Maybe we should create a new class of officials. We could call them Protectors.

[Girard442]

It should be crystal clear that their first priority is to protect citizens and that they sometimes have to place themselves at some risk to do that. Those are the terms of the job. If anyone thinks those terms are unreasonable, don't take the job.

[FalloutShelter]

1. Some more progressive cities are already working on this:

Removing Cops From Behavioral Crisis Calls: 'We Need To Change The Model'
In what will be among the largest and boldest urban police reform experiment in decades San Francisco is creating and preparing to deploy teams of professionals from the fire and health departments — not police — to respond to most calls for people in a psychiatric, behavioral or substance abuse crisis.

Instead of police, these types of crisis calls will mostly be handled by new unarmed mobile teams comprised of paramedics, mental health professionals and peer support counselors starting next month.

"It's glaringly obvious we need to change the model," says San Francisco Fire Dept. Capt. Simon Pang, who is leading the fire department's effort to build these new street crisis response teams.

Removing police from most nonviolent psychiatric and behavioral crisis calls is no small shift: they can account for a quarter or more of all police calls for service. If you add in 911 calls for issues or complaints surrounding homelessness, the numbers shoot even higher, police data show.

Moreover, surveys show that nearly a quarter of fatal police encounters followed calls about "disruptive behavior" directly tied to a person's mental illness and/or substance abuse disorder. Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys show that 64% of those in jail and more than half of all prison inmates have a mental health problem, many of them undiagnosed.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/924146486/removing-cops-from-behavioral-crisis-calls-we-need-to-change-the-model

[lark]

2. Pay them a lot of money!

Hold them up as model citizens and pay them well (good benefits too, of course) and the jobs will be filled.

[brooklynite]

3. So the Protectors would have done what in Columbus?

The girl about to be stabbed needed protection.

[2naSalit]

5. And bullets were the only option for intervention?

[ret5hd]

6. I know things can seem kinda scary when the discussion drifts toward...

protecting people rather than protecting the people and property of people with property.

[brooklynite]

7. Many said the same thing in this thread....

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=15358693

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Nah, just abolish cops entirely.

[USAFRetired_Liberal]

8. I thinks that's how it was initially supposed to work

When cops were called Peace Officers, but then they became more of Law Enforcement Officers

[ret5hd]

9. No, initially they were used to capture escaping slaves and put down slave rebellions.