with restless natives.

If we want to get serious about stopping this we should 1) outlaw gentrification and lower property taxes so that poor people aren't forced to live apart from everyone else 2) outlaw any zoning laws that affect the income levels of communities 3) provide police officers with a home in the community they police and require them to live there with their families. Also, put a body cam on every police officer and have an independent quality assurance department to conduct random reviews.

I had some conversations with police officers in my country, and to be off the books honest- they feel like the blacks of white society- means just useful enough to keep failed social experiments, ignored social problems and even problems created by delusional politicians under the lid. Once a certain threshold is reached, the escalation from both sides in a community (unemployed youth vs the police) takes on a dynamic of its own. Even a idealistic officer could spend a generation working in such a environment - achieving near to nothing.

As David Brin said it. Put Cameras on everybody, its our best shot. Its utterly horrible, but its our best shot. Also, having seen some speakers on conferences, i would demand a equal push towards a peace and prosperity development from the policed communities. And no excuses there either. You need next to nothing today, to learn and develop. You need very cheap hardware (even a smartphone can do it). You need the web. You need the believe that you can accomplish this and see it through.

I remember, reading a GFX programmers short-bio on some webpage. He basically grew up in a ghetto, did spend most of his time indoors and developed his skills until he became a great shader programmer. If i remember correctly, he ended up working for valve.

If there was some program like the worldvision to provide a mentor-ship towards a pupil willing to walk this road (including comp-replacement-insurance and legal-insurance to escape harassment) - that would be great. Big problem seems also to provide a social environment with escape velocity.

Michael A. Wood Jr.'s story [0] is salient, as is his one of his proposed partial solutions to meaningful police culture reform: open, civilian governance. [1]

0: https://youtu.be/u5nPyf-0UMc

1: https://youtu.be/FZIrIMppCrg