Two years ago, we heard the chattering liberal hoards clamoring to abolish or defund the police and pledging their fealty to Black Lives Matter. Since then, the leaders of BLM have been preoccupied with trying to explain where all those donations went and in justifying their acquisitions of pricey real estate. The same liberals are now saying they never really supported “defunding” and are offering lame and unconvincing explanations for what they “really meant”—sort of like how someone caught making a racial slur will explain that they were “just kidding.”
Following the murder of George Floyd, liberal politicians were eager to harness the outrage of the activists and quickly jumped on the bandwagon. In June of 2020, the Minneapolis City Council pledged to defund and dismantle their police department, the Portland City Council cut $27 million from the budget of its police department, and other jurisdictions joined in.
A beatific vision was presented of replacing all those awful cops with crack teams of achingly sensitive social workers, who would deftly de-escalate armed and violent individuals and offer a plethora of pricey programs. Some jurisdictions announced an intention to stop enforcing certain laws or to use civilian workers to enforce things like traffic laws.
How’d all that work out?
Not surprisingly, it hasn’t worked out so well. In Minneapolis, 2021 saw the highest number of murders in 20 years, double the number reported in 2019. Portland is headed for its highest murder rate in 25 years and continues to be wracked by occasional Antifa violence. Perennial champion Chicago continues to dazzle with 797 murders in 2021, beating its 2020 total of 775, and far eclipsing its 2019 total of 519. Philadelphia is impressive with 562 murders for 2021, up from 228 in 2020, and a miserly 180 in 2019.
Other violent crimes have also risen, and some cities no longer even bother to respond to things like auto burglaries and assaults. Citizens are frightened as they realize what a society without police would be like, and gun sales have skyrocketed as people realize that they may be forced to defend themselves. Most “defund” or “abolish” cities have now reversed themselves.
Still, crime is likely to get worse.
Many city police departments are already understaffed, and are hemorrhaging police officers to early retirement or to more supportive cities. Most departments are finding it impossible to find enough qualified applicants to replace them. Who would want to work in a job where your boss will be quick to scapegoat you and throw you to the leftist mob? A relentless media depiction of cops as murderous racists, who are presumed to be in the wrong in any incident, has made the typical response of anyone asked if they would consider being a cop, to be, “Are you out of your freakin’ mind?”
As the cop in the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson discovered, even being absolved of blame by the Obama Justice Department is not enough to convince those who condemn you as a murderer.
The skills to be a cop are already daunting, requiring not only the physicality to subdue criminals, but the temperament to work in a potentially deadly environment and to routinely endure verbal abuse. It requires the intelligence to learn a rapidly growing set of laws and procedures, which are conceived in the orderly environment of the committee room, but must be applied in the chaos of the street. Only a small segment of society has these abilities. As qualified applicants are scared off by the political climate, the only applicants remaining will be those who enjoy violence and dominating people, hardly the sort of cops we want. But, since we will always need cops, who else can we use?
With the outcome of this anti-cop tantrum being so predictable, we really have to wonder about the judgment and character of those politicians who thought that “defund” was a good idea. If a politician easily gets swept up in whatever brainfart momentarily catches the media’s attention and instinctively panders to it, can they be trusted when the next brainfart comes along? Revising or qualifying one’s position after the disaster, and after the voters have expressed their disapproval, is hardly the responsible leadership we need.
We need thoughtful, pragmatic leaders, not opportunistic political “weather vanes,” nor the emotionally incontinent. When you vote, consider the candidate’s history and whether they have supported dumb, predictably disastrous fads like “defund.” If they are elected, you will be stuck with the results. Δ
John Donegan is a retired attorney in Pismo Beach who can say “I told you so.” Respond with a commentary or letter to the editor by emailing it to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 20-30, 2022.
Mr. Donegan fails to mention that the worst homicide rates in the nation are in Republican led states where supposedly they didn’t clamor for defunding the police. In fact, the top eight states for murder rates are all deep red and 20 out of the top 25 have Republican governors.
Democrats in the House of Representatives, being thoughtful and pragmatic, have noticed this problem and recently passed the Invest to Protect Act which will provide $60 million a year to local law enforcement.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/…
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/us/poli…
Blue cities in red states.
John. You truly are a special man. Completely confident in such a beautifully warped, naive understanding of things.
