With disabled people in particular, police aren't trained to deal with us, they shoot first and ask questions later instead of taking the time to try and understand what we want to get across during interactions with them. Because everything is considered a threat first, we are more likely to die first. I absolutely don't think that the police are trained properly to handle calls when disability and mental illness are at play. If they did Alfred would still be alive.

If police organizations and departments acknowledge that there's a problem and there's an issue, then that, too, is going to contribute to real solutions. And, as I said yesterday, that is what's going to ultimately help make the job of being a cop a lot safer.

if we truly want to undermine and reduce homicides, we have to reduce our reliance on police.

You know, before when (the police went) to work, they used to be like, 'I'm gonna kick somebody's ass today and so I hope I can catch somebody in a bad situation or breaking the law, because I'm gonna beat someone's ass in a big way, I think that attitude has changed.

I worry that this incredibly important and incredibly difficult conversation about race and policing has become focused entirely on the nature and character of law enforcement officers, when it should also be about something much harder to discuss. Debating the nature of policing is very important, but I worry that it has become an excuse, at times, to avoid doing something harder.

Concurrently the government needs to do five things. One, there needs to be clear messaging about behavioural changes aimed not just at the public but also the police.

You need more police. You need a better community, you know, relation. ... You need better relationships between the communities and the police, because in some cases, it's not good.

We’ve got to resist the false trap that says either there should be no accountability for police or that every police officer is suspect no matter what they do.

That’s how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we’re talking about defunding the police. We’re not. We’re talking about holding them accountable. We’re talking about giving them money to do the right things. We’re talking about putting more psychologists and psychiatrists on the telephones when the 911 calls through. We’re talking about spending money to enable them to do their jobs better, not with more force, with less force and more understanding.

One thing that we can do is make sure we have an avenue that prevents that violence from happening in the first place. Police do not prevent that violence. They make people more precarious. And then once they exit jail if they are arrested, they go back to the same circumstances where they then have to protect themselves.

We must account for that inheritance. And we, especially those of us who enjoy the privilege that comes with being the majority, must confront the biases that are inescapable parts of the human condition. We must speak the truth about our shortcomings as law enforcement, and fight to be better. But as a country, we must also speak the truth to ourselves. Law enforcement is not the root cause of problems in our hardest hit neighborhoods. Police officers, people of enormous courage and integrity, in the main, are in those neighborhoods, risking their lives, to protect folks from offenders who are the product of problems that will not be solved by body cameras.

Time and time again, Americans are reminded of the fact that the people who become police officers in the United States are often absolutely incapable of problem solving. There are famous examples of parents calling the police to “scare” their children, and the children ending up being murdered by the police. In cases of Conflict, calling the police is the last thing any of us should be doing unless our only objective is to cause more pain.

This problem is so much bigger than individual bad cops. There is a separate legal and political framework that shields cops from consequences, gives them special rights when defending themselves, and often trains them to fear the communities that they’re supposed to protect.

There's a lot of dealings with police officers right now. I don’t think all cops are bad. You know, I think there’s some great cops out there, who do everything in their power to uphold the badge and uphold the honor and protect the people in society. But there are bad cops, and I think that also needs to be addressed. I think the police officers we have right now, you know, some of it is being brought to light, because of video cameras, everybody has a camera phone. But these are things a lot of us have dealt with our whole lives. And I think right now is a perfect time to deal with it. The climate we're in, everybody's being more accepting, you know, so I think the ignorance should stop. I think people realize that, at the end of the day, we're all human beings. So, you know, before we're black, white, Asian, Polynesian, Latino. We're humans. So, it's up to us to stop it.