DEFUND THE POLICE?!? What is this foolishness?!😠

[sheshe2]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Within their monumental $414 million budget, they are somehow reducing funding for personnel in the professional development & standards bureaus (which includes their Anti-Corruption Division!!!), while increasing personnel in the field (= more #boscops) (3/10)

snip

Representative Clyburn sees the truth.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

.@ClyburnSC06 on “defund police”: “Police departments are needed. Police departments are wanted...I was there in the late 60s...We saw how our movement was hijacked by “burn baby burn”. We did a lot..We could have done more. John Lewis never struck a match. I never threw a brick”

https://3chicspolitico.com/2020/06/11/open-thread-defund-the-police-what-is-this-foolishness😠/#more-81992

Don't defund, educate. Stricter hiring rules. Mandatory classes every six months and Psych evaluations every quarter. You fuck up, you are gone and can never be hired as a LEO again. Fini.

[JonLP24]

1. The guest on Seth Meyers said "look at your city budgets"

Defund the police includes funding programs to address homelessness & mental health instead of using the police for everything. Police are often used to watch the homeless and are the first to respond to a mental health emergency.

Link to tweet

[Bettie]

2. Well, schools were defunded

they still exist, but they have less money allocated to them.

Police will still exist and probably still get to kill people, but other services can and should be funded.

It isn't all or nothing, it is cutting the pie differently.

[TristanIsolde]

3. Dismantle the whole rotten institution and build it from the grounds up

We gave them many chances to reform, it is done.

[janterry]

4. I do not support defunding the police

n/t

[Jirel]

5. You're the one who's wrong.

Defund the police. Now.

Defunding doesn’t mean no police. It means changing city budgets from police plus some miscellaneous underfunded items, to a smaller, demilitarized police with funding moved to other service areas that will solve real problems that policing can’t.

Mental health social workers can help a person in crisis. Cops can’t.

Housing the houseless will lower rates of desperation and crime to survive. Cops harassing the houseless will not.

Treating addiction as a disease will help people back into jobs and happy lives, and lower crime rates. Cops can’t.

It is past time to stop blathering about “police reform” that has done nothing in 50 years. Literally nothing. Cops are more militarized and untouchable than ever. Educating cops? FFS! Cops just shot one of their trainers in the nuts when he tried to de-escslate a situation.

Defund. The. Cops.

[JonLP24]

6. You get it

All it takes is to listen. These reforms make sense. I have seen cops watch the homeless and police are not the right kind of people to responding to mental health crisis and if they put prison and prison is the worst place for someone with serious mental illness.

People with Untreated Mental Illness 16 Times More Likely to Be Killed By Law Enforcement

https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/key-issues/criminalization-of-mental-illness/2976-people-with-untreated-mental-illness-16-times-more-likely-to-be-killed-by-law-enforcement-

[misanthrope]

22. When you have to take time to explain a slogan

in order to quell pushback to your slogan, then you have a bad slogan. I hate to have to say this but in so many ways politics -- and this is indeed politics -- is dependent on selling, messaging and advertising smarts.

It needs to be "reform," "rehab," "reframe" or something that sounds more positive.

[Jirel]

60. No. Those words have become an insult.

The slogan is just fine.

People understood:
Blood and soil.
You will not replace us.
The thin blue line.
Blue lives matter.

They somehow have “problems” understanding:
Black lives matter.
Anti fascist action.
Defund the police.

“Defund the police” could literally be replaced by a full paragraph explaining it, and the people who don’t WANT to understand it will keep saying “but it’s a bad slogan, I don”t get it!”

We have heard “reform” and “police reform” and similar a thousand times from every mealy-mouthed politician, never amounting to anything but more out of control cops. It’s time to stop cowering behind unthreatening words and use language that threatens. “Defund the police” is scary for a reason - it calls for actual action.

[sheshe2]

12. There is no need to be rude to me.

You can easily express your opinion without rudeness.

PS. Social workers have their flaws.

