gaasc
Desperately looking for a title
*Post directly above this one*
Ah, yes, it seems like the $1.1M that was diverted from Police funding to emergency services, while sounding like a bunch of money, it's less than 1% of MPD's budget. As such, I'd like to recant my statement on this one; though it makes me somewhat concerned if this is the effectiveness that they are having with their entire $193M budget. Lord knows what they will do with lower funding and the collective sense that everyone hates them.
I also worry that delay is more to see if the calls for defunding the police go away and they can just continue burying the issues that are clearly on display at MPD, from the treating of minorities to the apparent lack of enforcement. I've added a link to my original post that actually shows the call of the city council for increased policing. It seems to imply that some officers "have admitted that they’re purposely not arresting people who are committing crimes." This is a big problem, defund the police or not. More worrying is that the immediately next sentence is “This is not new”.
As for the image you shared, I hope this shows I am rather far away from that one. Especially as I am trying to keep this as its own issue rather than bringing the politicization of one or another side. The record of violence in the US since before the civil rights movement makes it abundantly clear that it does not matter who is in office, this will continue, as will the outrage over it, expressed reasonably or otherwise.
One final note, the article makes a reference to Councilman Phillipe Cunningham, who remains steadfast on the new community policing guidelines, suggesting "violence interrupters", who are [per the article] non-police people who would " intervene and defuse potentially violent confrontations." Is there a precedent of this working someplace? Because it seems to me that, although well intentioned, what they are doing is sending unarmed people to de-escalate situations in which one or both parties is already armed, angry, and likely to do something extremely stupid in the heat of the moment.