Pirate's Cove

They just don’t fully seem to get that most citizens may not like the police when they get pulled over, almost always for something that was their own fault, but, like the notion of being able to call the police when something bad happens to them. They do not want fewer police, and do not want police who are reticent to enforce the law

How ‘Defund the Police’ Failed

More than three years after the murder of George Floyd focused the nation’s attention on racism in law enforcement, Minneapolis’ 3rd Precinct police station, which was set ablaze and looted during the tumultuous days after Floyd’s death, remains abandoned.

Once the city’s most modern police station, the building is now boarded up, tagged with graffiti and ringed with concertina wire — an unintentional monument to the national debate over public safety that led Minneapolis officials to consider disbanding the Police Department.

But three years after “defund the police” became a rallying cry across the nation, efforts to dramatically divert resources from police or do away with conventional policing entirely have largely been abandoned, too, in Minneapolis and beyond.

The movement faltered in Minneapolis after activists failed to build broad support for a goal that lacked a clear definition, and an actionable plan. As crime surged during the early years of the coronavirus pandemic and officers left the police force in droves, Republicans seized on the debate to paint Democrats as being recklessly soft on crime.

Seized! I’m thinking lots of average Democrats wanted nothing to do with defunding the police. Especially in their own neighborhoods. Including many Democratic Party politicians/Elites who called for defunding the police then demanded police protection in their own areas, or hired private security.

The movement to abolish conventional police departments predates the murder of Floyd. In the years before his death, a Minneapolis group called MPD150 had been building grassroots support for a “police-free future” — a vision that contemplated a phased end to conventional policing by making dramatic investments in housing and social services.

How was that working out? Seriously, we saw this put into place in many Democratic areas, where cops quit in droves, and those left tend to ignore lots of low level crimes.

Its first move was to corner Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis outside his home in June 2020, and demand that he commit to abolishing the Police Department. As cameras rolled, one of the movement’s leaders made clear that they were seeking the outright disbandment of the Police Department, not a reallocation of resources.

“We don’t want no more police,” she said. “We don’t want people with guns toting around in our community.”

Except for all the thugs, hoodlums, and gangbangers wandering around with illegal firearms.

As police ranks thinned out, violent crime soared. Gang violence, once a modest problem in Minneapolis, became such a challenge that federal prosecutors charged 45 people suspected of being gang members in a pair of racketeering indictments in May, a first in the city.

Many residents have given up on the local public transportation system, where some stations increasingly have become gathering points for people who openly smoke fentanyl and other drugs. The number of car thefts and carjackings skyrocketed. As of early June, more than 4,100 vehicles had been stolen in the city this year, nearly twice as many as during the same period last year.

No one could have possibly seen that coming, right? Ironically the correct solution is to properly fund the police allowing them to fire bad officers and hire good ones. To hold them accountable, and, quite frankly, not allow the public unions to stand in the way, protecting bad officers. Allowing them to hire mental health professionals and do more training. Allowing them to do more proactive policing instead of reactive. The places that want to disband the police tend to have the highest crime rates. Violent crime, shootings, drugs, prostitution, and assaults are all considerably higher than in neighborhoods that don’t think about it or talk about it. Did they think crime would magically disappear without the police in those neighborhoods?

You can bet that all the people working for the NY Times, especially the high end suits, are happy to have police around. But, now, so many areas in Dem run cities are dealing with the idiotic push, even the ones where they’re backtracking.