When it comes to policing, there are multiple stories

Radley Balko is an extremely unsentimental observer of US policing. His 2013 The Rise of the Warrior Cop is an essential history of the evolution of violent policing, even if, I believe, properly subject to criticism for not integrating an understanding of historic white supremacy into his narrative.

Though still libertarian in his instincts, he's no longer on that page -- thanks BLM. We live and learn, all of us.

This guy sticks with the beat. On his newsletter, he has recently published a complicated assessment of positive developments in policing since George Floyd's videoed murder. Some excerpts:

... Three years later, it seems safe to say that the 2020 demonstrations brought real, substantive change. Not enough, but more than in any of my 20 years on this beat. If you had told me in 2018 that within five years, dozens of cities and a few states would impose restrictions or outright bans on no-knock raids, I’d have rolled my eyes at you. We’ve also seen a wave of bans on chokeholds, and state restrictions on civil asset forfeiture (though many of those pre-date 2020). A few states have even stripped police of the qualified immunity that shields police officers from federal lawsuits when they’re sued in state court. 

We’ve seen reformist police executives take over many big city police agencies, where they’ve implemented policies like mandatory deescalation, prohibitions on shooting into moving cars, and barring high-speed chases for minor offenses. We’ve even seen some jurisdictions attempt to limit the role of police in traffic enforcement.

Many of these reforms were only possible because of the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. For all the criticism of “defund” and police abolitionists, the protests dramatically shifted public opinion in a way we haven’t seen since the civil rights era. There’d been some movement in polling after Ferguson, the death of Eric Garner, and other high-profile incidents of police violence, but within months public opinion tended to regress back to the mean.

That hasn’t been the case since the George Floyd protests. ...

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this shift. Prior to Ferguson, public support for all but the most cosmetic police reforms was pretty much nonexistent. Even after Ferguson, it remained pretty low. The 2020 protests not only spurred a massive swing in public opinion, support for reform has remained high even as crime has gone up, and even as one of the two major political parties has gone out of its way to demagogue police reform as a major contributor to violence and disorder. It’s notable that in that YouGov poll, a plurality of Republicans still favor every reform polled but two — banning no-knock raids and prohibiting military gear.

The country clearly wants change. The main barrier right now is politicians.

So why aren't we seeing more reform, more public safety, less occupying army in the 'hood? Balko thinks he knows:

The problem is that though a healthy majority of the country thinks policing is in need of change, there’s a loud, well-funded, and politically powerful constituency that feels otherwise — groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, older voters, and police and prison guard unions. (I suppose we can also now add “middle aged tech bros” to the mix.)

Successful reform means overcoming political inertia, and to do that you need to convince politicians of one of two things:

1) The support they’ll get from backing reform is greater than what the support they’ll lose for abandoning the status quo.

2) Reformers are capable of imposing a political cost for failing to support their policies.

For the moment, the political force for change is not there. But we know there will be more atrocities ...

• • •

Unhappily, San Francisco is not one of the places leading the way on police reform. In 2016, the Justice Department blasted our local cops for a catalogue of racist use-for-force practices culminating in five police killings of unarmed residents in a two year period. But this was unenforceable, not a binding consent decree. The incoming Trump DOJ dumped the process. Chief Scott assures our toothless Police Commission that reforms are underway, but without external enforcement and with a rabidly anti-reform police union, that's doubtful.

Mayor London Breed flanked by a smiling Chief Scott

Meanwhile, with a captive Mayor and District Attorney, the SFPD seems unwilling to simply do the job. 

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight has concluded we have "a police department asleep at the wheel." She interviewed an immigrant-led business that is giving up in the Tenderloin, the city's urban core.

Damian Morffet and Ron Haysbert, who work security at La Cocina, put the blame for its failure squarely on a shrugging City Hall and an inconsistent, lackluster police department. They said when they were growing up, drug dealers and people using drugs felt uncomfortable in public — but now they’re given free rein over public sidewalks while families, kids and people just trying to get lunch are made to feel uncomfortable.

“If the police were consistent with their patrols and efforts, people would come out here at night,” Morffet said.

“The cops drive by and look, and they don’t do anything,” Haysbert agreed.

Obviously we don't want trigger-happy enforcers, but if we have to pay for this police department, they could at least make it look as if they are working for their fancy salaries and pensions.