There’s no fixing the American police system. It has rotten roots, slave patrols and the control of enslaved people, and generations of reform haven’t changed the basic model. Armed thugs with a license to kill whose primary job is to capture and return humans to enslavement.

Obviously you still need a way to prevent crime and respond to dangerous people. So replace it with a modern, community based system: nonviolent mental health responders, trained deescalation professionals, specialized violence response units, community patrols, and civilian traffic enforcement. Leave as much initial crime prevention and intervention as possible to the community instead of defaulting to armed police.

Then build a much smaller “police” force whose job is strictly serious violent crime, major investigations, and situations that actually require an armed response.

You stop treating every social problem, traffic violation, mental-health crisis, and petty offense like it needs a person with a gun and the power to arrest you. You stop feeding nearly as many people into the prison system, and you dramatically reduce the opportunities for police shootings, abuse, and corruption.

Some things need a proper fix. Sometimes the proper fix is admitting the existing institution is the thing that needs to be discarded.