First, this was great! Thank you! And, honestly, as a white guy who has always been generally supportive of this issue, since long before BLM, thanks for not lumping all of us together.

Having said that — this is partially a policy and training issue, and from reading on it, there are several concrete reforms that have been effective and that, if people really want to help, they can try to get their local police forces to adopt.

1. Putting police body cameras on officers. Here’s an organization that does good work with it, and can give basic information. In addition, there’s evidence that refutes the idea that it leads to “defensive policing.” In fact, in a study, they found that police were more likely to be pro-active in following hunches because they could record the suspicious activity and have that as backup.

http://www.bpcat.org/#new-page-2

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/04/police_body_cameras_cops_commit_less_violence_and_complaints_are_real.html

2) De-escalation techniques. I don’t know as much about this, but, basically, many officers are undertrained in de-escalation techniques that would have a significant impact in situations like this.

3) Arrest quotas. In many departments, police have arrest quotas, which is how their effectiveness is determined. This incentivizes them to arrest people for petty crimes, rather than incentivizing crime prevention. It’s an issue discussed in this interview with a former Baltimore cop.

4) Focus on crime-prevention and community policing.

5) Unconscious bias training — to be honest, I don’t know much about this, or it’s effectiveness, so I won’t vouch for it. But, it’s one of the ideas that many people have to deal with this issue.

And — just for the record, I’m in no way against cops. They have a difficult job and most work hard and put themselves in danger every day.