We need a top to bottom review of everything from how 911 calls are handled to the type of equipment a cop is carrying on the beat.  Much of this purview now falls under the Mayor with the Executive Mayor system.  However the City Council still has input and some oversight functions.  The police need to know that the city council supports their mission but the police need to know that they are accountable and that bad behavior will result in a firing from the department or worse.

Frankly we need to change the way that policing is done. There’s no need to send heavily armored police officers to every call. Let’s have other options, from social workers to unarmed “police lite” that we can send to non-violent calls.  It’s also essential that the Mayor remain in touch with what’s happening on the ground.  Some other thoughts on policing are that we need to be attracting a different personality profile to the department.  We also need to make police salaries meet or beat the salaries that suburban police departments are paying so that we can attract the best and brightest candidates to fill the holes in our public safety net.