Thread by @AnnieGabstonH

Other than the president, I don't hear many people talking about actually abolishing the police as a whole.

What I do hear is the voices of people who are deeply concerned by the murder of #GeorgeFloyd and others along with the many videos of police brutality against protesters.

You see, in that semi-mythical America that many people thought they lived in, the police are there to protect and serve us. Dangerous only to the bad guys and only until they are subdued.

#GeorgeFloyd was on the ground, though, cuffed and helpless.

In Derek Chauvin, we didn't see our 'hero cop.' Instead, we saw a murderer, enjoying his side-hustle when he should have been working for us.

We saw him, calmly and with apparent enjoyment, spend nine minutes slowly killing his helpless victim.

The horror of it shocked everyone, but apart from the family, no one was as shocked as those people who had 'known' for their whole lives, that the police wouldn't hurt people unless they did something to deserve being hurt.

They could understand an occasional mistake.

Nine minutes with his hand in his pocket and his knee on a helpless man's neck couldn't be anything but what it was. Murder.

The rage wasn't a black thing this time. Rainbow America took to the streets to say that Chauvin must be punished.

America took to the streets and learned a new lesson. Chauvin was the worst, but he wasn't the only.

Those heros who were supposed to be there to protect and serve the public were willing to really nasty things to people who were just protesting.

One window breaker or fire starter was enough to 'make' them attack a thousand people with tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons.

Heck, they'd attack people viciously for sitting on their own porch after curfew.

Protect and serve?

The cameras were there. People who hadn't been upset enough with the murder to take to the streets were upset at the attempted denial of the right to protest. Every night, the crowds got bigger.

Because we want that semi-mythical America to be the real thing.

We will not, we cannot, allow those tasked with public safety to be a danger to the public.

Officers who responded to claims that police were violent by proving that police are violent have no place in a position of trust.

So no. Most people aren't calling for or interest in, abolishing the police.

The system that we saw operating on our streets, harming innocent protesters rather than protecting their right to protest?

That, we have to get rid of.

Policing in America must come to a place where not only the murder of #GeorgeFloyd is unthinkable, but so is blinding a photographer with a rubber bullet or even treating the public disrespectfully.

It's time for reform.