Former Detroit, Michigan police chief and Republican gubernatorial candidate James Craig, speaking on Fox News on Monday, denounced progressive public officials who retain security professionals while bashing police and firearm owners.
Craig expressed his reprehension in response to reports of campaign-finance documents showing Representative Cori Bush (D-MO-1) has spent $70,000 on private security professionals.
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Monday, former Virginia governor and current gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, accepted an endorsement from National Abortion and Reproduction Rights Action League Virginia (NARAL).
“I’m proud to be endorsed by [NARAL Virginia],” he said. “With a right-wing Supreme Court ready to hack away at the right to choose and Glenn Youngkin promising to ban abortion, reproductive freedom is at stake in this race. I’ll always fight to protect the right to choose.”
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Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley spoke in a Glenn Youngkin rally Tuesday. Over a hundred supporters and volunteers packed into a too-small, overheated room at Youngkin’s Richmond base. Haley, who also served as South Carolina governor, explained why she was supporting Youngkin.
She said she spoke with Youngkin before he decided to run.
Haley said, “He told me, ‘Well you know I’ve never held a political position before.’ And I said, ‘That’s what’s going to make you good.'”
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by Ailan Evans As rates of violent crime continue to rise across the country and once-safe neighborhoods face increased dangers, many liberal communities are having to confront their complicated relationship with the police. Following the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, the defund the police movement attracted attention and support among liberals, earning endorsements from celebrities and lawmakers alike. Roughly 50% of Democrats supported defunding the police in June 2020, according to a June 2020 poll from FiveThirtyEight. The movement, defined by Brookings Institute Fellow Rashawn Ray as support for “reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality,” arose in response to systemic police brutality and racism. The movement achieved some success, with over 20 cities cutting or diverting police department budgets, The Guardian reported. However, as police departments endured budget cuts, crime has skyrocketed. Faced with increasing violence in their communities, some residents of liberal cities have begun looking to the police for help. Liberal Communities Fear For Their Safety The Greenwich Village neighborhood around Washington Square Park in New York City has a strong liberal base, with around 90% of voters selecting President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, according to data from The New York Times. Last week, residents…
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An Atlanta City Council member who tried to defund the police of millions of dollars last year called 911 Wednesday to report that four people stole his 2016 Mercedes. That man, Antonio Brown, told a 911 dispatcher the car thieves consisted of four children.
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Over 200 police officers have left, are in the process of leaving, or are on extended leave from the Minneapolis Police Department.
Several police officers explained it is due to lack of support and the feeling that they had to defend themselves throughout the course of the riots that plagued the city last summer, according to a report from WCCO in Minneapolis.
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They mayor of Minneapolis, who himself has bashed police in order to placate the Black Lives Matter mob, now says that calls to “defund the police” have led to a spike in crime in the city.
“The violence needs to stop, it’s unacceptable. People deserve to feel safe in their neighborhood, they deserve to be able to send their kids out to the sidewalk to play and to recreate without bullets flying by. That’s unacceptable. We should be holding these perpetrators accountable,” Mayor Jacob Frey (D) said.
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Multiple police departments told the Daily Caller News Foundation that recruiting officers is not an issue, but budget constraints have limited their ability to increase manpower.
Almost a year after George Floyd died during an arrest where former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes resulting in nationwide civil unrest and the defund the police movement, most police departments say they still have a sufficient number of candidates but lack the funding to recruit them.
“The Minneapolis Police Department, like every department, has seen a drop in application numbers over the last several years,” Minneapolis Police Department Spokesperson John Elder told the DCNF. “Whereas we have seen a reduction in applications, we still have ample qualified candidates who wish to be Minneapolis Police Officers and Cadets [and the department’s] recruitment efforts are ongoing.”
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp this week signed House Bill 286, which prohibits local governments in Georgia from defunding the police. Georgia State Rep. Houston Gaines (R-Athens) sponsored the legislation.
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Following the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, students and faculty at Hamilton College received an email denoting some of them as white supremacists and calling for the admissions office to better block such students from enrolling in the future.
It was part of a larger push to grow a “defund the police” effort at the private, New York college.
