Defund and Destroy the Police  by Tom Reynolds

Remember ‘Defund the police’ - which came to include ‘Don’t support the police since they are white supremacist racists?’  How has that worked out?

In the 1990s, NY City Mayor Rudy Giuliani warned that “Petty crimes” such as vandalism, graffiti, burglary, public begging, squatting, illegal drug use, prostitution, filth, when not dealt with promptly and appropriately, quickly digress into out-of-control major crimes. Under Giuliani, NYCity was the safest big city in America and people wanted to live there

Giuliani was ridiculed and condemned by Democrats and the media as, among other things, a racist.

Since Giuliani, and with a succession of leftist mayors, New York City has grown more crime filled. 

To answer the crime problem, instead of more police, NY City now has “Violence Interrupters”; former gang members and people who have ‘experienced’ the criminal justice system acting as Violence Interrupters to try and stop shootings before they occur or to respond to the scenes of shootings to prevent retaliation.  (‘Experienced the criminal justice system’ is the leftist way of saying they were criminals.  What could go wrong?)

This is what!

Michael Rodriguez is a director of “Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence,” which is part of Mayor Eric Adams’ Violence Interrupter” plan.  He lives in Westchester, not in the Bronx!  He was arrested as a part of a narcotics trafficking network; officials say they found in his home over 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, $165,509 in currency, scales, a money counter, a vacuum sealer, digital scales and jewelry estimated to have a value of approximately $50,000.

Oh yeah, they also found an unlicensed Ruger .380 caliber pistol and an unlicensed Bond Arms .357 caliber handgun.  Isn’t it interesting that criminals are armed but ordinary citizens of NY City are not, which makes the citizens into “prey.” 

The violence interrupter model started in 1995 in Chicago.  (What a success story to build upon!) The program’s most ardent supporters say it is ‘promising.’

Some disagree.  The New York Post’s editorial board stated, “NYC needs cops, not violence interrupters.” Pointing to the city’s crime statistics – total felonies are up by 39% since 2021 and murders are now 40% above 2019 levels – it describes government outreach to such groups as an empty political gesture, one that is “less than useless for actual public safety” given that the “available statistical evidence to date suggests ‘interruption’ programs do very little, if anything, to drive down crime rates.”

In July, NY City Mayor Eric Adams said, “…crime is down across the city year to date, and our numbers continue to trend in the right direction.” 

The Mark Twain saying, “Figure don’t lie but liars can figure” seems to be true, since somebody has to be wrong. 

What’s the truth? 

People vote with their feet and NY City residents, especially the high earners have been fleeing the city.  Leftist Bloomberg puts a positive spin on outmigration from NYC.  They point out that it’s not as bad as it was; annual outmigration dropped from 300,000 to 200,000.

In 2020, Reuters reported that, “In Tribeca, a wealthy neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, residents who left this year earned an average income of about $140,000…The typical person moving into the neighborhood earned an average $82,000.”

Now there’s an economic plan doomed to failure.  Something which should sound familiar to all New Yorkers.

Why are they leaving the “Big Apple”.  Could crime have something to do with it?  Soros funded prosecutors are the anti-Giuliani’s as they don’t prosecute lower-level crime.

Police are leaving their jobs for lack of support.  “Urban flight’ was once used to describe the move to the suburbs but could now describe law enforcement officers fleeing big cities.  It doesn’t just happen in NY City.

Los Angeles Police Chief Michael Moore is reporting that LAPD’s complement of sworn officers has now dropped below 9,000 officers.  The Los Angeles City budget calls for 9,300 sworn officers (down from a high of 9,900 in 2010). 

This means that when you call the police in LA for anything short of a life-threatening, forcible felony in progress, they’re not coming!  The operator will curtly tell you to go to their web page and “file a report online.”

Ah, but count on another liberal stronghold, Illinois, to solve the police shortage problem.

A new bill allowing eligible non-U.S. citizens in Illinois to become police officers was signed into law by Governor J. B. Pritzker.  The bill, which will come into force on January 1, 2024, allows eligible immigrants who are not U.S. citizens to join law enforcement in Illinois.

Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert said, "People who are breaking the law by their presence here can now arrest American citizens. You know the other blue states are watching and getting ready to implement this idea as soon as they can!"

Illinois Republican Mary Miller tweeted: "No sane state would allow foreign nationals to arrest their citizens!"  (She is right, no SANE state would allow it.)

The bill was also denounced by the Fraternal Order of Police, an organization consisting of law enforcement officers nationwide. "This is a potential crisis of confidence in law enforcement at a time when our officers need all the public confidence they can get."

The bill's description on the Illinois General Assembly's website says, “an individual who is not a citizen but is legally authorized to work in the United States under federal law is authorized to apply for the position of police officers."  Eligible non-U.S. citizens, “must be able to obtain, carry, purchase, or otherwise possess a firearm under federal law.”

Foreign nationals "against whom the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have deferred immigration action under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process" will also be eligible, according to the bill's text.

If an active duty police officer were to break the law, they would probably be suspended from duty until the case was resolved and eventually fired if convicted of the crime.  But someone who broke the law in getting into the country need not worry about such legal issues.

Of course, all these solutions ignore one of the most obvious solutions, let the citizens be armed to protect themselves.  Which is, I’m pretty sure, a protected right under one of those pecky constitutional amendments.