[UTUSN]

26. Hear, hear! Bullying over honest opinions is just bullying.

[sheshe2]

31. Thanks, UTUSN.

[aidbo]

42. lol there was no rudeness there. Unless you regard someone telling you that you're wrong rude.

[sheshe2]

47. No.

They were rude. Period.

[aidbo]

48. lol, maybe you should ask to talk to their manager

[sheshe2]

57. Are you calling me a 'Karen'?

Perhaps you should rethink your words.

[aidbo]

58. My words are my own and I will use them how I like.

Perhaps you should quit trying to police people's language.

[Jirel]

59. When "you're wrong" is "rude"...

shaking my damned head.

[Major Nikon]

13. The solution becomes the problem when it starts creating other significant problems

As a culture we are conditioned to believe when crime is the problem, the only solution is to increase the police budget and build more prisons while completely ignoring the effect of diminishing if not counterproductive returns.

Instead of investing in police and prisons, we should be investing in our communities.

[melman]

23. 100% right

especially this part...


"It is past time to stop blathering about “police reform” that has done nothing in 50 years. Literally nothing. Cops are more militarized and untouchable than ever. "


Reform is bullshit. Reform the budget so they can't buy fucking tanks!

[sheshe2]

37. If:

Reform is bullshit. Reform the budget so they can't buy fucking tanks!

Why do you call reform BS...then call for reform. That's convoluted logic.

[melman]

51. Wordplay

See, the idea is the only actually useful reform would be to take their tank money away.

Nobody would really use the word "reform" for that but you know...wordplay.

[sheshe2]

56. You do it well. nt

[George II]

61. I don't know of a single police department that has bought or is buying tanks. You know of any?

[melman]

63. Hey

click here

[jayfish]

64. They'll Try To Get You On A Technicality.

bought/buying

"Gosh, these tanks and MRAPS keep falling from the sky right into our garage. Guess we HAVE to use them."

[Locrian]

46. thank you

Cops are WAYYYYY over-funded - especially compared to all the other things we need to pay for.
The method of policing in the US is fundamentally and permanently rotten to it's core.
It needs to be rooted out and replaced.


DEFUND THEM.

[George II]

62. She's correct. Defund: "prevent from continuing to receive funds."

https://www.google.com/search?q=defund+definition&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS725US725&oq=defund+definition&aqs=chrome..69i57.3305j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[totodeinhere]

7. I support Joe Biden's stand on this issue.

He opposes defunding the police and I think it is a wise choice. He needs to win this election and coming down on the side of defunding the police would be a losing strategy.

By all means police departments need massive reforms and I think the public would be on board with that but not with defunding or eliminating them.

[JonLP24]

9. Defund the police if you listen to activists on the ground are massive reforms

Police in the country are used to deal with the problems of inequality. Homelessness too many police are used to watch them. It is better to fund programs to deal with homeless. Don't use police to respond to mental health emergencies which they are not the right people to handle.

It is similar line of thinking in reducing military spending to spend on social programs here at home.

[totodeinhere]

14. I don't think that most people would see "defunding" as reforming. I think they would take it

literally. And in his statement I think that Joe was referring to a literal interpretation of that term since he is very much in favor of reforms.

[blogslut]

8. Do you support the re-distribution of funds

...so that other city services receive bigger slices of the pie?

[sheshe2]

10. Yes.

[blogslut]

11. Good!

We support the same thing. I'm cool with the term because I know what it means. It's not like "abolish ICE", which, absolutely should happen.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. I'm fine with abolishing them altogether.

[totodeinhere]

19. After they are abolished altogether, who do you call?

Ghostbusters?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

21. For what?

[totodeinhere]

25. Like if somebody was breaking into your house. n/t

[WhiskeyGrinder]

28. It's highly unlikely that's going to happen, for a lot of reasons.

If it were to happen, the police would get here after the excitement was over. Then what? They take my name and birth date, look at my driver's license, cast an eye around to see what I might have sitting around (I've invited them in my house, after all -- who knows what they might find). Then what?

