This is well worth reading, and pretty much the model for what anyone could realistically hope for from a police chief at this point. To my ear she puts too much emph on LEOs (I could say ‘cops’ if you like), but it’s an interview with Police Executive Research Forum, I think, so that’s to be expected. Assuming she could speak as effectively to the communities (plural, right?), the question is what she’d say and how. I don’t sympathize or agree with ‘extremist’ protestors, who in my experience tend to be a toxic lot; but I get the structural necessity for their role, which means that arresting some creates a space for more to fill. So, in my view, the challenge for PD and civic leaders is to minimize their influence. One way to do that is, basically, to internalize their commitment — not to burning sh*t down but to driving real change. That’d be a tall order in any case, but at a a time when there are serious tensions between PDs and civic leaders, it’s especially hard. Police shouldn’t be a ‘side’ in discussions about how the country can make things better, but (a) they are, and (b) their perspective really is important. You can agree or disagree with how they see things, but you can’t deny they have relevant experience. So, concretely, I think one solution is to begin a sort of ‘peace talk’ process; there are lots of models for this because, on a structural level, it’s a bit like the kind of three-way discussion one finds in guerrilla conflicts — often a weak state, an irregular military force, and a foreign hegemon. That’s not a 1:1 mapping, but the idea is for talks between PD officials, civic officials, and community reps. Three-way is key, to avoid merely transplanting conflict and to allow each side to build practical ties. More generally, if processes like that showed promise, they could serve both as a model and as building blocks for what the US will need post-Trump: something along the lines of a truth-and-reconciliation or lustration process. Better sooner than later.