As a kid, I wanted to be a cop or a firefighter because in my eyes they were real life superheroes who risked their lives to help others.
The rose-colored glasses of youth have been forcibly removed as images of police brutality circulate the internet rapidly year by year.
Defunding the police means reallocating its budget toward resources including bolstering cities’ mental health services and housing the homeless, who are often over-policed for simply existing.
The San Jose Police Department’s budget for 2020-21 was $446 million and was the highest expenditure compared to every other city department, according to the 2020-21 Adopted San Jose Operating Budget.
This budget costs each one of San Jose’s 1.45 million citizens about $434 to operate the police department’s staff of about 1,700, according to both a Sept. 30, 2021 CBS News article and SJPD’s Department Information webpage.
One of the arguments I often hear against defunding the police is, “Who is going to protect us from crime?”
When looking at the data, police often don’t benefit the community.
In 2018, SJPD made 15,384 arrests, with 76% of those arrests being for low-level offenses, according to a report by the Vera Institute.
The department overpoliced neighborhoods of color, and for non-violent crimes Black people were arrested at a rate 2.44 times higher than white people, according to the same Vera Institute report.
Disproportionate arrest levels are tied to a lack of funding for housing our city’s homeless population.
A 2020 report conducted by Destination: Home and the Supporting Partnerships for
Anti-Racist Communities, found 61% of Santa Clara County’s homeless population is either Latinx or Black.
Destination: Home is a public private partnership dedicated to ending homelessness in Silicon Valley, according to its website.The Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Rascist Communities is an organization that supports those experiencing homelessness with a focus on mental health issues, according to its website.
Significant historical background
My own identity as a queer person challenges me to consider historical events including the 1969 Stonewall Riots, and I have to ask myself, “What would I have done if the police were arresting me for simply congregating with my queer friends?”
The Stonewall Riots occurred in response to the constant raiding of gay bars in New York City by police. In 1969, homosexual acts were still illegal in almost every state, according to a June 13, 2019 History article.
Historical events including the Stonewall riots and the Chicano Moratorium all highlight a similar pattern: Police’s priorities have always been to maintain social control of marginalized groups and protect property, not people.
The Chicano Moratorium was a march led by Chicanx anti-war activists protesting the war in Vietnam on August 29, 1970. More than 20,000 people showed up, according to an Aug. 27, 2020 History article.
The peaceful march was disrupted by Los Angeles police officers, who alleged that a liquor store clerk called saying that Chicanx were stealing from his store.
Amid the chaos of police arresting protesters and tear gassing crowds three people were killed, including Los Angeles Times journalist Ruben Salazar.
In order to fully understand the modern police force, we must understand how these civil servants were bound together.
New York City established the first U.S. police force in 1844 in response to rising immigrant populations from Germany and Ireland who were offending the sensibilities of white anglo-saxon protestants, according to a Sept. 1, 2020 article by Britannica.
While this is true, what the article fails to include is what inspired the first police force, which were slave catchers operating under slave codes, according to a July 13, 2020 New Yorker article.
Slave codes were a special set of laws that governed how slaves were treated in Colonial America, according to the same New Yorker article.
Put simply, through cultural diffusion our colonial slave codes influenced a man named Patrick Colquhoun, an agent for British cotton manufacturers to write a book called “A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis.”
That influenced British statesmen Robert Peel to convince Parliament to establish a police force in London in 1829.
Next thing you know, 15 years later, America hears of this police force and creates its own.
Modern day failures to “protect and serve”
SJPD was highly criticized for its use of aggressive crowd-control tactics in 2020 during the George Floyd protests that included the use of rubber bullets, tear gas and other disproportionate displays of force, according to a Feb. 26 Mercury News article.
SJPD Chief Anthony Mata said in the same article the police department would need at least $1.1 million to prepare officers to properly deal with civil disobedience.
That is laughable given its current budget and shows that police are ineffective when it comes to dealing with a majority of the situations they encounter.
If we don’t fund our communities and search for police alternatives, public needs will continue to be neglected and stories of police/community conflict will rise.
Disbanding the police union
Some might argue that we need more accountability, but we will never see true police accountability as long the police department has a union.
Consider the recent shooting of Contra Costa College student K’uan Green by an SJPD officer.
Green was shot by officer Mark McNamara after he successfully disarmed an active shooter at La Victoria Taqueria in Downtown San Jose on March 27.
The police withheld McNamara’s identity for more than a month but placed him on an administrative absence, according to a May 10 CBS News article.
If they hadn’t had run in guns blazing this would have merited police some accolades, but instead they apprehended the wrong person and held him in custody for hours before letting his family know what happened.
We need to reimagine policing in the U.S. because what we have right now was built on a legacy of inequality, oppression and stagnation.
How much will we allow policing to take from us before we take a stand?
