Would this help reduce police violence/brutality?
Police violence and police brutality have been... topics of considerable public scrutiny, and justifiably so, especially recently. The reasons for police violence and brutality are multiple and complex, but I had a thought that might reduce the incidence, or at least scope, of these problems, and I'd like to know your opinions.
One reason for the increased incidences of, eg, innocent people being shot in the course of a search or whatever is that, increasingly, police have military-style weapons and equipment, because of the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror". There are reasonable debates to be had about whether police should even have this kind of equipment, but I'm willing to accept for the sake of argument that they do legitimately need at least some access to it in some situations. The problem is the temptation to use it just because you have it. If you have a shiny new hammer, a lot of things start to look like nails.
It occurs to me that we may be able to use interdepartment rivalry to reduce the temptation to over-use this equipment, while still having it available if and when it is genuinely needed. The idea, basically, is this: don't issue that equipment to local police forces, only issue it to a *state-level* police organization, which the local police can call in as needed. That would add an extra layer of "Do we really want to call in *those guys*?", which might prevent overuse.
Thoughts?