"And the last voice I hear on Earth, is my mama's cry..."

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/sandra-bland-jail-deaths/
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"The jail in Brazos County, Texas, which has around 650 inmates, has had only one completed suicide in the past 10 years, according to Kit Wright, a sergeant and nurse at the county sheriff's office. The county makes an effort to keep people with mental health issues out of jail: Last year, crisis intervention officers diverted 214 people to mental health facilities instead of charging them with a crime. And the jail employs another noteworthy tactic. After being screened by an officer, inmates go through a separate interview with a nurse. In this second conversation, inmates tend to be more open about things like drug use and mental health history. People will 'answer one way to someone in uniform, and different to someone in scrubs,' Wright said."
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The above except is from the Huffington Post article linked above and below.  The writers' research revealed that, for the time period of the one year since Sandra Bland's death in jail, there have been 811 deaths in U.S. jails; this is just jails and does not include prisons. They also note, "By way of comparison, 178 unarmed people were killed by police during the same period, according to The Guardian."
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Both numbers are abhorrent to me.  They indicate that the often stated purpose of police, i.e. to serve and protect or to protect and serve, is not top priority, not even close.  If it were, we would "arm" police with glorious training (facilitation, deescalation, youth engagement, mediation, non-harmful restraint, listening, organizing, etc.), daily education sessions, mentorship from community elders, books on their institution's history, and therapy...not weaponry.
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Otherwise, who are they capable of serving and protecting?  Certainly not Sandra Bland and the 810 others who died in jail this past year.  Certainly not the hundreds of people killed out in the world by police this past year.
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If you still aren't at least wondering whether we need to demand, at minimum, broad and deep reform of our policing systems in this country, then please answer me this: How can "innocent until proven guilty" be true if we are not *absolutely certain* (through civilian oversight, meaningful police training, and systems of genuine police accountability) that those we are (en)trusting with knowing our rules and laws and monitoring that we are abiding by them are doing *just that* and not also taking it upon themselves to pronounce guilt (or, often in the case of white people, innocence) without due process?  Isn't part of their service to protect those of us they have accused of disobeying a rule/law, especially when we are in their direct care?
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http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/sandra-bland-jail-deaths/