A day after the Minneapolis City Council vowed to dissolve its police department, the Montgomery County Council is now examining whether it should "defund the police." Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D - District 1) says the Council has received almost 700 emails from constituents "advocating for defunding police, reforming police, reallocating resources to mental health services, housing initiatives, restorative justice, and more." The Councilman said on Facebook that "[w]e have many important conversations ahead."
The all-Democrat Council has been mostly silent on the nationwide issues of dissolving the police or defunding the police to this point. Progressives in Minneapolis quickly turned against very progressive Mayor Jacob Frey, who has pressed through radical reforms like ending single-family-home neighborhood zoning, when he declined to support the City Council plan to abolish its police department Saturday. With Montgomery County and Maryland veering sharply left in the last decade, it will be interesting to see how the County Council addresses these issues with progressive voters, who are now the decisive factor in Democratic primaries.
It's fine to defund the county police. We'll just call the state police when we need law enforcement. The state police make the county police look like little girls.
ReplyDeleteExcept that they only ever have two Troopers working at one time so you'll be waiting for a while for a response. Especially if they have to handle the whole County. Good luck.
DeleteReally?!? Good luck with that. How about you to call the police at all.
DeleteGreat idea except there's only ever two Troopers working at one time so you're going to be waiting for a while if you called the police. Especially if they have to handle the whole County. Good luck with that.
DeleteLet’s not forget! WHO ran into the Towers on 9/11? Who ran into Columbine and Sandy Hook Schools? Who subdues the domestic violence suspect after he beat his wife and child with a hammer? How about the guy that rapes a 3 month old? I could go on and on. THINK!
ReplyDeleteExactly! You could whine on and on, but you'd still be missing the point about defunding. This does not mean get rid of the police department, it does want them to continue to do the great things they do. Let's celebrate 9/11, Columbine, etc., but there is an evil element that needs to be addressed promptly in ALL police departments. Fairfax PD shot a man in his door way several years ago, and it took years from them to answer the community regarding the officer at fault. MCPD shot many citizens w/o justification over the last twenty plus years, that were difficult to resolve to citizen satisfaction. It is these elements of policing that must be removed from the mission.
DeleteTaking some money from a police department’s budget, and using it to create more affordable housing, or to fund mental health services, would create a community safety net better suited to respond to situations such as someone having a mental health crisis in public, rather than an armed officer. The police could then focus on more serious crimes.
The concept is that the role of the police can then significantly shrink because they are not responding to the homeless, or to mental health calls, or arresting children in schools, or really any other situation where the best solution is not someone showing up with a gun. That is the idea behind ‘defund the police,’ if you actually listen to it.
Defunding the police? This is the stupidest idea ever. I say we sue the county council and call for their resignations (or impeach them, if possible), it will be on the basis of gross negligence and endangering the public for attempting to eliminate police. Will we be calling the county council when burglers break into homes, theives steal cars, rapist attack people, and drunk drivers run kill people??? Really???
ReplyDeleteFurther, don't they realise that mass numbers of people will flee the area, the property values will plummet and they'll have less tax dollars to spend? It absurd that they are even considering such an idea. Swift community action must be taken to stamp out this idiotic idea.
700 emails from Marxist a holes in MoCo big surprise....guess what....the governor will send in the state police...see how you commies like that. Defunding police is nothing new it's a philosophy of Marxism....idiots
ReplyDeleteSo 700 commies want to defund police? Big surprise in MoCo....not a new concept...it's an old Marxist philosophy and you 700 people are commies...guess what dummies? The governor will send in the State Police...see how you like that....you can't have no police you dummies.
ReplyDeleteWill be a cold day in hell before Western Maryland would consider such insanity. Many of us would just move across the river to the "stand your ground" state. Could these folks be drinking from the Potomac River or the mental illness that is caused by the virus ?
ReplyDeleteBye Karen.
DeleteThis is literally the stupidest idea I've ever heard. There's already money available for low-income housing etc. Taking funding away from the police department that's already underfunded as is, is just a stupid idea. The number of decent cops out there as opposed to the number of idiot cops out there is staggering, because if most cops were bad we'd be dealing with this s*** everyday and not just once every other two or three years. It's like having a couple kids in the neighborhood break some windows and all the sudden we need to lock every kid up, tear down the schools, and use the money for what... low income housing? Have you all lost your minds?!
ReplyDeleteWhy would you want to defund the police as you say, take money from their budget and shift it to affordable housing or mental health services if it was not make the force smaller and have less enforcement. Reform is what we should be talking about, adding new training, new ideas to enforcement, added resources to weed out the "bad" cops, how can you possible think you are going to be able to improve the police as you say when you reduce their budget which would mean cutting officers, programs, equipment, training etc....Please explain how defunding would possibly help the police, defunding does 1 thing, it makes abolishing the police easier.
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely insane. Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest in Maryland. Police officers don't ask for much; they had to struggle to get hazard pay and now they won't get their raises (which they are entitled to). This would cause total anarchy. Families depend on them, or they did. This subject is very close to me as a lot of family members are police officers. Wake up and smell the fricking coffee people!
ReplyDelete