Nobody was actually defunded, John. The defunding never happened. In fact, most departments were reverse defunded. They were more funded. They got more funds. You precious, singular, master of nuance.
“Blue cities in red states.” There really is no reality that John will contort his way out of. How about Sacramento, John? A red city in a blue state. Higher crime rate than San Francisco. Tell me why that’s not real because it doesn’t fit your narrative. Please. I need to know your truth.
“Political amnesia” is a fascinating condition to observe, as those who loudly demanded “defunding” now claim they did nothing of the sort. Maybe it is a generation of kids suffering from ADD, who don’t recall what had consumed their attention a couple of years ago, at least until they moved on to their next big, new thing, and have forgotten all those signs, chants, editorials and opinion pieces, florid letters to the editor, and so forth. But hopefully it is because they are now capable of the due shame and embarrassment for having jumped on board such a stupid bandwagon.
The point of my column was that most cities have now reconsidered the “defund” brainfart, but are suffering the effects of their little self-indulgent fit. My admonition was to be wary of the leaders and opinion-makers who promoted it, and who now treat the idea like a sticky booger that they are futility trying to flick away.
FYI: I lived in Sacramento, a city largely composed of those who feed at the public trough of state government, and can assure you that it is indeed a very blue city, in a very blue state..
John, this makes no sense. You’ve provided no specific examples of this “political amnesia.” The thing you think happened, didn’t in fact happen, and now we must rethink doing the thing that was never done? Go for a walk. Find a hobby.
“The point of my column was that most cities have now reconsidered the “defund” brainfart, but are suffering the effects of their little self-indulgent fit. My admonition was to be wary of the leaders and opinion-makers who promoted it, and who now treat the idea like a sticky booger that they are futility trying to flick away.”
Incredibly pathetic that you have to explain what you meant after your column was already published. Don’t you have some grandkids to play with or a dog to walk?
@neighorhood: The mayors of SF, LA and Oakland all supported defunding,before the idea fell flatwith their residemts,and they reconsidered. Pretending it never happened won’t change that. Take one of those supplements which improves memory.
@Michael: I repeated what I said because the commenter apparently missed it the first time. You liberals really should do something about your limited attention spans.
John. Johnathon. The defunding didn’t happen. You cited Chicago. Chicago increased their police budget. $280M of their COVID relief funds went straight to the police. What are you talking about man?
In October 2020, Chicago Mayor Lightfoot proposed a $80 million reduction of the police budget. In San Francisco, mayor Breed at a 3/17/21 press conference proposed a $120 million reduction, to instead be used to fund programs for the black and brown community. In July 2020,Los Angeles mayor Garcetti proposed to cut $150 million from the police budget. During the summer of 2021 in Oakland, the City Council voted to “redirect” money from the policy budget to social programs.
As I said, these brainfarts were later reconsidered due to the uproar from city residents.
So your whole premise here is that crime increased because people proposed budget cuts, did not implement those budget cuts, and in fact decided to give the police more money? You signed your name to this whole theory? To own the libs, somehow? Brilliant work. A truly great mind.
Citing “Chicago!” is always a tell. The most recent statistics indicate that Chicago has the 28th highest rate of homicide among American cities, behind cities like Peoria, Memphis, Baton Rouge, Miami Gardens–so why do conservatives like Mr Donegan always point at Chicago? Easy… It goes back to when Barack Obama was President, and among the ways to denigrate Obama was to cry about Chicago and its crime rate, suggesting that this is what Obama would bring to the rest of America. And it continues to this day, because it’s become a fetish for Fox News, the GOP and its acolytes, who want to say “CHICAGO!” and have the squirmy MAGA base think “oooohhh….scary Black people!” because it’s always about fear, it’s always about race, and it’s never about facts. To refer to St. Louis (the actual leader in homicide rate) instead of Chicago just doesn’t carry that resonance, does it, John?
I mentioned Chicago because it has the highest absolute murders in the nation, which is reality even if you find it embarrassing and ideologically inconvenient. Of course, your cry of “racism!” is telling, as that seems to be the “go to” response of you lefties to everything you can’t rebut with facts or coherent argument. Sort of like a kid calling their nemesis a “big doo doo head”. Chicago is in a self-inflicted death spiral as it double downs on fashionable liberal “solutions” which only aggravate their suffering.
“facts or coherent argument”
I thought I made my argument quite clear and my facts were accurate. While Chicago certainly has its problems, so does the rest of the U.S., particularly states run by Republicans.