[totodeinhere]

36. If I wanted my homeowners insurance to pay for any damage I would need a police report

so that is reason enough.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

39. As long as we're doing hypotheticals, what if there's no damage?

They take some cash, an outdated video game console we weren't using, a TV that looks fine but doesn't work and we haven't taken to the dump.

[totodeinhere]

41. Then I wouldn't need a police report, but otherwise I would.

We need police reform but we still need the police. If there are no police there would be anarchy.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. Defund the fuck out of them and spend that money on public education and social services.

Since in a lot of cases cities and counties are expecting police and sheriff's departments to pick up the slack from underfunded social services and do jobs that ought to be done by social workers, counsellors, etc.

[The Magistrate]

17. 'Police The Police!' Should Be The Slogan, Ma'am

It chants well, is impervious to malign interpretation, and actually aligns with the aim of most demonstrators, and the great mass of folks at home who support them.

The academic and activist left not only seems to have no idea of how to properly frame an issue for mass support, but to possess a positive genius for hitting on the framing which will alienate the most people possible. A slogan which requires explanation, which 'de-fund the police' certainly does, is and always will be a loser, of more benefit to the opposition than it can possibly bring to the cause. That it is easily distorted to 'disband the police' is already evident in the enemy's propaganda.

Translated into policy, the form policing the police takes can certainly include a variety of systemic reforms, and may well include transfer of funds from armed police to social services that prevent confrontation and crime. The important thing, however, is not the formulation of precise policies, it is to get people moving, to capitalize on what has people moving now, and this is disgust at brutal excess which clearly owes to racial prejudice and hatred.

Right now, people are out in the street for a left cause. Those demonstrations enjoy mass support, something like three out of four people agree with the demonstrators and the object of policing the police. This is a genuine moment, a sea-change, which has the potential to change what side of the political spectrum a good many people feel aligned with. It may well carry over to other things, more beneficial social and economic policies, once many have gotten over the habit of knee-jerk rejection of leftist programs. The last thing we need is 'ultra' grandstanding of a sort guaranteed to remind people of just what they don't like about the left in national politics. Let loose the idea that destroying police departments all over the country is the aim of these demonstrations, and most of this popular support would evaporate.


This apparent determination of some leftists to alienate mass support by indulgence in quirkiness and crankiness, and in giving deliberate offense to things the great bulk of the people hold dear, is a chief reason why we cannot have good things, like national health insurance, proper regulation of credit, labor unions with power in the workplace, and a whole host of other items, including decent police, that people on the left generally do want, and that most people would enjoy having, if only they could be enacted into law by a left government.

[misanthrope]

24. Well said.

Last paragraph especially.

[csziggy]

44. That slogan is great

But then we get into the whole "who watches the watchers" difficulty.

Someone on DU a week or so ago proposed that each state have an independent office that handles investigations all officer involved shootings and killings, an office that is separate from all the prosecuting attorney offices across that state so there is no conflict of interest. That would be a step in the right direction.

[Niagara]

18. Oh hi, Sheshe!

I haven't visited with you in awhile. I'm going to share this video with you, it's somewhat the same explanation as poster #1 stated, more money going into social programs such as education (schools), youth programs, and homelessness. I think at this point it's not going to hurt to try a different approach since the one that we have isn't working for all communities.

I can't remember what program that I was watching, but the topic of when a LEO gets fired for an inappropriate action, they will go to another town or city and get another law enforcement position. This tells me that there's not records kept and/or not enough background research going on. I hope the video helps explain it better.

[Sewa]

29. I had a personal experience with that

I was involved in an incident with a deputy. He was fire for lying to the police during the investigation. A few years later he got that removed from his records and got a deputy job at a neighboring county.

[Niagara]

38. That's what I'm talking about.

Incidents shouldn't be scrubbed off their record. I know the OP originally made the same statement, if they mess up, they should be gone, and that's how it should be. Whatever we can do to hold them accountable for their actions, I'm all in.



