Riding a new wave of anti-police sentiment and activity are the dual errors of defunding and outright disbanding police departments — look for crime to skyrocket.
by C. Mitchell Shaw
In a plot twist that seems to belong in the Twilight Zone, liberals who have previously behaved as if the solution to every problem is to throw more money at it have reversed course 180 degrees, demanding that police in cities across America be defunded. In some cases, they are even calling for abolishing police departments.
Under the pretext of the death of George Floyd, anti-American groups such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa waged war in the streets of America in the form of riots, looting, vandalism, and violence against police officers and citizens alike. And as the violence increased, police departments and their officers across the country came under fire. In many cases the response of those police departments was to back down and give up ground.
Take, for instance, the city of New York, where “city leaders” told cops to “stand down” during rioting and looting — even as officers were violently attacked by rioters, as seen in viral online videos. Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on June 2, “Our hands are being tied,” adding, “The rank and file members of all ranks have sent me numerous emails, letters, text messages, photos of New York City … being destroyed. We have no leadership coming from City Hall. We are being told to stand down.” Mullins went on to say that he has received “videos, photographs, license plates of looters from citizens of the city of New York while cops are being pelted.”
New York is not the only city where police have given up ground. Other cities are even worse. Because while “giving up ground” is figurative in New York, it is literal in Seattle. On June 8, after repeated violent clashes with BLM and Antifa forces, the East Precinct of Seattle was abandoned to the enemy. Police officers (vainly) boarded up the precinct and decamped. The station itself and the surrounding six city blocks were immediately taken over by BLM/Antifa and the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) — a “no cop co-op” — was formed. Barriers around the CHAZ, now renamed “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” or CHOP, inform those entering that they are leaving the United States and that police are not allowed. The placard over the door of the precinct building has been amended to now read, “Seattle People Department East Precinct.”
As this is being written, a six-block section of Seattle is an enemy-occupied territory, with armed guards patrolling the streets and keeping the perimeter.
And while President Donald Trump has called for taking back the area, he has been met with typical liberal vitriol from the very “leaders” who allowed this to happen in the first place, showing — by their actions and inaction — that they want this to continue and spread.
On June 11, the president tweeted, “Radical Left Governor @JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stopped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!”
The mayor of Seattle, Jenny Durkan, replied with her own tweet the same day, saying, “The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone #CHAZ is not a lawless wasteland of anarchist insurrection — it is a peaceful expression of our community’s collective grief and their desire to build a better world. Given his track record, it’s not hard to believe that Trump is wrong, yet again.” She added another tweet the next day, saying, “Lawfully gathering and expressing first amendment rights, demanding we do better as a society and provide true equity for communities of color is not terrorism — it is patriotism.”
Is Durkan missing her dictionary? Because there is no definition of “peaceful,” “lawfully,” or “patriotism” that includes an armed insurrection chasing police out of an area of a city and establishing a communist co-op with armed guards. Period.
The chief of police in Seattle, Carmen Best, is not helping matters, either. She met with “leaders” of the insurrection on June 9, and — on video captured by a local news channel — promised not to send in police unless police are attacked. This, of course, defies logic, since police who are not there cannot be attacked.
Her action (and inaction) plays right into the hands of the insurrectionists. Their actions are right out of the communist playbook. As The New American’s William F. Jasper wrote in the September 18, 2017, print edition of this magazine, in an article that was later published online:
In many of the other violent incidents littering the landscape of the ongoing cultural revolution in our midst, agents of the RCP, WWP, SWP, and CPUSA [all communist organizations] can be identified in photos and videos as key participants and leaders. However, their identities often are not officially revealed because they are protected from arrest by left-wing city and county governments that tell police to “stand down,” as we have seen in Baltimore, Portland, Berkeley, and elsewhere. This too follows the script written by Mao, who ordered the police and military to stand down, allowing the Red Guards to carry out their rampage — until they had completed their purpose. Then they too were brought low and subjected to the iron fist of the Communist Party.
What Jasper wrote in 2017 could be written today. The tactics and the outcome are the same.
And riding this new wave of anti-police sentiment and activity are the dual errors of defunding and outright disbanding police departments. Given the violence and anarchy taking place in more than 200 cities and all 50 states in the wake of the Floyd murder, it is beyond the realm of reason to consider yanking the budgets of police departments or abolishing them entirely. But then again, reason and hard-core leftists are hardly on speaking terms.
