I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of police in the riot on Wednesday and ACAB and what we do with the good cops who were on the right side.

Part of the reason we’ve been arguing for “abolish the police” is by and large because the police have power that corrupts, and as an institution, it’s broken. Time and again, we’ve been shown that good cops get turned into bad cops by the culture of the job.

We also know for a fact that there were a NUMBER of off duty police within that white nationalist crowd, using their power as off duty cops to run roughshod over their alleged brothers in arms who were trying to protect the capitol.

But the fact of the matter is that the Capitol Police were overwhelmed, and were prevented from doing the one job they needed to do - which was protect both the symbol of government that is our capitol building, and the lawmakers and their staff inside.

Within that circumstances, we have some cops who were legitimately heroes. Eugene Goodman, a black man, faced down a white nationalist mob who wanted nothing more than to hurt him and he guided them away from the Senate floor - preventing a massacre.

I think we can praise the good work of Eugene Goodman and mourn the death of Brian Sicknick without giving ground on the idea that policing as an institution is corrupt. And I think we also need to see the Capitol Police possibly as an example of the reimagined role of police.

The Capitol Police by and large have one job: preventing the loss of life of lawmakers and protecting the Capitol Building. They are not sent out into the community to respond to mental health crises and are not a social worker, a first responder, a therapist, etc all in one.

Now, we KNOW from videos and the like that even within the restrained roles of the Capitol Police, there are problems. We saw some of them let the gates down on Wednesday. So we know that even if we reformed the police to only this one role, we will still have culture issues.

By and large though, Wednesday showed us what actual restraint and careful policing can look like - even if it was only a glimpse with a couple of members.

But until we can root out white supremacy and transform how we examine public safety, the example of Eugene Goodman will likely remain the exception, and not the rule.