The email came from leadership at the school’s Student Assembly and was signed by President Saphire Ruiz as well as Fall Vice President Eric Stenzel and Spring Vice President Christian Hernandez Barragan.
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Nearly a year after the death of George Floyd, prompting calls from activists and Democrat leaders to defund the police, residents of Minneapolis are complaining that police won’t respond to their calls.
“George Floyd Square has been a place for mourning and healing for the thousands who pay a visit,” WCCO reported. “But for the people who live there, once night falls, they say it becomes a place where lawlessness abounds.”
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Six members of the Georgia House of Representatives have responded to the “Defund the Police” movement and filed a bill that would prohibit local governments in the state from cutting more than 5 percent of their police budgets. State Rep. Houston Gaines (R-Athens), the bill’s primary sponsor, said Tuesday that his legislation would, if enacted into law, exempt local governments that lose more than 5 percent of their budget revenues.
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The Minneapolis Police Department is in dire straights as it prepares for possible violence during the trial of one of its former officers.
“Minneapolis has about 200 fewer police officers available to work as the city tries to rebound from a violent year and prepare for more potential unrest,” The Star-Tribune reported. “In the short term, the city is seeking aid from other law enforcement agencies as it plans for the March trial for former Officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with killing George Floyd.”
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Minneapolis City Councilmember Phillipe Cunningham once claimed that “community engagement” is key to defunding the police. Now, Cunningham has canceled his “Community Office Hours” after facing backlash due to the council’s efforts to defund law enforcement.
Cunningham has served on the council since 2017, when he became the second female-to-male transgender person elected to public office in the U.S. Cunningham also took a key role in the push to amend the City Charter to defund the police in June, and presently heads up the continued action towards this goal.
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Certain Nashville activists will continue their “defund the police” rhetoric despite the bravery that law enforcement officers displayed before and after last week’s explosion downtown, said Nashville Fraternal Order of Police President James Smallwood. As reported, a massive Christmas Day explosion damaged at least 41 businesses on Second Avenue and collapsed one building. Nashville Mayor John Cooper praised six uniformed Metro Nashville Police officers who he said saved several lives after they determined that a parked RV in that area was about to detonate.
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The Minneapolis City Council voted to cut $8 million from the Police Department (MPD) in their 2021 budget. However, the Council also also added a caveat to allow for additional future police recruitment, likely dodging a veto from Mayor Jacob Frey.
In a 7-6 vote Wednesday night, the council’s decision doesn’t change the number of officers in 2021, but sets a higher target number for replacing officers who are currently out on leave for post-traumatic stress disorders or other reasons with the council’s authorization.
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Joe Biden reportedly doesn’t want civil rights leaders to discuss defunding the police until after the Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs have concluded. This, for fear that such rhetoric will scare off Georgia voters and prevent Democrats from controlling the U.S. Senate next year.
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The Minneapolis City Council has voted to divert millions of dollars from the 2021 police budget.
The vote was taken as carjackings are up 537% year-to-date, according to the Star Tribune.
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Democratic Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is set to sign a bill that would slash police funding amid a citywide crime spike.
Durkan’s signature would cut police training and overtime funds by 18% after the city council voted overwhelmingly in favor of the budget reductions, according to Fox News. Activists within local government unsuccessfully sought a 50% slash in law enforcement funding, but the council did approve the transfer of 911 dispatchers, parking officers and mental health workers out of the Seattle Police Department (SPD), Fox reported.
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The City of Richmond’s Task Force To Reimagine Public Safety released its final report on Monday, after three months of meetings. The task force issued several recommendations focused on using community resources more and law enforcement less. Those recommendations include a new 911 system to triage non-criminal calls away from law enforcement and reducing police funding to send more resources to other agencies. However, Mayor Levar Stoney is not implementing the policies exactly as recommended.
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Top players leading the movement to defund the police have declared their support for Democratic Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. The two candidates’ backers include Black Lives Matter, Working Families Party, Mijente, and Black to the Future.
These groups supporting Warnock and Ossoff claim that systemic racism exists, and that police are a major component of it. They advocate for limiting police interaction and diverting funding from police into other programs, such as mental health assistance.
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Representative Jim Hagedorn (R-MN-1) is the only Minnesotan leader to sign the Police Pledge, a promise to oppose any bills, resolutions, or movements to defund the police. No other leaders from the state have signed this pledge yet.
