Last year, radical mayors and city councils put the blame for looting and riots on police, not on the rioters themselves. Now the cities that turned their backs on police are finding out that they made a major mistake. National Review’s Brittany Bernstein details the panic striking Seattle’s Mayor Jenny Durkan. You may remember Durkan as the mayor who allowed the city’s anti-police Antifa and BLM rioters to form their own country called CHAZ/CHOP, in the city’s center. Bernstein writes:
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan called to rebuild the city’s police force after the area recorded six separate shootings over the weekend.
“As a city, we cannot continue on this current trajectory of losing police officers,” Durkan said during press conference on Monday. “Over the past 17 months, the Seattle Police Department has lost 250 police officers which is the equivalent of over 300,000 service hours. We’re on path to losing 300 police officers.”
On a force of only around 1,300 sworn officers, losing 300 is a catastrophe. Durkan is reaping what she sowed by showing such disdain for police in 2020.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser is scrambling to refill the police roster after the city’s council voted to defund police in 2020. The Daily Mail reports:
The mayor of Washington, DC, has announced a plan to add 170 police officers to the city’s force amid rising violent crime.
Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said on Wednesday that she has requested an additional $11million from the City Council to pay for the hiring and training of 20 additional officers in the 2021 financial year, and 150 additional officers in 2022.
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) normally hires 250 officers each year, but last year the DC Council decided to defund the police to the tune of $15million – to the disapproval of the mayor.
In Minneapolis, things are getting worse, not better. Disdain for police has led the city council there to allow a referendum on abolishing the city’s police force, to be replaced with an undefined “public safety office.” Mandy Malone reports in The Police Tribune:
The Minneapolis City Council took the next step toward abolishing the Minneapolis Police Department on Wednesday despite skyrocketing violent crime in the city.
The advocacy group “Yes 4 Minneapolis Committee” had proposed an amendment to the city charter that would do away with the city’s police department and replace it with a public safety office with a “comprehensive public health approach,” KMSP reported.
However, the amendment does not define what that means or how it is supposed to be implemented.
But passing the amendment out of committee and agreeing to put it on the ballot moved the needle on the movement to abolish the police department which had been largely stagnant since the city charter commission voted almost a year ago to take another 90-days to review the proposed changes to the city’s charter.
Minneapolis City Council members initially announced plans to disband the police department in the wake of riots throughout the city following the death of 46-year-old George Floyd while he was being arrested by the Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020.
On June 7, 2020, nine members of the Minneapolis City Council announced that they would vote to disband the city’s police department, KSMP reported.
Once police officers leave a city, they can’t be replaced easily. Applicants need to pass through academies and lots of training before they’re ready for service. And rookie officers won’t bring the relationships and experience with them that every veteran officer is exiting with.
Action Line: If you live in a big blue blob city run by a radical council, you need to protect yourself. Get your gun and your training now.
