DEFUND/REPLACE/FUND:

In a nearly 100-page report obtained by GQ, Mayor Svante Myrick will propose replacing the city's current 63-officer, $12.5 million a year department with a "Department of Community Solutions and Public Safety" which would include armed "public safety workers" and unarmed "community solution workers," all of whom will report to a civilian director of public safety instead of a police chief. Under the proposal, all current officers would have to re-apply for a position with the new department.

"IPD currently spends one third of its time responding to calls for service that essentially never lead to arrests," Myrick writes in the report's introduction. "Those calls, as well as a majority of patrol activity, can and should be handled by unarmed Community Solution Workers well trained in de-escalation and service delivery. This will allow our new Public Safety Workers to focus on preventing, interrupting and solving serious crime."

If the proposal is approved, calls for service will be evaluated to determine whether an armed or unarmed respondent is necessary, or another public agency altogether would be best to respond. Mental health calls would be outsourced to a standalone unit of social workers based on the CAHOOTS program pioneered in Eugene, Oregon. The goal, ultimately, is to have far fewer encounters between citizens and armed government agents.

"Everyone wants the police to perform better when they show up, everybody wants that. What this plan is saying is that we also want the police to show up less--and that's a radical thing for a city and a mayor to do." Myrick, 33, told me in an interview Sunday. While it may have been possible to push for similar reforms within the current department, Myrick said the entrenched culture would make them impossible to fully implement. In recent years, the city has battled with the police union over discipline for problem officers, including one officer who was caught on body camera bragging about dragging a handcuffed suspect down a set of stairs and another who was found to have inadequately investigated hundreds of crimes assigned to her over the course of a decade.

"This is my 10th year overseeing this department. And at times I feel like I'm managing a fish tank that somebody dumped a bunch of red dye in," he said. "When that happens, you have to scoop a gallon of water out, and put fresh water in, and the tank becomes a little less red with each gallon. This is a way of starting over with a fresh tank."

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