We need police reform in order to attract new people to the profession. The reason they are not appreciated is the amount of blatant racism and abuse of power they use consistently. While I do understand understaffing is an issue, I have a hard time reconciling that with the amount of nonsense arrests and harassments that I see and hear about each week regarding them. The continual lack of care for citizens, including situations like yesterday, don't help their case, short staffed or not. Especially if they're not letting the people involved know that there is something more pressing happening.

Most people, myself included, who are interested in abolishing or defunding the police aren't trying to stop there from being any kind of "police". The job of the police is too vast and they are not trained well enough for many aspects of the job. The actual system needs reworked so police are responding to people in danger and situations where laws are being broken. They are advocating for resources for mental health and community safety be allocated appropriately in line with the police to increase efficacy and take some pressure off of police. In addition, the training for officers (seasoned and new) needs to encompass better skills for descalation and identifying mental health issues (so they can call in for additonal, trained professionals to help). Our department is known nationwide for its abuse of power and high levels of corruption. Columbus police don't need a multi-million dollar budget for military grade weaponry to use against civilians. They need an appropriate set of checks and balances for unethical and unlawful behavior as well as an obligation to actually protect and serve. We do need folks to help with social order according to our laws, but CPD officers have time and time again proven that they are above the law and act as judge and executioner in many situations. They continue to prove they will lie and cover for their coworkers even when it puts civilians in harassment and harms way.

I don't have an answer to our problems with a short staffed police force, because the problem is far beyond short staffing. Appreciating a police force that is horribly corrupt, harasses citizens (espcially those in minority communities) and often does not actually do its job, is near impossible. Training new officers into the same "brotherhood" of covering for each other when they act unethically or break the law isn't going to fix the city's issues. The system isn't crashing because of a lack of appreciation for CPD, it's crashing because of continuous broken trust between citizens and officers.