Here’s some ideas we can all do to elicit the change we need to see.
1. Write or email your Congressman, Senator, Governor, Mayor, City Council, and State legislature. Write early write often. They might not respond but they do notice the sheer volume. Ask them why they haven’t done anything about police brutality and ask what they plan to do in the future. If you agree with any suggestions below in this list feel free to Champion any of them. Here’s a good resource for finding your representatives:
2. Talk to your friends and family and encourage them through well reasoned debate why things need to change.
3. Vote. Study the candidates in your local and national elections. Use the voter education guide your state will send you to review the candidates. Go online to review their positions as well.
4. Donate your time or your money to the cause of your choice. Whether that be BLM, Antifa, your local church that supports the cause or any other organization you may see fit. My cause for change is the ACLU, who can fight from within the system along with those who fight from outside it.
5. Demand a constitutional amendment protecting the rights of the people from the abuses of the police, the repeal of qualified immunity laws, in the end of civil forfeiture where no crime occurred.
6. Demand any payments from civil suits arising from policeman’s violation of citizens constitutional rights come directly from the officers, or the jurisdictions officers retirement fund, with no citizen contributions going forward. Nothing like the old guard having a vested interest in the new guard.
7. Refund or defund the police. They care much more about their funding than our lives it seems.
8. All fines, Tickets and judgments go into the states general fund, with a portion going to the citizens legal defense fund. No monies collected shall go to Policing interests.
9. Dissolve police departments. Why this is a radical idea it may be the only way to get out of contracts with police unions. Then limit the police unions power to strictly wage and benefit negotiations.
10. Those who enforce the laws must follow the same laws. Any officer caught in violation of a law will be subject to triple the legal punishment.
11. A federal review of all cases involving violence by police against citizens, Going forward and covering the last 20 years past. Including retired officers.
12. A national publicly available database of all officers involved in violence, lying, misconduct or other malfeasance. Freely available to the public. 13. The legalization of cannabis and other soft drugs, the decriminalization of hard drugs, and police focus on crimes were there as an actual victim. End our longest running war, the war on drugs.
14. Any officer found to have colluded to cover up police malfeasance shall be prosecuted as a conspirator. And the punishment equal to those found guilty of the crime.
15. Retire canine unit attack dogs and drug sniffing dogs. Increase bomb sniffing and tracking dogs.
16. Protest in the streets. Peaceful acts of civil disobedience, what has been referred to as good and necessary trouble.