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Defund the Cops?

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by B@ffled, Jun 4, 2020.

  1. MojoMan

    MojoMan Member

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  2. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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  3. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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  4. tinman

    tinman Contributing Member
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  5. Ziggy

    Ziggy QUEEN ANON

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    How do I report the criminal cop that runs a speedtrap near my home? It's a nuisance that disrupts the businesses and people that live here. His name is Matt Davis (feel free to Google) and is infamous for running traffic scams out of HPD. I cant believe he's still allowed to work. It's shocking. But bad police are never held accountable.

    We want good cops doing good things in our neighborhood. Not the criminal cops.

    We need to send these criminal cops outside the loop.
     
    FranchiseBlade and tinman like this.
  6. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    A very sober and indepth look at the rising crime in MInneapolis and the failure of the Defund the Police movement. A lot of this has come down to a disconnect between many of those who pushed the Defund, a large part white suburban liberals who didn't live in the parts of Minneapolis with the most crime from black residents primarily in the North neighborhood of Minneapolis that has seen a large rise in crime.

    As someone who experienced many of these events personally including that one of the dojos I train at is in North Minneapolis and I frequently drive by the gas station mentioned in the article I can confirm a lot of what this reports.

    It's a long piece so will just post some highlights but isn't behind a pay wall.
    https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/25/us/minneapolis-crime-defund-invs/index.html

    Once nicknamed ‘Murderapolis,’ the city that became the center of the ‘Defund the Police’ movement is grappling with heightened violent crime

    After the police murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, Minneapolis became a worldwide symbol of the police brutality long endured disproportionately by Black people. In a kind of Newtonian response, the city became the epicenter of the culturally seismic “Defund the Police” movement. But that progressive local effort fizzled with a decisive referendum last November.

    Now, with its police department under investigation by the Department of Justice, the city of 425,000 is trying to find a way forward amid a period of heightened crime that began shortly after Floyd’s death.

    That year, the number of murders soared to nearly 80 — dwarfing the 2019 body count of 46. It has cooled somewhat this year, though the amount of killing — and violent crime in general — remains elevated far above 2019 levels and homicides are on pace to surpass the 2020 figure. The reasons why are far from clear.

    Another factor was the pandemic, which some observers see as the biggest impetus for the crime surge.


    Citing sinking morale in the wake of the unrest after Floyd’s killing, leaders at the Minneapolis Police Department say the officer head count has shrunk from 900 in early 2020 to about 560 in August — a loss of more than a third of the force.

    Against this backdrop, the political pendulum on public-safety matters in this reliably liberal city — the “Mini Apple” hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1973, and that was for just a single day — seems to have swung away from a progressive mindset towards the middle.

    And on matters of public safety, the middle is where many of the city’s Black residents already were.

    Last year, progressives touted a ballot measure that was said to be a referendum on the “defund” concept. Question 2, as it was known locally, would have replaced the Minneapolis Police Department with a new “public health-oriented” Department of Public Safety and removed a minimum staffing requirement from the city charter.

    It failed in November, with 56% of voters rejecting it. That figure was 61% in north Minneapolis, a pair of neighboring city wards where Blacks make up a strong plurality of the roughly 66,000 residents. All but one of the 17 precincts in the north voted against the measure.

    “We did not believe that the police should be defunded, but we do believe in police reforms,” said Bishop Richard Howell of Shiloh Temple, a north-side church founded more than 90 years ago.

    Rae McKay-Anderson — Telly Blair’s sister — said “you can’t possibly defund the police in a way that’s going to benefit the Black community.”

    Dealing the final blow to the local “defund” movement last year was a city council vote to essentially refund a cut they’d made the prior year. Mayor Jacob Frey is proposing another budget bump for the next two fiscal years.

    The question of the moment is, if the police budget has been restored, and if all the anti-cop shouting by politicians and activists that left officers demoralized has weakened to a whimper, why are citizens — especially in the rough parts of north Minneapolis — still feeling neglected by police and fearful for their safety?

    Oden was among eight residents in north Minneapolis who filed a lawsuit in the summer of 2020 calling on the city to replenish the police department by filling vacant positions. The suit singled out city council members who supported the “radical ‘dismantle the police’” idea and accused them and Mayor Frey of creating a “hostile” environment for the police. It was largely upheld by a state Supreme Court decision this summer — meaning the city needs to staff up to at least 731 police officers.

    Doug Seaton, an attorney representing the eight residents, said the successful suit was filed in direct response to how progressive city council members had embraced the “defund” idea. It demoralized the police department and ultimately led to a mass exodus of officers, he said.
    While Minneapolis is far from the nation’s most dangerous city, its rate of increase in homicides — the count in 2021 was about double that of 2019 — is among the highest in the nation, said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri- St. Louis and co-author of an annual study on crime trends.


    But by and large, police officials have said the slower response times are the expected byproduct of a depleted force that has witnessed an overwhelming wave of retirements, resignations and disability leaves due to post-traumatic stress.