Welcome to DU, Sewa.

[stillcool]

20. I don't care what you want to call it...

make it illegal for cops to murder people. Get rid of dirty cops, and train whoever is left. Get rid of the militarized weapons and military training, and learn how to help people. Insure there are real consequences for criminal acts, and create a data-base of bad cops. Redefine the role of police in our communities. Whoever wants to fight over words have at it.

[still_one]

32. Exactly!!! Using the slogan defund the police is terrible messaging, because it means different

things to many people, which means it can be distorted

[stillcool]

43. and there's no one size fits all solution...

don't know what's happening with this one in Georgia. Disbanding sounds like the only option.

Ahmaud Arbery Shooting Spurs Calls to Disband Police Force
Sabrina Siddiqui, Arian Campo-Flores 5/16/2020


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-spurs-calls-to-disband-police-force/ar-BB14aEBa?ocid=spartanntp
The fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in southeastern Georgia is fueling calls to disband the Glynn County Police Department, an agency that has been embroiled in controversy for years.

A grand jury last year faulted the department for a culture of coverup and abuse of power, prompting efforts to overhaul the agency that were gathering momentum when Mr. Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was killed on Feb. 23. Four days after his death, another grand jury indicted Police Chief John Powell and three other current and former officers over alleged wrongdoing in a narcotics unit.

[still_one]

50. Amadou Diallo

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/amadou-diallo-kadiatou-protests-george-floyd-police/

[ucrdem]

27. It's not a winning slogan that's for sure.

Police forces have come a long way in the last 50 years so additional reforms are completely plausible. Some forces have come further than others. I have to say that Biden has good cred on this issue as he's been heavily involved in gun reform and criminal justice reform, for better or worse, his whole long career. His election is going to be an impressive win. The only question is whether we win the House and Senate too. At this rate, we might!

Hi sheshe!

[still_one]

33. +++

[sheshe2]

40. Hey, ucrdem.

We will keep the house, the rest will be a blue wave. We need this.

[still_one]

30. Defunding the police means different things to different people, and if one has to explain what it

means as an election issue, that means it can be distorted and manipulated

Open polls have made it very clear that over 60% of the populace want reform, firing bad cops, no tolerance of racism, choke holds, etc, but are against “defunding the police”

It doesn’t matter if “defunding the police”, doesn’t mean getting rid of the police force, it is bad messaging, and a good way to lose the election in those critical swing states

That is the reason Biden does not support “defunding the police”, but supports major structural reform.

I wonder if we are going to see people like Susan Sarandon, David Sirota, etc. try to encourage people not to vote for Biden in the general election because of this? They sure did that strategy against Hillary in the general election, and helped give trump

[still_one]

34. Jim Clyburn is right, it is about messaging

[Mosby]

35. The police unions need to be reigned in or replaced.

They have way too much influence with management and local governments.

Union contracts should be limited to wages and retirement.

Qualified immunity should be withdrawn for all peace officers.

[sheshe2]

49. +1000

[mopinko]

45. here in chi, cpd is afraid to get out of their cars.

pay those suckers what we pay teachers.
then give the rest to the services they pretend to give, but dont.
and get them the hell out of the schools.
cps has more cops than councilors.

[melman]

52. Defund the Police

"karma is a cop" on twitter says hijacked by sloganeering. Erin Burnett (!) agrees.


BLM says different.






https://blacklivesmatter.com/

[aidbo]

53. "Defund the Police" is not a slogan to try to get elected off of.

It is a demand from the people who have been abused by overfunded racist police across America.

[oasis]

54. Deflate the "Defund" and get a different slogan. Democrats are in charge

of the position/message the party takes on this. All others butt out unless you're interested in going through four more years of Trump.

[madville]

55. I wonder how much of their budget is allocated to fund their great pension plan

They get a lifetime check and great benefits just for doing a job for a couple of decades.