What local officials say about ‘defunding’ police
The last two weeks of protests that erupted after George Floyd's death under the knee of former Minneapolis police officer have prompted nationwide calls for significant police reform.
The call for police reform is growing within Memphis and Shelby County as both county commissioners and city council members are signalling their endorsement of reallocating of funding from law enforcement agencies towards social services, or “defunding the police.”
But other officials say they are not in favor of reallocating funding from law enforcement and jails in Memphis and Shelby County.
Here's how elected and appointed officials are weighing in, so far.
Shelby County Commissioner Tami
Sawyer was one of the first elected officials to propose stripping funding from law enforcement. In a social media post made in early June in response to law enforcement posing for a photo alongside Devante Hill, who has been leading police-protected marches through Downtown Memphis, Sawyer said her goals extended beyond photo opportunities.
“My goal is for Memphis to disinvest from brutal policing tactics and the school to prison pipeline,” Sawyer wrote. “My goal is for Shelby County to not spend half its budget on the Sheriff while cutting education. My goal is not to have to beg companies to have MWBE participation. My goal is for businesses and government to invest in the black community through education, jobs, transportation, access to fresh food and affordable housing and more.”
On Monday, Sawyer proposed two measures to redirect funds from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office to the county’s community services department as well as the county’s contingency fund.
Both measures, which called for a 10% and then a 5% percent, failed to pass, with commissioners Van Turner, Reginald Milton, Mickell Lowery and Sawyer voting in favor.
Congressman Steve Cohen, Dmemphis, was one of the key lawmakers behind a slate of police reforms introduced to congress Monday.
The bill includes banning federal officers from using chokeholds and gives incentives for local law enforcement agencies to do the same; limit qualified immunity for officers; make body cameras standard nationwide; bans officers from using military-style weapons; and create a national database to track officers with a record of misconduct.
Cohen, who acknowledged the Justice in Policing Act would have a “tough” time passing the Republican-controlled Senate, said when it came to defunding law enforcement he thought more people wanted to see reform measures.
“I don’t think most people think we should have a society without rules,” he said. “You’re going to continue, no matter what happens, to have murders, robberies, home burglaries, rapes, and terrorists who could go into movie theaters, etc., and you need police for an ordered society. But they can be reformed, improved, given more help from social service agencies.”
Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner warned county commissioners on Monday that cuts to the sheriff’s department would be “devastating.”
Bonner, the first elected black sheriff in Shelby County, was responding to Sawyer’s first proposal on Monday to reduce funding to the sheriff’s department by 10%, or around $18 million.
“To take an almost $18 million cut, there’s no way the Sheriff’s Office can continue to function the way we’re functioning,” Bonner said during the commissioners’ live-stream meeting.
Steve Leech, chief administrative officer for the Sheriff’s Office, said a cut that large would inevitably have meant cutting personnel, particularly from the jail, which is already struggling to meet state staffing requirements.
“We would probably have to close the jail,” Leech said, referring to if the proposal passed.
Mark Lowe, president of the Shelby County Deputy Sheriff’s Association and a current deputy with department’s DUI division, laid bare his disapproval.
“We at the Sheriff’s Association, we’re totally against that,” Lowe said. “I think it’s dangerous to do something like that, to even think of doing that with things that are going on in society.”
When asked why, Lowe said, “Just dealing with crime, you know, dealing with officer safety, make sure we have the equipment we need to go out there and protect the citizens of Shelby County on a daily basis.”
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said Wednesday that he’s personally opposed to defunding law enforcement and called the idea “out of touch” with the majority of Americans.
Strickland cited a number of programs and institutions the city has increased funding for since his election, including libraries and community centers. In spite of the increases, the Memphis Police Department consumes the majority of the city’s budget, and MPD Director Michael Rallings is requesting more than $282 million for next year’s police budget.
In a statement, Strickland said.
“I’m opposed defunding our police department. Over the last 4 and half years, we’ve increased funding to libraries, community centers, made summer camps free, created Manhood University, W.O.W.S, and the Public Service Corps for those who need second chances, and came up with a way to fund universal needs-based Pre-k, but we still have more work to do. With our city’s fight against violent crime, I believe cutting funding from the Memphis Police Department is unwise. And frankly, it’s out of touch with the majority of city residents. The New York Times completed a poll recently, and it showed that only 16% of Americans favor defunding the police. For context here locally, last year during my campaign the number one issue with Memphis voters was crime and the overwhelming majority of citizens were supportive of hiring more officers and voted to increase the taxes they pay to do it.”
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris gave a more nuanced answer to the discussion of defunding law enforcement on Monday, during a public memorial for Floyd.
Harris described the issue of public safety as a balancing act, acknowledging that law enforcement is only one component of public safety.
At the memorial he said,
“Obviously, in order to have public safety, you’ve got to have all three legs of the stool. You’ve got to have intervention, which means you have to have programing for kids and make sure they have meaningful opportunities to succeed. In addition, you have to have law enforcement and you have to have reentry. I’m for all three. Sometimes the legs of that stool are a little bit wobbly. Sometimes we don’t do enough on the re-entry side in terms of investment and we don’t do enough to create more meaningful opportunities for kids. So I think it’s a great conversation to have and it’s something I’ve been talking about for a long time. You’ve got to have all three legs of those stools sturdy. You’ve got to invest in all three and sometimes we just focus on the enforcement piece. So it’s the right conversation to have.”
Memphis City Councilmember Michalyn Easter-thomas stood shoulder-to-shoulder with other elected officials for a press conference on Saturday as they committed to use their capacity as elected officials to enact change against systemic racism and institutions that aren’t protecting black residents of Memphis and Shelby County.
Easter-thomas said she and other members of City Council would focus on investing in expanding access to food and clean streets.
“We will do just that by defunding any city division that will or has caused harm to the black community,” Easterthomas said. “We will be intentional with city policy, regulating excessive force by the police department.”
On Tuesday, the City Council voted overwhelmingly voted in committee to pass a set of reforms that would limit the use of police force, known as the “8 can’t wait.”
The phrase “8 can’t wait” refers to a set of proposals backed by the policy organization Campaign Zero, which grew out of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Rallings said the department has already adopted many of the “8 can’t wait” use of force reduction policies.
“I think a lot of those are low-hanging fruit that we already pretty much do so,” he said.
Commercial Appeal reporters Katherine Burgess, Daniel Connolly and Samuel Hardiman contributed to this report.