https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/07/25/police-mental-health-alternative-911

In the four years since George Floyd’s murder, many sweeping attempts to reform policing have faltered. But one proposal that has taken hold across the country, and continues to spread, is launching alternative first response units that send unarmed civilians, instead of armed officers, to some emergencies.

For decades, Eugene, Oregon, was the rare city that sent unarmed crisis workers and EMTs to 911 calls. Now, researchers have tracked over 100 alternative crisis response units operating across the U.S. Over half of the country’s largest cities have created such teams.

https://atlantablackstar.com/2024/03/20/a-historic-backtrack-on-criminal-justice-reform-critics-say-new-laws-could-disproportionately-affect-people-of-color/

After Floyd’s death, states passed hundreds of reform bills, including chokehold bans and other use-of-force guidelines, while several cities vowed to invest in community programs and crisis response teams to assist with behavioral-health-related calls.

https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/george-floyd-police-reform-los-angeles-black-lives-matter-sheriff-lapd-gascon-aclu-defund

There have been big changes via the ballot box:

• Reformer George Gascón ousted incumbent L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey in the November 2020 election. Gascón’s promise to review hundreds of past police shootings for possible prosecution of the officers involved helped him beat incumbent Lacey, who was heavily supported by police unions.
• Voters elected L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell — a former state senator who championed police reform in Sacramento — to the Board of Supervisors.
• Voters approved Measure J, which requires the county to spend at least 10% of its discretionary money on social programs designed to keep people out of the criminal justice system.

There have also been funding cuts and policy shifts:

• The Los Angeles City Council cut the LAPD budget by $150 million.
• The Los Angeles Unified School District cut its police budget by 35%.
• The city council is developing a program to use unarmed social workers instead of police to respond to some mental health calls.
• The city council is studying whether it could remove police from traffic enforcement.

“I think police reform now has become turbocharged,” said Raphe Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A. “I don’t think anybody could have possibly imagined that so much would be on the table right now.”

https://www.axios.com/2020/06/10/police-reform-george-floyd-protest

This one has a big list of anecdotal reforms from different parts of the country.

I realize that a lot of these describe cases where some reform was initially popular, but now has lost steam or gone backwards. That is what I am saying. I was saying, the wrong people are in charge, and when ordinary people fight to make things better, it happens, and when it’s on autopilot, it doesn’t. It sounds to me like police reform took some big steps forward when people demanded it, including your friends who were fighting like hell to make things happen and good on them for doing it. And then, when the pressure wasn’t on, things stopped happening or backslid.

I don’t know in what world you expect to say “police be better pls thank you” and it suddenly happens. Who is supposed to be setting up the system for you, so that they will be better, if not you and me?