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Orozco, Norma From:Rachael Shorb <rachaelshorb@gmail.com> Sent:Thursday, June 18, 2020 10:21 AM To:eComment Subject:Defunding And Reforming The Police For the Long-Term Hi, thank you for looking at my email. I am sending this note because we need long- term solutions to not just police brutality, but also inefficiencies in the entire public safety system. For purposes of brevity I will restrict this note to policing only. The call to abolish police at first surprised me, but the more I thought about potential solutions the more I realized this would be the best long-term solution. I don't exactly call for abolition but I do call for a strong, permanent restructuring. So I come to you with potential solutions, and I hope this makes your job easier. Restructuring the Police Force Currently, we have armed police responders covering a wide variety of duties. This should not be the case. Restructuring should separate Police Responses into two categories: (1) Violent Incident Response (2) Nonviolent Incident Response We should limit the armed police response to category (1) only. This would drastically cut the police budget and save money. Furthermore, armed police are only trained to use violence - either by training or by learning violence on the job, they are not equipped with the skills or knowledge to handle nonviolent crime or nonviolent violations. Nonviolent responders for nonviolent crimes. A reimagining of 911 Call Management. You call 911, dispatch can determine if the caller needs (1) an armed responder (policeman), (2) paramedic or fireman for health problems or fire, (3) social worker for domestic disputes, or (4) other nonviolent responders, like for noise complaints, suspected nonviolent crime, traffic issues, etc. And as for traffic cops, just abolish that whole department and leave it to the DMV. So many of these policemen are murdering people over past due registration or in traffic stops, the DMV sends bills, DMV should be handling that. We don't need armed men responding to noise complaints or heart attacks or even suspected petty theft. The police have too many responsibilities, we need to leave it to the professionals who are trained in nonviolent techniques. We can reform this, but it starts with defunding and demilitarizing the police and reducing the armed force. I have more notes on the inefficiencies of the policing system and where those inefficiencies are, i.e., rape kit backlogs (rendering police useless once again), and 1