[manfredo]

> The idea of "dismantling of police" does not mean we do not offer protection.

Who offers the protection? Ultimately the are going to be people tasked with stopping criminal behavior, with force if said criminals resist. This isn't a dismantling of the police it's a rebranding.

[free_rms]

Camden NJ rebuilt their police department overnight a few years back. Cancelled the union contract, fired everyone and started over. Rehired some of the same cops I believe as part of the new structure.

Murders are down 50% from then, it's still not a nice town or anything but it's not the worst town in America anymore.

[manfredo]

The police department wasn't dismantled. Camden's police department very much still exists: https://camdencountypd.org/

Restaffing he police is a vastly different measure than dismantling the police or abolishing the police, which is what many activists are pushing for.

Furthemore, the idea that this was an instance of dismantling the police to reduce police abuses doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny [1]:

> With the city under duress, over the objection of Camden community members, local officials partnered with Christie to enact a plan to disband the city’s police force and replace it with a regional county force. The goal was to dissolve the local police union, which would allow for a cheaper force that would enable more policing, not less.

> The new force embraced broken windows policing. In the first year of the new force, summonses for disorderly conduct shot up 43 percent. Summonses for not maintaining lights or reflectors on vehicles spiked 421 percent. Summonses for tinted car windows similarly increased 381 percent. And farcically, summonses for riding a bicycle without a bell or a light rose from three to 339. It was straight out of the Giuliani handbook.

> Unsurprisingly, these moves provoked tensions between the community and the police producing a parallel rise in excessive-force complaints. These tensions were still bubbling in 2014 when a particularly harsh and disturbing arrest was caught on video with officers using violent techniques similar to the ones that killed George Floyd in Wisconsin. When pressed about the incident, Camden County Public Affairs Director Dan Keashen said that an investigation showed it to be “a good arrest.”

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/16/camden-nj-...

[free_rms]

I was just saying that there are reasonable ideas under the "defund" umbrella.

When several city depts don't seem to feel like they have to take orders from elected government, drastic measures start looking more reasonable.