Can you believe there are sixty (60) separate police departments in the County of St Louis? Perhaps a little consolidation might standardize administration and certainly would reduce overhead costs that could be used for more and better trained Policemen. Of course to do that would involve fights with the entrenched bureaucrats and the Unions.
Just the opposite. Where ever a police department covers a large area or several entities, the law abiding locations suffer. If Ferguson has a problem with its police department, they should deal with their problem. If they don't have enough black police, why not? They should be recruiting from inside the community. Just don't take police protection from law abiding communities to babysit them while their thugs rob stores, assault people half their size, resist police and then make a global issue out of not wanting law enforcement.
Larger government further away from the population NEVER works to the benefit of the citizenry.
The disincorporation happened years ago and some people are actually fond of their police departments and don’t buy into the notion that monolithic police departments are the answer.
There is a movement afoot for the consolidation of all goverment functions via Better Together St. Louis. Most areas other than St. Louis City are against it because of bureaucracy and in affluent West County it will never happen. You might see some consolidation amongst the North county police departments after this incident.
FWIW, the average police officer coming out of the academy these days has over a thousand hours of training.
Also, unlike the East Coast, police unions are very weak here and hold no real sway. Most police officers belong to the Fraternal Order of Police who provide legal assistance if involved in incidents like Michael Brown but generally steer clear of labor issues like traditional unions do.
There was some attempts at unionizing by local labor unions, it fizzled.