Don’t defund policing, rethink it

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Greenlawn, L.I.: “Defund the police,” whatever that means, would be overkill. What I propose are a few rule changes: One, police officers seem to have been trained to think that control of a situation requires bullying, menacing and insults, as well as an assumption of defiance and danger on the part of the subject. This is a primitive tactic, which injects emotion into an encounter that needs calm and rationality. Other Western democracies have a more sophisticated approach, and, not surprisingly, their citizen-police encounters end in violence less often.

Two, when four cops corner a person like Amadou Diallo in his doorway, all guns drawn, or eight cops, all guns drawn, confront a naked, obviously mentally ill man in Times Square, the first rule should be for the cops, one by one, most junior to most senior, to holster their guns. Neither situation was dangerous until the cops made it so with their O.K. Corral approach.

Three, only one officer should be speaking to a man, not all eight shouting at once, which adds to the confusion and danger.

Four, the small portion of abusive cops must be terminated. Let them keep their pensions, if you must, but let their firing make clear what the police, our government and our society deem acceptable. The repeal of 50-a is a meaningful start. But if justice exists for all Americans, the police cannot be exempt from the laws that govern the rest of us. Helen Hill Updike

Anti-social

Wantagh, L.I.: People with no life experience who are as oblivious to reality as Voicer Christine Ierardi seems to be think they can solve society’s ills by creating more social service programs to deal with them. The corrupt and clueless mayor of New York handed over almost a billion dollars to his equally clueless wife to address mental illness. How did that work out, Christine? The first social worker who gets air-mailed out a window while attempting to restrain an out-of-control mentally ill person might have a different opinion of what’s needed in such situations. Same for the first social worker who responds to a violent family dispute. You can dump all the money you want into ineffectual government programs, but to do so at the cost of diminishing the role that the police play in keeping this country from complete chaos, is idiotic. People who did not experience what this city was like before Mayor Giuliani and the NYPD saved it from ruin should educate themselves.

Thomas Urban

Unreasonable force

Woodside: The Atlanta police shooting of Rayshard Brooks

again exposes our law enforcement system’s failure to use reasonable force, especially if encounters involve African Americans, non-white minorities and the economically disadvantaged. The video is prima facie evidence of lethal force being used on a fleeing suspect. He did not pose an imminent danger to officers’ lives. There was no reason to fire three shots above the waist into the victim’s back. Officers across the nation must be trained and sensitized on a continuous basis, or else I’m afraid we may have more Sean Bells, Michael Browns, Eric Garners, George Floyds and men shot in the back like Rayshard Brooks.

Atul M. Karnik

Think of the Wendy’s

Lincoln Park, N.J.: In Atlanta, a black man was shot and killed in a Wendy’s parking lot Saturday night by a police officer. The justice system will in time discern what the officer’s punishment will be. But will someone please tell me what burning down the Wendy’s accomplished?

Gimme a beat

Keith Remland

Blauvelt, N.Y.: Police Commissioner Dermot Shea should place the 600 cops taken from the disbanded high-risk units and give them tasks worthy of their ability and training, but he should also immediately assign many more than 600 officers to old-fashioned walking of beats in every neighborhood. These officers, much like Shea’s fine Irish forebears in Gotham policing, could then actually get to know residents, rather than lurk in darkened patrol SUVs that increasingly look like military vehicles. They could advise social services and other agencies. They could derail many a future career criminal by acting as role models. Forget this nonsense term, “community policing.” That is public relations talk to make law enforcement look good when federal grants are available. Bring back the beat cop.

Art Gunther

Independent judiciary

Peters Township, Pa.: No doubt the president is bitterly disappointed with the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision protecting LGBTQ individuals from employment discrimination. It must be particularly disconcerting for the administration that two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump-appointee Neil Gorsuch, were in the court’s majority. It is fortunate that a president

BARRY WILLIAMS FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS whose mantra is “absolute the rest will have to pay loyalty or there is the door” full-fare. There will be a meeting does not have the power to fire at MTA Headquarters at 2 justices who refuse to kowtow Broadway on June 24 at 10 a.m. to him. Oren Spiegler to discuss. It is essential for all voices to be heard. Most who use Access-A-Ride are seniors or disabled. I see age discrimination here: Fair Fare cards are offered to riders age 18 to 64. What happens to the rest? Don’t they count?

Helen Murphy

Off-Key

Brooklyn: In addition to the sound arguments Stefan Bondy provided in “O, Say Can’t You See It” (column, June 14) for ending the tradition of playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before every sporting event, there is another one: The words to that song were written by Francis Scott Key, a slave owner. In the rarely performed third stanza, Key included these verses: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/ From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.” Key spoke from experience. As an attorney, he represented owners of runaway slaves, and as a district attorney, he suppressed abolitionists. He also advocated shipping free blacks off to Africa. If statues of Confederates and slaveowners must go, then so should “The StarSpangled Banner.”

Dennis Middlebrooks

Fair Fare unfair

Manhatttan: MTA paratransit is not being fair to its riders. Some will get half-fare by using a Fair Fare card in July, whereas

Topless beach

Bronx: As I walked Saturday at Orchard Beach, I witnessed pedestrians standing in groups, not wearing masks or practicing social distancing. The police officers from the 45th Precinct stationed at the beach were not wearing masks either. There were groups of more than 50 people without masks, dancing together while the police did nothing. This beach should be closed. It is endangering the Bronx during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Roberto Sepúlveda

Bald-faced

Manhattan: While Gov. Cuomo is setting up coronavirus testing sites for protesters, he should also set them up for police officers. They are the ones not wearing masks at the protests.

Ilene Winkler