Smashboards

I feel like all police officers have been portrayed as horrible people since the police brutality incident. What people need to realize is most police officers don't act this horribly towards black people. I recently saw a heartwarming video of a good police officer comforting a black 5 year old girl who was afraid the police would shoot her. It's a small amount of police officers who are racist and could potentially commit police brutality, and THEY are the problem. Defunding the police does nothing other than take away the careers of the people who keep us safe, and discourage people from joining the police force in the future. That will also do nothing but increase crime rates. "The police are gone? Let's start robbing banks and breaking into people's houses! Nothing's gonna happen!"

(Note: I have several friends and family who are police officers/Blue Lives Matter supporters)

I feel there are a large majority of people, like myself, who want to see a large defunding of law enforcement to more realistic levels. Looking at LA, the LAPD rakes in around $3 billion in budget after a $150 million budget cut. Emergency Management barely gets any of the budget despite wildfires destroying vast amounts of homes, businesses, and land - far more than riots and looting does.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZpRWAkU8AAWrzF.jpg:large
(Above is a graph that shows this)

Many law enforcement agencies have budgets larger than some 3rd world countries in their national treasury and they use this money to purchase high-end military style equipment. We do need to make sure our law enforcement is appropriately armed but do they need tanks and bazookas? No, they don’t. We don’t have criminals waving around Bazookas once a week so why does law enforcement need them on hand?

So, a large amount of those against law enforcement isn’t asking for a complete abolishment of the system but a reasonable reduction of budget among other, likewise, reasonable requests (Stop broken glass investigation, less power to police unions that seek to protect bad cops, etc). Of course, you do have people who wish to see law enforcement removed.

For the record, I’m very much against the rioting and looting committed by criminals masquerading as peaceful protestors.

Defund isn't the best term. Demilitarize is better.

Though i find it hard to believe that people can't see just how overfunded both our police and military are plenty of that could go to more important things like education and healthcare, as well as things to improve living conditions for poverty stricken areas.

Brutal and deadly policing doesn't fix problems, it only makes them worse.

Like I said, I have police officers as friends and family (one friend who is in the Minneapolis Police Department). I hear stuff and having **** measuring contests between police departments in regards to budget is more common than you would think.

Wow. Now I can see some reason for a "defunding" but not for the way the protesters want it. Like seriously, a small section of officers aren't the face of the police. Police are normally good people who want to do nothing more than help.