Restoring Police Funding

…in Progressive-Democrat-run cities. But I repeat myself. There aren’t any Republican/Conservative-run cities that have defunded, or even tried to defund, their police departments.

Some of those Progressive-Democrat jurisdictions are seemingly starting to refund their police departments.

In Texas, the Democrat-led Austin City Council voted last August to cut funding for the Austin Police Department by $150 million, slashing a range of services that one year later have proven to be sorely missed. Last month, the department announced it was no longer responding to non-life-threatening emergency 911 calls, and its homicide rate spiked.

But not unless forced:

In response, a citizen-led movement collected enough signatures for a petition that resulted in adding a November ballot measure to restore police funding.

Baltimore is another being forced to refund and expand:

Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan (R) announced the state was investing $150 million in a “re-fund the police” initiative. …
“Our $150 million ‘re-fund the police’ initiative will provide a desperately needed shot in the arm to our state and local police agencies and their critical efforts to stop crime,” Hogan said.

The city of Baltimore is a poster child for the basic failure to stop lawlessness. There’s a prosecutor who refuses to prosecute crime.

And this foolishness in Seattle:

[T]the Downtown Seattle Association called on city leadership to use federal COVID relief money to subsidize private security costs….

Because there aren’t enough cops left on the force.

New York City and Los Angeles are trying pay raises to stem the outflow of officers from their departments and to recruit replacements.

Burlington, VT’s, “Democratic/progressive-led city council”

cut the police budget and ordered a 30% reduction in the number of uniformed officers.

Now the city is trying $10,000 bonuses just to keep existing officers from walking and $15,000 signing bonuses for new hires. And Burlington suburbs

South Burlington is offering a $7,000 sign-on bonus to fully certified officers, Berlin a $4,000 bonus to senior officers, and St. Albans a $10,000 bonus[.]

Frankly, I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to go to work, or go back to work, in any of these Progressive-Democrat-run cities, no matter the level of claimed “refunding.” Especially since in at least some of those jurisdictions, the refunding has to be forced into their unwilling budgets.

At least not until the incumbents in those city governments have been replaced 100%. Those worthies already have demonstrated they cannot be trusted actually to support police or policing.

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