Two Ways To Stifle Police Brutality: Turning To Christ And Eliminating Police Unions

During and following the chaos that were the riots “in response” to the death of George Floyd, a new mantra has been adopted and attempted to be popularized by the Left: defund the police/abolish the police, with the second being the crazier of the two.
 
Without police, criminals are free to do literally whatever they want. Even with a private police force (which I would assume such businesses would spring up due to demand for protection), the only people who would benefit from such a service would be the ones who could afford it (i.e. the rich, depending on how the system works and how much it would cost to hire such a force for a particular problem/crime). Abolishing/defunding the police would lead to far more black and brown deaths because such people tend to statistically be poorer (just ask Joe Biden, who considers all black and brown people to be poor) and black-on-black crime tends to happen a whole lot more too.
 
And yet, this is something the Left is now espousing, from Ilhan Omar to Bill de Blasio to Eric Garcetti. Even the Minneapolis City Council is set to vote to dismantle the police in the city. Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender went on Alysin Camerota’s show recently to talk about this idea.
 
Camerota asked the logical question of: “What if in the middle of the night, my home is broken into? Who do I call?”

Bender answered: “Yes, I hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors. And I know – and myself too, and I know that that comes from a place of privilege.”
 
Basically, you are a stinking, privileged person if you call the police after someone broke into your house or if someone raped you or if someone killed someone you love. This is the sort of insanity that these Leftists espouse, and proudly so.
 
The people demanding that cities defund their police forces are most often people who would call the police themselves if they find themselves in trouble and tend to be people who would not be negatively affected whatsoever by such a decision.
 
For example, former ESPN commentator Chris Palmer initially had no problem with the rioters and arsonists burning down inner city businesses and housing development units, even egging them on tweeting: “Burn that s**t down. Burn it all down,” but as soon as they showed up at his doorstep, he cried: “They just attacked our sister community down the street. It’s a gated community and they tried to climb the gates. They had to beat them back. Then destroyed a Starbucks and are now in front of my building. Get these animals TF out of my neighborhood. Go back to where you live.”
 
So when the rioters destroyed a housing development meant for people who couldn’t afford housing, and must now live longer on the streets or in unsavory places, Chris Palmer was completely fine and wanted the destruction to continue, but as soon as the rioters presented the slightest of inconveniences or threats to him, he calls them “animals.” See, the revolting poors aren’t supposed to revolt against people like him, in his mind. The revolting poors are supposed to revolt against, well, themselves and the other rich people in the country.
 
As soon as the peasants turned their pitchforks on Palmer, he was shocked and chagrinned by the idea that they would be so barbaric and animalistic. The guy is a hypocrite, no doubt, and a typical Leftist. As soon as the mob became a liability, he was against them. A former Argentinian president, President Peron, used terrorists to regain office after having been ousted a couple decades before, and as soon as he regained power, he went after the terrorists who helped him because they were making demands of him that he didn’t want to fulfill.
 
People aren’t people to the Left, just means to an end. Black lives don’t matter to the Left, only insofar as they can make it a catchy slogan and get the black people to vote the way they are “supposed” to.
 
Which is why it’s not surprising to see them espouse the insane belief of “defund/abolish the police.” The wealthy Leftist elites will not at all be affected by this since they get their own security forces to protect them. But if the idea gets enough people to vote for them in November, even at the cost of many people’s lives, it will all be worth it.
 
However, we all know how insanely dangerous such an idea is in practicality. With Minneapolis announcing they would be voting to disband their police force, they are telling any and all criminals that the city is theirs for the taking, as long as they don’t bother their “betters” in the Leftist elites.
 
If people want actually effective and good solutions, I have two, with one being honestly less likely to happen than the other.
 
One solution is the country, as a whole, turning to Christ. Each instance of police brutality, whether perpetuated on someone like George Floyd or Tony Timpa, is an instance of Christ not being in a police officer/officers’ heart(s).
 
It is understandable that an officer of the law will have to use force in certain situations, sometimes even lethal force. However, in situations like with George Floyd, the force we saw used was excessive (and the guy was clearly enjoying himself). Excessive use of force is not right, is not just, and is not indicative of a person seeking to embody the teachings of Christ.
 