    Much of that exodus owes to a bottoming out of morale in the wake of a crisis that left police officers feeling reviled, said interim Minneapolis Police Chief Amelia Huffman.

    Some law enforcement officials have attributed the mass resignations and retirements to pandemic-related reasons, but Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith of the National Police Association said morale is a major factor.

    “It’s no secret that law enforcement … especially in the last two and a half years, has been badly vilified and wrongly vilified,” she told CNN. “You can’t call an entire profession racist and expect people to just sit back and say, okay, you know, keep piling on.”

    Taken together, the current state of crime and policing in Minneapolis — from slow response times to recent brutality complaints to the poor clearance rates — has fostered an atmosphere of distrust.

    The distrust paves the way for some to assume bad intentions. Dave Bicking, a board member of the Minneapolis-based Community United Against Police Brutality, goes so far as to suggest the police since Floyd’s death may have engaged in a “sickout” — that is, that officers are purposefully sluggish to respond to or investigate certain crimes.


    In June of 2020, nine of the Minneapolis City Council’s 13 members stood on a stage adorned with an oversized sign saying “DEFUND POLICE.”

    It’s well established that those widely viewed events boosted a movement in Minneapolis that would later fail at the polls last November. Lesser known is how the very community most directly impacted by crime and policing in the city — the north side — was among the least supportive of the “defund” idea.

    “I think what’s at issue is the White progressives’ belief that they’re helping us,” said Lisa Clemons, a former Minneapolis police officer, who is Black and runs a gun-violence organization called A Mother’s Love in north Minneapolis. “Oftentimes they are hurting us.”

    Clemons said people in north Minneapolis don’t want to get rid of cops – “they just want respectful cops.”

    Frey said that while no demographic group is a monolith, White progressives in the aftermath of Floyd’s death often seemed out of sync with ordinary Black residents.

    “I heard a lot of White activists purport to be speaking on behalf of communities of color. And I was listening to them — listening to communities of color — and they weren’t saying the same things,” Frey said. “I’d walk down the street and I’d hear from White people, ‘Defund the police! Defund the police!’ And then I’d hear from a Black person a half block later, ‘Hey, we really need to have some additional help.’”

    Sheila Nezhad, a community organizer who turned out to be one of Frey’s most competitive mayoral opponents in November, noted that turnout was lower in north Minneapolis than the citywide average, and that the advocacy group — called Yes 4 Minneapolis — that proposed the ballot measure that came to be seen as the “defund” referendum was led by Black people.

    Since Gov. Tim Walz signed a police accountability law two years ago that banned chokeholds and “warrior” style police training, the city of Minneapolis appears to be finding a path forward that avoids having to choose between building the police force and reimagining public safety. The city is not only looking at further beefing up the police budget but is also piloting a slate of programs that send unarmed responders to nonviolent 911 calls. Mayor Frey has proposed making them permanent in his recommended budget for 2023-2024.

    Frey argues that the centerpiece of his proposed public safety plan – creating a new Office of Community Safety — captures much of what the “defund” movement was after in the first place.
     
  7. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Contributing Member

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    How is the rise in crime rate in Minneapolis in the past two years compared to other cities across the country?

    Also, if the solution is more cops like in Biden's new crime bill proposal what are we doing to actually solve the culture of these entities we are now demanding to make larger?

    If your answer is the same as Biden's plan where the solution is basically "take classes" then I'm just going to laugh into a depressive state. Let me tell you from my experience seeing the same exact people who eventually would be cops handle classes that teach things like acceptance and inclusivity. We sat through many power point slides from people many of my former peers would call now woke. They tested these classes like a meme and had even worse sentiments after these classes. It harmed the cause, not helped.

    It's the TYPE of people who join married with the lack of accountability, not the training and we have to move beyond this talking point which I believe is a talking point that arose to comfort those moderate suburbanites that there is some simple solution to combat police culture. "ah just have the right training!". BS.

    So what are we doing to address things like the the undue influence of police unions on accountability of officers or the fact that police departments can have horrible track records at the expense of taxpayers having to pay a **** ton in settlements. What are we doing about these actual problems? If the solution is some power point slides I'm done.
     
  8. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    It's in the article:
    "
    While Minneapolis is far from the nation’s most dangerous city, its rate of increase in homicides — the count in 2021 was about double that of 2019 — is among the highest in the nation, said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri- St. Louis and co-author of an annual study on crime trends.

    On per-capita murders, it has ranked fairly high — 19th out of 70 jurisdictions in the US — during the first half of this year, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association. The city ranked even higher on other per-capita crime measures, such as robbery (4th), rape (8th) and aggravated assault (13th)."
    It's in the article. Minneapolis is in the process of reorganizing the PD with a new office of Public Safety including a new commissioner of public safety. Also there is a program to send unarmed crisis response team to deal with mental health issues rather than LEO. It's still new but at the moment it does show some results. The new Commissioner of public safety is emphasizing rebuilding community relations.

    As for me I've stated before you start moving bad LEO out and side stepping the Unions by getting them to retire early through buyouts. You also agressively prosecute those LEO and I think with recent prosecutions of the LEO in cases like George Floyd, Deandre Wright and Elijah McClain you are seeing that happening.

