The only black Republican in the Senate dismissed recent calls from police reform activists to defund departments across the country.
“What a ridiculous idea,” Sen. Tim Scott said on Fox News Sunday. “It should never come … We need order in our streets. And the easiest way to have that is to have a strong presence of character-driven law enforcement officers.”
Following the death of George Floyd in the custody of police in Minneapolis, a nationwide movement demanding an end to police brutality has spread throughout the United States. Thousands of people have poured into the streets of cities, proclaiming “Black lives matter” and insisting elected leaders do more to curb the mistreatment of minorities by law enforcement.
Some leaders have gone so far as to say that the current structure of law enforcement is so irreparably racist that the system must be torn down and rethought.
Defunding the police would mean that “we are reducing the ability for law enforcement to have resources that harm our communities,” according to Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. “It’s about reinvesting those dollars into black communities, communities that have been deeply divested from.”
President Trump and several congressional Republicans have brushed off the idea as radical and unrealistic.
“Sleepy Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats want to ‘DEFUND THE POLICE,’” Trump tweeted over the weekend. “I want great and well paid LAW ENFORCEMENT. I want LAW & ORDER!”
In Minneapolis, where Floyd’s death has led to one charge of murder against a police officer, the heavily Democratic city council announced on Sunday its intention to “dismantle” the local police department “as it is currently structured.”
“In Minneapolis and in cities across the U.S., it is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe,” Lisa Bender, the city council president, said. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period. Our commitment is to do what’s necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth: that the Minneapolis police are not doing that. Our commitment is to end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.”
It is unclear what a revised public safety program in the city would look like.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the average law enforcement officer in this nation is not a racist,” Scott said. “One of the reasons why I’ve proposed legislation that George Floyd, Walter Scott notification is to get law enforcement agencies to report the data on the use of force that leads to death. Without that actual information in the aggregate value, we don’t really know what’s going on.”