Starting at “ground zero” of this latest wave, let’s look at what has happened in Minneapolis. In the wake of continued violence there after videos showed Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, the city council is moving to “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department.” AsThe New American’s Luis Miguel reported online on June 8:
The push to abolish the law-enforcement system in Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s death has cleared a new hurdle, with nine of the city council’s 13 members giving a public pledge to “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department.”
On Sunday afternoon, the nine city council members took to a stage at the city’s Powderhorn Park to support the advocacy group Black Visions Collective, which is calling for the end of MPD. Among the nine elected officials present at the event were Council President Lisa Bender, Vice President Andrea Jenkins, and Jeremiah Ellison — the son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
While this was a public statement and not an actual vote by the city council, the measure seems a foregone conclusion. After all, even if liberal Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey — who bent over backward in conciliation to the criminal insurrectionists who terrorized his city for more than two weeks — keeps his commitment to veto the measure, the city council will simply override his veto.
And his veto itself is not assured. Frey was cursed out, booed at, and evicted from a BLM rally June 5 for refusing to go along with the plan. He was asked point-blank by one “leader” whether he would support the measure. “Jacob Frey, we have a yes or no question for you,” the woman — wearing a “Defund the Police” COVID mask — asks him from the stage. “Yes or no, will you commit to defunding the Minneapolis Police Department?” When Frey attempts to answer with more than a simple yes or no, she asks, as if speaking to an errant child, “What did I say?” She follows that with, “We don’t want no more police. Is that clear?” and reminds the crowd that “he’s up for reelection next year, and if he says ‘no,’ guess what the f*** we gonna do next year?” Frey finally answers clearly enough, “I do not support abolishing the police department.” The woman on stage then screeches at him, “Then get the f*** out!” Frey then does a long and uncomfortable walk of shame through a crowd chanting “Go home, Jacob, go home” and throwing things at him.
The political lesson he likely took away is simple: Once you begin bending over backward to please the lowest common denominator, you have to keep doing it to keep them pleased. Because after giving BLM and Antifa free rein to riot, burn, and pillage for two weeks, and after dancing with them at their rallies, he was sent home with his tail between his tight-jeans-clad legs.
Frey will likely cave to the pressure and get on board.
Other cities may not have gone as far as Minneapolis, but the result will not be measurably different.
Liberal politicians in Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; New York; San Francisco; and other cities have supported the defunding of police departments to one degree or another. Again, how much sense does that make given the unprecedented level of violence and destruction seen in recent weeks?
Los Angeles is leading the “defund police” race as of this writing, with Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) announcing on June 3 that he plans to cut up to $150 million from the Los Angeles Police Department and “reinvest” the funds in the local black community. This is a reversal of his planned increase of $120 million, amounting to an actual cut of $270 million.
Whether abolished or “merely” defunded, police will not be able to do the important job of protecting the law-abiding citizens of America’s cities if this plan succeeds and continues to gain ground. And — to put in the for-what-it’s-worth column — advocates of the plan know that. They just don’t care.
At the Black Visions Collective in Minneapolis, those nine city council members addressed the pressing question of what happens when a crime is committed and there are no police to answer the call. As The New American’s Luis Miguel reported:
“We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,” they said. “We’re committed to engaging with every willing community member in the City of Minneapolis over the next year to identify what safety looks like for you.”
If the answer to what will replace the MPD lies in the community, the question to ask is: “What exactly lies in the community?”
Is it criminal gangs? Is it Black Lives Matter and Antifa? In the absence of police, these violence-wielding organizations will be perfectly positioned to fill the resultant power vacuum. Anarchy will give these left-wing street gangs control of the city.
Nature — particularly human nature — abhors a vacuum. The answer to Miguel’s question is that, yes, at least initially, it will be the BLM/Antifa cadre that will “fill the resultant power vacuum.” After all, the ones who create the vacuum are best positioned to fill it. But that will only be allowed to last for so long. Anarchy, after all, is never a permanent situation. It is a transition phase from the old order to the new (and planned) order. That new (and planned) order will mean national or — even worse — international control over America’s cities.
Of course, the other direction this could go would be that while shooting for the stars (of abolishing and defunding police), the real architects behind this would be satisfied to hit the moon (of civilian review boards and police forces without any real power to keep the peace or enforce laws).
Again, this is right off the pages of the communist playbook and a favorite tactic of the New World Order.