    And yes you need much more training of which I'm glad to say MPD is doing.

    But just calling BS to those isn't a solution. Defunding police failed spectacularly as the article notes. You've pointed out the problems but what solution are you advocating?
     
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  9. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Contributing Member

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    My solution is not buying into this political unsustainable cycle where politicians for easy votes promise quick fixes to solve crime by just expanding law enforcement.


    From what I can perceive, this country goes through this cycle:
    1. Economic downturn
    2. Increase in crime scaring citizens to take immediate action often enhanced by the way media reports crime.
    3. Politicians ignoring the core causes of the increase and promise citizens for a more powerful law enforcement apparatus and more stringent criminal justice system.
    4. Crime naturally drops somewhat mainly due to the economic cycles of going from recession to growth.
    5. Politicians attribute the drop to the expanded more powerful law enforcement and criminal justice apparatus.
    6. Recession happens again and crime increases again.

    So in each cycle we expand the power and reach of law enforcement while not solving the underlying issues.


    This


    Ain't


    Sustainable
     
  10. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    I can agree with some of that analysis but that really isn't a solution. Yes crime does seem to have a correlation with economic cycles but even in times of good economy that doesn't mean that there are no crimes. For that matter there are crimes that aren't economic in nature that still happen. For example crimes of bias which Minneapolis has also had to deal with or crimes of passion.

    Also you're ignoring that the neighborhood most affected by crime, North Minneapolis, were the ones most against Defund the police. Is it then your claim that those people were just following what politicians were telling them?

    The article does actually address these issues including discussion that increase in crime might be do to the pandemic and issues coming out of the pandemic.
     
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  11. tinman

    tinman Contributing Member
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    @Salvy
    @ROXRAN
    @J.R.

    Lol
    Defund the police
    And you want them find who’s dumping poop at your house ? Lol
     
  12. Salvy

    Salvy Member

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    Sea us defund the pOliCE!!!!

    I still can't believe these people got soo many idiots believing that defunding the Police was ever even remotely a good idea.
     
  13. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    It was a great make believe idea to strawman your opponents with.
     
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  14. tinman

    tinman Contributing Member
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    What a great win for

    criminals and poop throwers
     
  15. Salvy

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    I still remember when Harden had to justify himself for wearing a blue live's matter mask, just an American flag with a blue stripe across that shows support to the men and women who put their life on the line everyday to keep dumbasses like this lady safe from criminals.

    [​IMG]





    Harden had to pretty much disassociate himself from support of the police and show support for BLM...
     
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  16. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Contributing Member

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    https://www.newsweek.com/punisher-police-blue-lives-matter-skull-logo-1449272


    The cops who wear these type of symbols are exactly the type of cops who don't have the social maturity or temperament to be a law enforcement officers. Those cops joined the profession to be a part of a gang, not to serve their community.

    You want a compromise with communities that have been targets of police corruption and violence, how about we find the cops but don't hire the type of cops that wear those type of symbols and go on social media and b**** about black culture or BLM or Colin Kaepernick. No we don't want those type of cops.


    James Harden didn't have clue what that symbol meant. He thought it looked cool. That's it. He wasn't supporting anyone.
     
  17. Salvy

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    Oh cmon, seriously? Analyzing a comic to form an opinion of the significance of Blue Lives Matter to a group of people who have chosen a symbol and color scheme to voice out their support for Police. That's just plain silly.

    Just like any symbol or colors scheme there will be all sort of people who throw it up. Whether its a sports team, MAGA, BLM or Blue Lives Matter... We can't associate any of these with bad or terrible people. There are good people who support The Astros, there are bad people who support MAGA, there are good people who support BLM and there are corrupt bad cops who also fly Blue Lives Matter flags. Everything I just mentioned can be flipped to have terrible racist BLM activists while having good hearted MAGA supporters alongside good Cops who support Law and Order.

    You don't defund the police because there are bad cops, that's plain stupid....
     
  18. subtomic

    subtomic Contributing Member
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    The article by #rocketsjudoka doesn’t really demonstrate that Defund the Police failed as a policy, but rather, only as a referendum. But it does demonstrate that police reform cannot allow police departments to do the equivalent of taking their ball and going home in the face of criticism. What the anecdotes indicated in the article is that police stopped doing their job - point blank. That just further demonstrates how corrupt law enforcement is.

    The article does touch on one likely aspect of the rise in violent crime - more young men who, because of the pandemic, had nothing to do and like young men the world over, decided to get into trouble. Add to that the fact that there are way more guns in circulation now (more on this in a bit) and you have the recipe for the nationwide increase in violent crime.

    I found this article extremely useful and thorough in its examination of the increase of crime. It would do Democrats a lot of good to read this and craft responses to GOP accusations that liberal policies are behind the increase in crime.
     
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  19. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    Jumping in here to point out how many on the right are calling to "Defund the FBI" and arent' backing the Blue when it comes to Trump and his supporters being investigated, tried and jailed.
     
  20. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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