At Last, Something Approximating A Plan In Portland

I recently despaired at the problem of Black Lives Matters offering no policy directions to improve policing and diminish police abuse of blacks. It therefore came as welcome news when I found out about Reimagine Oregon's surprisingly meaty list of policy demands, particularly their section on police divestments. A great deal of this has already been accomplished in some form or another (banning the use of chokeholds, mandated duty to report/intervene in cases of violence, making officer disciplinary records visible to the public) with many other particulars still on the table. Some correspond to reforms I have already proposed, but many strike me as commonsense beyond those:

• Prevent contract arbitration from limiting disciplinary action.
• Demilitarize the police, including ending (a) tear gas use, (b) sound cannons, and (c) flashbang grenades. (a) will be extremely difficult to implement (crowd control is still a legitimate function of government), but the other two ((b) especially) are so overused as to be serious problems.
• Decriminalize public transportation fare evasion.
• Prohibit public transportation fare evasion as justification for search warrants.
• Remove sworn and armed officers from public university campuses. This is probably unlikely to happen, and in any case, how much of a problem does this realistically present? University campuses are hardly a hotbed of crime to begin with.
• Ban the receipt of militarized equipment (1033 transfers). This is well overdue.
• Reconsider personnel public records requests. Police disciplinary records need to be public. Despite a nearly 60-year-old Supreme Court case, Brady v. Maryland, that has frequently been read to imply that police disciplinary records germane to court proceedings must be made available to the defense, it is frequently flouted in practice.
• Consider the laws that allow expunction [expungement] without costs for people with no convictions in a certain number of years.
• End 48 hour rule that delays police officer questioning after a charge of excessive force is raised.
• Eliminate qualified immunity, duh.

There are other items aimed at the county and municipal levels, but this strikes me as a fine first crack at achievable line-items. The biggest single item missing, and the hardest one to implement, is ending police unions. The question in my mind is whether the Portland protesters have anything whatsoever to do with this group.