Bruce Covert, a contributor at the uber-far left The Nation and the NY Times, yammers about defunding the police, and has apparently never heard the phrase “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it all”
How to Make Defunding the Police a Reality
On a Sunday in early June, Grand Army Plaza, a large square at the entrance to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, swarmed with people of all different races and ages. A family march of parents and their children flowed into groups of young people on bikes. Many held signs declaring “Black lives matter,†but there were perhaps an equal number of other signs: “Defund the police.â€
It’s a radical demand that just a few weeks ago was rarely heard on the streets of New York City or in many other cities, for that matter. But since George Floyd, a black resident of Minneapolis, was killed by a white police officer and Breonna Taylor, a black emergency room technician, was killed by police in Louisville, Ky., in her sleep and outrage over these and countless other instances of police brutality pushed tens of thousands of people to protest in cities and towns across the country, it has become a rallying cry of the movement.
It’s not just a slogan. Out of the protest movement has come a surge of organizing to push city councils to shift money out of bloated police budgets and into starved social services—and activists are already seeing some concrete successes. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti walked back a proposed increase for the LAPD and has promised a $150 million cut instead. Lawmakers in 15 other cities have made similar pledges. The Minneapolis City Council has even voted to disband the city’s police department.
This is a very long article, which never really explains what cities without police look like, or just ones with a massive reduction in police.
It’s an unprecedented moment. Spending on the police by state and local governments jumped from about $2 billion in 1960 to $137 billion in 2018, unadjusted for inflation; the average share of city budgets spent on policing grew from 6.6 percent in 1977 to 7.8 percent in 2017. “We have had a persistent trend for the last half-century of spending ever more money on police and incarceration,†said Kelly Lytle Hernandez, a history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “This is a truly historic shift.†Organizers agree. “Something like ‘defund the police’ just two weeks ago…was a nonstarter,†said Nicolas O’Rourke, the Pennsylvania organizing director for the Working Families Party. Now it’s a chant heard nearly as often at protests as “No justice, no peace.â€
Well, consider that costs of running the police have gone up. The cost of police cars, weapons, technology, etc, have gone up. They didn’t have computers and such in cars back in 1960, right? Dash cams? Body cams? Most wear body armor for simple duty? But, hey, what does it look like with fewer cops? In the post on D&D earlier today, we saw the increase in crime and shooting in NYC.
(Fox News) Seattle residents said Sunday that despite rumors that the city was going to reclaim the “occupied†area known as CHOP, little has changed on the ground and the “security†at the protest zone has actually gotten more “contentiousâ€Â with residents who live nearby.
“They won’t let people in the neighborhood sometimes at night,†Matthew Ploszaj, who lives there, told KOMO News. He told the station that he supports the Black Lives Matter movement, but said it is a “terrible precedent†that “any political message can come in and occupy a neighborhood.†(snip)
Michael Solan, Seattle Police Officers Guild president, told Fox News on Saturday that business owners and residents there are effectively being held hostage.
“There were some city entities, as far as heads, that went into the area yesterday to try to remove some of the boundary areas – as far as blockades — and they were met with resistance. Armed people flocked into the area and prevented those city entities, those agencies to get the job done,” he told “Cavuto LIVE.†“So no, this has not been solved. It’s deeply troubling still.”
This little area is looking like a warlord area in a 3rd world nation. Crime ridden, people running around with guns and threatening people, really, just what you’d expect. And, let’s not forget that the Minneapolis city council has voted to fully defund their police force, yet, hired their own private security.
Here’s an idea: let’s defund it in Minneapolis and give it 5 years to see what happens. First, though, there needs to be a vote by all citizens. Those who vote for defunding will not be allowed to leave the city for those 5 years. They have to live in accordance with their votes. They have to deal with the consequences and fallout. Sure, no one will be killed by an LEO. And crime will reign supreme. Let Minneapolis be the experimental group, and see what happens.
Read: The Nation Explains How To Make Defunding The Police A Reality »