A true Christian will not seek and savor the opportunity to abuse a brother/sister or a neighbor. A true Christian will seek to do right by people, even those who commit crimes; punishing them as they ought to be with the right sort of punishment. George Floyd had a history of crimes and he was being arrested for a reason. Punishment needed to come his way as a result of his criminal actions (slight as they might have been). Delivering justice is necessary. Delivering excessive punishment is unjust. It’s why we have the 8th Amendment, after all. What happened to George Floyd, apart from being murder of the third degree (at most, given the evidence, and there is a chance that he walks if overcharged, which will likely incite more riots, which is probably what Leftist Keith Ellison wants), was also a violation of his 8th Amendment rights.
 
With the country turning to Christ, not only would you see a great downtick in police brutality, but also in crime itself. However, it is irrational to expect that the entire country, all 300 million+ of us, would simultaneously turn to Christ. Even if there is a Christian revival that comes out of this (and I do hope there is one because this country and the world in general desperately need the Lord), that won’t mean that everyone will become a Christian and all crime will stop, or even that all police officers will be good.
 
Which is why I say that, if there is a Christian revival in this country soon, that won’t outright end all police brutality, only stifle it. I’m afraid injustice cannot be eliminated in an imperfect world, and it certainly cannot be eliminated by an imperfect people. There is only one place in existence where there is no injustice and that is Heaven.
 
No amount of legislation, no amount of having discussions (especially if that leads to communism, which is antithetical to justice) and no amount of reform can eliminate immorality and evil in people’s hearts. Even in Christ, we are still an imperfect people. So there will not be an elimination of injustice in this world. Not absolutely.
 
However, there is another solution that can work and be a bit more pragmatic in this instance (not to say the country turning to Christ wouldn’t be a viable and effective solution, but I cannot expect the entire country to do that).
 
Eliminating police unions will stifle police brutality as well and I think that is a bit more of an achievable goal than the entire country turning to Christ (much as I would want that to happen).
 
Police unions, like teacher’s unions, protect the people who should not be protected. They mask the actions of the bad ones and keep justice from being served equally under the law.
 
There is a great article at The Washington Examiner that talks more in-depth about it, pointing out how even in the instance of the George Floyd killing, it took the MPD FIVE DAYS to just arrest Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, let alone the other three who were complicit to his murder. If you know where a murder suspect is, the police will arrest them pretty much immediately… unless a police officer is the murderer, it seems.
 
Even the president of the city’s police union was livid at the fact that the officers were fired EVEN AFTER THE EVIDENCE OF ONE OF THEM KILLING A PERSON AND THE OTHER THREE BEING COMPLICIT IN MURDER WAS WIDELY KNOWN TO EVERYONE.
 
Keep in mind as well that Chauvin has 17 complaints reported against him, only one of which received any sort of punishment at all in the form of a reprimand letter (which is the equivalent of a slap in the wrist). The guy is a problematic cop who has gotten away with almost everything he has done because he is protected by his union.
 
Allow me to quote some things from The Washington Examiner that will make your blood boil if you didn’t know this already or hadn’t read it before:
 
“[I]t’s concerning that [Chauvin] faced a complaint, on average, almost every year he worked for the Minneapolis Police Department (he was a cop for 20 years), and he never faced any meaningful consequences… Police unions [use] the protections they’ve collectively bargained into the disciplinary appeals process to slow down the justice system when officers begin to face scrutiny.”
 
“One study found that 70% of the 656 union contracts evaluated by researchers allow officers to appeal to an ‘arbitrator’, or a third party, who has the power to determine disciplinary action or dismiss it altogether. And here’s the catch: About 54% of these contracts gave the unions the power to select the arbitrator. In other words, if the union appeals an officer’s case and the appeal is approved, it can choose an arbitrator who will make the case disappear.”
 
How else do you think officers like the one who refused to protect people getting shot in the Parkland high school can REGAIN THEIR JOB despite being entirely unfit to serve?
 
Police unions protect bad cops from accountability, which in turn leads some cops to basically act like they can do whatever they want free of consequence, which in turn leads to situations like FOUR COPS THINKING THE SLOW KILLING OF A MAN IS PERFECTLY OKAY.
 
If you want to really stifle police brutality, don’t defund or abolish the police (because that is literally one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard), eliminate the police unions that serve to protect the bad cops from being held accountable.
 
Unions in general are communist bullcrap, regardless of profession. Eliminating police unions is something, I think, most people could agree with, almost regardless of what ideals they hold.
 
Isaiah 40:31
“But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”