“Time for the real thing, Bill. All you gotta do is pull the trigger. Then you gotta claim to have turned off your body cam by mistake. You see, reforms to police practice are not enough. If they really want to protect the public from us, they’ll have to meaningfully divest from state-sponsored violence and instead invest in life-affirming community services.”
“You’d have made a pretty good cowboy yourself, Hans. Unfortunately, our society has moved past the simplistic, dichotomous trope of the rugged, renegade officer versus the heartless bad guy and is now more interested in charting a path towards true racial and economic justice.”
“I promise I will never even think about going up in a tall building again. That shouldn’t be part of my job. I also shouldn’t be responding to mental health crises, executing warrantless searches of young men of color, or arresting people for drug possession.”
“I didn’t realize they celebrated Christmas in Japan. I also didn’t realize cops there kill fewer people per year than are killed per day in the United States. We should try and learn something from them…”
“Nine million terrorists in the world, and I gotta kill one with smaller feet than my sister. And that’s made way easier due to the outrageous militarization of our police departments, damn!”
“We're gonna need some more FBI guys, I guess, once we diminish the power of local law enforcement? Or, maybe we can reimagine public safety from the top down and cut back generally on the surveillance and brutalization of our citizenry?”
“Do you know what you get for being a “hero”? Nothin’. So you might as well find a job that doesn’t involve terrorizing low-income communities and tear-gassing peaceful protestors.”
“Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs, and then have a serious discussion about why some of the worst incidents of police murder have occurred in supposedly progressive cities under Democratic administrations.”
“All things being equal, I’d rather be in Philadelphia, marching with thousands against police brutality and affirming that Black Lives Matter.”
“You know, I’m often asked these days what I think about the pervasive, media-sponsored valorization of the police and concurrent demonization of anyone who has had contact with our criminal legal system. They ask me, John, how can we make this right? Do we have to tear down the whole system? And I tell them: YIPPEE-KI-YAY, MOTHERFUCKER!”