We pay their salaries to protect us from bad guys (as they so often like to point out), not be judge, jury, and public executioner on the basis of some whim.
What's the difference between "protecting us from bad guys" and "being judge, jury and public executioner"? What mission are you giving police here?
Defund is the wrong word. We need to be able to vote for people who will go after their budgets line by line including the parts where millions of tax dollars go to settlements while nothing changes.
Go after their budgets -- to what end? Making settlement money unavailable? that's defunding.
We need to take away all the military toys that BushCheney gifted to them after 9-11. All that shit they have such easy access to belongs in the National Guard Armory under lock and key.
And the AFSCME-represented cops say they need such tools to go after the "bad guys" you say you want protection from and the city gives it to them. Now what?
All their unions with their special off-premises training and their special gang-tattoos and special initiations need to be decertified. Theres a nice legal process for that. And then go after the gang members with the seriousness the situation deserves. Im looking at you, Los Angeles.
While cops don't belong in the Labor movement, Democrats do not want to get in the habit of decertifying public employee unions.
Regular hiring and firing would be just fine. Normal resume checks that mean something would be just fine.
You say these things as if they're common sense, but what do you mean by them?
My point with these annoying questions is that reforms have been tried for decades. Reforms are what got us George Floyd. It's impossible for a police force to reform its way out of a legacy designed to be oppressive.