Nothing hurts a city more than rising crime. Even high city income and property taxes are not as damaging to a city’s vitality as the high risk of being robbed, mugged, carjacked, or killed on its streets. Rampant crime is even worse than high taxes because its burden falls mostly on the people who don’t make the big money, don’t live in the fancy neighborhoods, and can’t move away.
In the face of this, why have the local governments of some of the hardest-hit cities in the country – Albuquerque, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Washington, DC – been trying to “defund” their local police?
The excuse they gave is because of racist cops who arrest and mistreat Black people, pointing to the George Floyd case in Minneapolis, and others around the country. But the effect of defunding police forces is fewer cops and longer response times to police calls. And even more crime.
The Biden administration’s “American Rescue Plan,” shovels enormous sums of money to help bring the pandemic under control, replace lost government revenue, support households and businesses, and address inequalities in public health and local economies. But its rules are deliberately vague. So what is happening now is that some of the cities that loudly pledged to defund their police last year are quietly allocating COVID relief money back to their police forces this year.
In April, Albuquerque mayor Tim Keller proposed earmarking more than 15 percent of the funds to the Albuquerque Police Department: $3 million to expand a gunshot detection system, $5 million to refurbish station houses, $1 million for new cars and $450,000 to recruit more officers. A Keller spokesman said this week that the money was part of a plan “to make our community safer and healthier for everyone.”
That enraged local activists: “It’s highly offensive,” said Selinda Guerrero, an organizer for Building Power for Black New Mexico, part of a coalition campaigning to divert police funding to health care, housing, and social service programs. “We now have municipal leadership deciding that more money and more resources need to go toward oppressive police tactics.”
On today’s episode of TheDrillDown podcast, former congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) talks with hosts Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers about these issues and others. Even the COVID recovery money being diverted to re-funding police won’t help if the criminals they catch aren’t sent to jail.
There has been a recent trend in some cities to elect district attorneys who won’t prosecute certain crimes. Billionaire activist George Soros backed DA candidates in Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco, and other cities. These DA’s have fired scores of experienced prosecutors and, as promised, stopped prosecuting low-level quality-of-life crimes such as disorderly conduct, vagrancy and loitering.
The city of St. Louis has suffered a crime surge since a Soros-backed prosecutor took office. Violent crime rose by 8.8% since 2006. In terms of violent crimes per 100,000 residents, St. Louis has surpassed Detroit as America’s most violent city.
San Francisco elected Chesa Boudin as its district attorney. Boudin is the son of Weather Underground radicals who were convicted of murder for their role in the killing of three people during the 1981 robbery of a Brink’s armored car. San Francisco’s murders are up 30.4% from a year ago. Car theft, burglary and arson also have risen between 30% and 44%, according to police reports.
Still, the money for COVID relief is finding its way into boosting the budgets for city police, even if it is being done grudgingly. But the money from the COVID relief law just passed really include new police radios?
