Police work is less dangerous than you think it is relative to other jobs, and encouraging cops' action movie fantasies to the contrary might have something to do with their itchy trigger fingers. Besides which, the article itself says they're not going without law enforcement, just that they're replacing the police department with a ' “community-led” public safety program'. Most likely they're overstating a reform that's going to move their policing more in line with saner countries in the hopes that protesters will think they've gotten a bigger concession than they have and be satisfied.
Yep, you’re right. My spicy discussion with this guy was about the core function of public safety in a state-sponsored capacity, as in whether it should even exist. I implicitly included community-led alternatives in my first comment, I guess I should state that overtly. The Hollywood point is really important. The reason I used those examples and the follow-on language (the dinner, etc.) was to emphasize just how dramatic the role of law enforcement has been/could be historically and presently, in a salient way that he could understand and relate to, so calling movies to mind helps get the message across. I’m aware that more people lose a leg on an oil rig than in Blues, but that’s not really the point here just to be clear.