"Community policing" isn't a magic solution for the problems of murderous police

Aviva Shen writes about the favorite Democratic policing model/slogan, community policing, in “Most Cops Are Good” Slate 08/25-26/2020. She notes that it has distinct limits, particularly when it comes to reducing murders committed by police. She writes:

Central to Biden’s plan is the concept of community policing—the idea that putting more officers on foot patrol in heavily policed communities will help build trust on both sides. ...

Community policing is the opposite philosophy of defunding the police; it floods Black and brown neighborhoods with police officers. In its best iteration, which focuses on building relationships, it expands the role of police officers to encompass social work, mental health treatment, and other jobs that defund advocates argue should be handled by specially trained, unarmed professionals.

It wouldn’t necessarily hurt to make the police forces that shot Blake and Pellerin sit through more hours of training to help officers learn that unleashing a hail of bullets on people walking away from them is inappropriate. But even if you believe training and policy reforms can fix abuse, adding more police in the name of community policing would just mean even more officers would need to be retrained and reformed. [my emphasis]

Having cops out walking a beat might make some white folks feel better. Especially if they are only walking the beat in black and brown neighborhoods.

But I'm not convinced it's a particularly effective or desirable approach to patrolling. As Shen suggests, it even contributes to mission-creep, like getting cops more involved in minor incidents, e.g., the argument that preceded the attempted murder of Jacob Blake in Kenosha.

 As long as police are operating on the notion that "it's better to be judged by twelve than be carried out by six" (don't take even the most minimal chances before you start shooting), no amount of sensitivity training or dropping by the local donut shop will do any good at fixing the most serious problems.

She noes in particular of two cities that have been in the news for abusive, murderous police misconduct::

As it happens, both Kenosha [WI] and Lafayette [LA] have already embraced community policing and been paid well for it. Kenosha received a $100,000 grant from the Justice Department to institute community policing in 2018 and, after George Floyd was killed, pledged to increase de-escalation training and build stronger relationships with the community. In 2017, Lafayette received $1.2 million from the DOJ to spend on community policing after creating a new community relations committee.