Defund the police?

Minneapolis City Council should try a pilot program

The members of the Minneapolis City Council have a two-thirds majority committed to “ending the Minneapolis Police Department.”

This is a wonderful idea.

“Defund the police” has become a popular slogan among many on the left since the horrific murder of George Floyd at the hands of police on May 25.

For one brief, shining moment, the nation was more united than it had been in years, in virtually full agreement that what happened was nothing less than an atrocity.

Alas, then righteous peaceful protests morphed into riots, many on the left defended looting and billions of dollars in senseless destruction, law enforcement officers were killed or injured, and the unity vanished almost overnight.

The defenders say property is not important, but they seem to gloss over the deaths of people killed by rioters.

Now there is a rush, a sort of one-upmanship among commentators and politicians to see who can denigrate police the most.

Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles - where police shootings declined for four years in a row and reached a 30-year low in 2019, according to the May 12 Los Angeles

Times — called police officers “killers.”

He pledged to take money from the LAPD and give it to community programs for poor blacks. Which raises the question: Mr. Mayor, if more money for programs for poor blacks will make things better, why didn’t you do it before?

One must ask why the cities that seem to have the most complaints about the police and the cities that have seen the worst violence are run by Democrats?

Franklin Roosevelt, a liberal Democratic icon, opposed public sector unions, saying “it is impossible to collective bargain with government.”

Now, because of union protections that no private sector employee would get, it is almost impossible to get rid of bad cops.

Derek Chauvin, who killed Floyd, had 17 complaints against him and obviously had no business being an officer.

Who agreed to these union protections in cities like Los Angeles and

New York and Minneapolis? The people who run the cities. The Democrats. The very ones who complain most about the police.

Which brings us back to the “defund the police” slogan. No one seems to know exactly what that means, but it is fashionable to say it.

Defund means “prevent from continuing to receive funds,” which would mean abolishing police departments.

But some seem to interpret defund as reducing or reorganizing police departments. Why don’t they say that, then?

Minneapolis council members say they will take steps to “end the Minneapolis Police Department.”

“We recognize,” they wrote in a statement, “that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does.”

Oh, OK.

Now, government usually likes to roll out pilot programs to see how they work. Minneapolis should do that.

They should end the police department in areas where the council members live.

Satire aside, remember the old saying: Be careful what you wish for.