Hagedorn signed the pledge Thursday. He credits his decision to American government leadership excusing criminal behavior while blaming law enforcement.
Messages of Black Lives Matter and “Defund the Police” were spray painted on several tourist attractions in Tennessee on Monday night, including Graceland, the Elvis Presley estate, authorities said.
The graffiti phrases were found Tuesday morning outside Graceland, the Levitt Shell Amphitheater in Overton Park and the “I Heart Memphis” mural in midtown Memphis, news outlets reported.
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Virginia Democrats have been playing a bit of a cat-and-mouse game over defunding Virginia law enforcement professionals as punishment for standing up to the BLM/Antifa mobs that have destroyed places such as Downtown Richmond.
Looks like this Friday, the payback was delivered.
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The Democratic National Convention on Tuesday featured a panelist who identifies as a “nonbinary/gender transcendent mermaid Queen-King” and who called for the abolition of the police, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and prisons.
According to the panelist’s Wake Forest University bio, J Mai is a “Black-Vietnamese, transgender nonbinary/gender transcendent mermaid Queen-King,” who recently became a “licensed minister in the Progressive National Baptist Church.”
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A Cincinnati prosecutor pledged Monday to help police find and prosecute those responsible for a weekend wave of gun violence.
Cincinnati police said more than 20 people were shot, four fatally.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden has selected U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate and presumptive Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in the 2020 election as the Biden campaign goes all in on the defund the police issue.
In June Sen. Harris supported cutting $150 million from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) budget and taking the police force below 10,000 for the first time in more than a decade.
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The Minneapolis Charter Council on Wednesday blocked the controversial ballot proposal to disband the police.
In a 10-5 vote, the city’s Charter Council opted to take an extra 90 days to review the proposal. This means that voters will not have the opportunity to vote on the proposal in November. In an online meeting, the Charter Commission members complained that the new measure was vague, might run afoul of state law, and put the council in charge of the proposed department, according to Forbes.
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Citing financial woes The Minnesota Department of Corrections (MNDOC) will be closing two prisons.
Prisoners from the Togo and Willow River prisons will be transferred to other facilities and 100 employees will be laid off as a result of the move. These cuts come only a few weeks after 48 Department of Corrections Employees were let go in response to budget concerns resulting from the coronavirus.
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Police Departments across the country are in crisis as calls to defund the police, rioting, and the Covid Crisis threaten to sap existing resources.
A new study by the Police Executive Research Forum showed that almost half of the 258 departments surveyed are facing budget cuts. Portland City council approved a $15,000,000 dollar budget cut last month as the city struggled with riots. The Portland Police Department was forced to pay over $5,000,000 in overtime to deal with the unrest.
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The hue and cry for a police-less society is serious stuff. For some advocates, the term “defund the police” refers simply to making victimless crimes (drug use, etc.) the responsibility of social workers rather than police officers. But to others it means eliminating law enforcement entirely.
Is such a condition possible? Can a society function without any law enforcement agents?
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The group of protestors who have overtaken Nashville’s Legislative Plaza and demand that government officials defund the police alleged this week that one man there sexually assaulted two of them.
Left-wing activist Justin Jones posted Facebook videos this week in which he and other protestors said they escorted an unidentified man off the premises. Jones and others alleged that the man assaulted two women. Some protestors said they supported the idea of the victims filing police reports. The victims ultimately chose not to do that, according to Jones’ videos.
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A majority of Americans disagree with the call to defund the police and the proposed reallocation of funding, a national poll taken amid demonstrations for George Floyd found.
Almost two-thirds of Americans are against defunding law enforcement while 34% agree with the movement, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday. When asked about reducing the police budget to put resources toward other health and social programs, 60% of Americans opposed the idea while 39% supported it.
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Democrats proposed a far-reaching overhaul of police procedures and accountability Monday, a sweeping legislative response to the mass protests denouncing the deaths of black Americans in the hands of law enforcement.
The political outlook is deeply uncertain for the legislation in a polarized election year. President Donald Trump is staking out a tough “law and order” approach in the face of the outpouring of demonstrations and demands to re-imagine policing in America.
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