Since George Floyd’s death in police custody, social justice activists have adopted “defund the police” as their mantra for the implementation of police reform measures in America, if not outright abolishment of police departments altogether. Republican attorneys general in several states are pushing back on that notion, while nearly all Democrats have remained silent.
In Minneapolis, a veto-free majority of the City Council signed a pledge to dismantle the city police department as it is structured and reallocate funding to other areas of the city’s public safety budget.
“I will never stop saying: Not only do we need to disinvest from police, but we need to completely dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents a district within the city in Congress, said at a rally earlier this month. “The Minneapolis Police Department is rotten to the root. And so when we dismantle it, we get rid of that cancer, and we allow for something beautiful to arise. And that reimagining allows us to figure out what public safety looks like for us.”
Republican Jeff Landry, the top law enforcement officer in Louisiana, called on Democratic attorneys general to clarify where they stand on the issue of defunding the police.
The Washington Examiner contacted the offices of all 50 state attorneys general for comment on nationwide cries to defund the police. Just one Democratic attorney general out of 24 has provided a response as of Monday: Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
Five GOP attorneys general out of 26 responded directly to the Examiner’s inquiry, with more than a dozen releasing statements on the matter as noted by the Republican Attorneys General Association.
“Unlike many attorneys general, the Washington State attorney general does not oversee any peace offers or fully-commissioned law enforcement. Furthermore, the Attorney General does not enact state or local budgets,” a spokesperson for Ferguson said. “Your questions are more appropriate directed to lawmakers, the Chief of the State Patrol, local sheriffs or police chiefs.”
In Washington’s most populous city, Seattle, protesters, vandals, and rioters have taken over a six-block police-free area of the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Protesters, who call their new homeland the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” also known as CHOP, say they will not leave until local and state officials meet a list of published demands. Defunding Seattle’s police department by at least 50% is at the top of their list.
The zone has been the site of widespread destruction of property, as well as two shootings that occurred over the weekend, leaving one dead and two injured.
President Trump has voiced opposition to the idea of defunding local police departments while casting himself as a “law-and-order” president, a posture that has earned him cheers from Republican allies.
“The idea that we would ever dismantle our police administration, coming from not only as the Attorney General of the great state of Florida, as federal prosecutor, or as a judge for over a decade, but as a wife of a law-enforcement officer, I see what these men and women do for our communities,” said Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, a Republican, said any plan to pull resources away from officers would birth prime opportunities for criminals to take advantage of a weakened police presence in major cities.
“I work with law enforcement officers every day to combat child predators, human traffickers, and violent criminals,” Wilson said. “These law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day to keep all of us safe and defunding them is a ridiculous and dangerous response to this issue.”
The Democratic chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus also disavowed the calls to defund law enforcement.
“I told some friends that’s probably one of the worst slogans ever,” Rep. Karen Bass said. “Police officers are the first ones to say they are law enforcement officers, they’re not social workers.”
Presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden, has also said he is against the idea of pulling funding from police but suggested more needs to be done to invest in African American communities and to prevent crime in the first place.
“No, I don’t support defunding the police,” Biden said earlier this month. “I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”
Some moderate Democrats in Congress have expressed discomfort with the branding behind the words “defund the police,” which is now in the mainstream of public discourse.
Still, liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill say the only way to eradicate racism from policing in the United States is to tear the system down completely.
“Well, I think there’s — one question that is interesting here is that when it comes to funds, it’s not always just about the number of officers in the street,” freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s about these police precincts that have tanks, that have military weaponry, and frankly, have a degree of … of material resources and warlike weaponry … that people ask, ‘Why does a local police precinct have this in the first place?'”
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter called comments like AOC’s “concerning and counterproductive.”
“In places where department budgets are deeply cut, aging equipment would never be replaced, slower response times for those in need could result in a life or death situation and would ensure cuts to critical programs like school resource officers, who protect our children from violence on school campuses,” Hunter said. “I respectfully request those making this call to dispense with the rhetoric and employ reason as we all focus on solutions that unite our nation.”