Now, you can certainly argue that some of the cities in red states with high crime rates have Democratic leadership, you ignore the bottom line issues of poverty and lack of opportunity, which is a direct consequence of Republican leadership at the state level.
In fact, 9 of the top 10 states with the highest poverty rate are Republican led. Look it up. Crime has always had a direct correlation with poverty.
In contrast, 8 of the top 10 richest states are run by Democrats, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, etc. Richer states tend to have lower crime. Look it up.
Your argument is basically that Democrats are soft on crime and would reduce funding to police. That simply is not the case. Democrats continue to support law enforcement, including a recent investment of $300 million over five years to local LE. What they do not support is the inherent racism that has infiltrated our police forces, leading to the senseless murders of a string of unarmed people of color.
I realize that you somehow think you are the smartest guy in the room here, but your arguments reek of Fox News and other heavily biased right wing sources. Here’s a great book you might read, Mr. Donegan: The History of Neoliberalism by Thom Hartmann. It might open your eyes to current realities.
You can tap dance all you want, but we all remember the support you gave for defunding the police, which you have now conveniently forgotten. Your support was being shouted at us over the media daily. It has only been a couple of years, so it is much too recent to forget. And the fact remains that the highest crime cities are all run by Democrats, and city leaders are the ones who establish law enforcement policies. The high crime in those cities reflects the policies of city government.
Read Hartmann’s book. And maybe get a dog because you have way too much time on your hands to be angry every day at me and my ilk. You’re not changing my mind and you know it.
You live in California, possibly the best place in the world to live. Count your blessings and get a life.
I am not angry. It wouldn’t be healthy for me, and regrettably, it wouldn’t do anything to change your mind. I just view your political antics with the sort of concern that the passenger of a cruise ship might have if he saw another passenger randomly opening valves down in the hold, and worried that one of them will sink the ship.
I can’t think of any other place I would prefer to live over California, and I am too old to move to anywhere else. I was born here, and have a great life here. That’s why I would like to keep you liberals from ruining the place. Wouldn’t you prefer to go to, say, Nevada and commit your political vandalism there?
”’There were 4,326 violent crimes in Oklahoma City in 2021, according to city data. In a population of 688,000, that’s a rate of 666 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. That’s far higher than the rate in New York City.
Oklahoma City is also the largest U.S. city to vote for Donald Trump in 2020. Its mayor is a Republican, as is the state’s governor, Stitt.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/20…
Republican-controlled states have higher murder rates than Democratic ones: study
The study found that murder rates in the 25 states Trump carried in 2020 are 40% higher overall than in the states Biden won. (The report used 2020 data because 2021 data is not yet fully available.) The five states with the highest per capita murder rate — Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama and Missouri — all lean Republican and voted for Trump.
…Those findings are consistent with a pattern that has existed for decades, in which the South has had higher rates of violent crime than the nation as a whole.
“We as criminologists have known this for quite some time,” Jennifer Ortiz, a professor of criminology at Indiana University Southeast, told Yahoo News. “States like Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama have historically had high crime rates.”
https://news.yahoo.com/republican-controll…
”Blue cities in red states.”
So, we learned that crime is higher where there are more people’ who would have thought? And we learned that governors have no responsibility for reducing crime; only mayors do
I believe higher population densities cause higher crime rates per capita.
Blue cities in blue states (Boston is a great example) manage to keep crime much lower, because they only have to fight crime, not their state government.
Red cities in red and blue states have high murder rates as well. Red Kern County (Bakersfield) has the highest murder rate of any county in CA. Red Jacksonville FL has a higher murder rate than San Francisco.
Republicans never take responsibility for anything because that would mean they might have to come up with an actual policy proposal
If your side had any desire to address crime & murder issues in every community, you & MAGA American Dictatorship Republican Governors & Legislative leaders would actually sit down with stakeholders from Democratic majority voting communities to develop solutions to the underlying issues leading to crime, the need for responsible policing practices and other actions to improve life outcomes for their residents
Thank you. This was a very well thought out article. so many people bow leaving blue states into red states must mean something right they are doing.most large blue cities are dying and businesses are leaving. I just read that small businesses in Oakland don’t want to pay taxes because crime is so high. San Francisco businesses are leaving. Seattle after CHAD isn’t doing well either. Choices have consequences