Defunding the Police May Have Negative Consequences

The Castle Report

Darrell Castle talks about the movement to defund the police in many of our progressive Democrat cities and some of the consequences that are developing from the movement. Transcription / Notes: DEFUNDING THE POLICE MAY HAVE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES Hello this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Today is Friday July 3, 2020 the day before the 4th of July when in years past we have celebrated our nation’s founding. My office is closed today in honor of Independence Day, but I maintain my lonely vigil high atop the streets of my city. I will be talking about the movement to defund the police in many of our progressive Democrat cities and some of the consequences that are developing from that movement. For the Castle Family everything is just fine as we struggle on against the effects of the virus. The family daughter still stuck but safe thousands of miles away. In honor of the 4th I will make this a little shorter today, but I need to say a few words about big city police forces and what is happening to them as they go out each day to face the most violent and relentless people among us. My observation after more than 40 years of working within the legal system in my city of Memphis, Tennessee as well as other cities around the country is that the authority figures from judges to mayors want and need the support of the police forces in their city. They always have, at least until now, given the police the benefit of the doubt. The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis changed that perspective and city leaders in Democrat cities across the country, perhaps caught up in the moment, began to speak out against the police. People were and are upset, not with individual officers but the police in general. Calls to defund them in many places and calls for disbanding them in others became the order of the day. Police morale plummeted as the officers began to feel the city and people, they risked their lives to protect, turning their backs on them. Many officers across the country felt like they were being held responsible for what four officers in Minneapolis had done. Since this whole movement started in Minneapolis let’s look at that city first. After the George Floyd killing, the city council voted 9 to 0 to completely abolish the city’s police department. The vote will require a referendum on the ballot for popular vote in November, but such a vote must have been devastating for police morale. The council quickly voted to fund a private security force for themselves at a cost of $4500 per day each. They deliver the chaos to others through their grandstanding, but sure don’t want to be subject to it themselves. The officers repeatedly expressed the view that they had been abandoned by the city and its people. Those veteran officers eligible for early retirement went ahead and retired and many others just resigned. The president of the police union offered to resign but the officers convinced him not to. The executive director of the Minnesota police association said “Leadership really needs to turn and luck in the mirror. At the state level, at the city level, nobody’s doing that right now.” The result was that the murder rate in Minneapolis skyrocketed virtually overnight. With police not answering calls or at least very few calls the people of Minneapolis apparently decided to amuse themselves by killing each other. Out in Seattle the summer of love turned into the summer of murder, rape, and robbery much to the chagrin of Mayor Jenny Durkin. She finally ordered the police force to dismantle the foreign country established in the middle of her city. She makes the mess and her much maligned police force clean it up. In New York City mayor De Blasio always has his ear to the ground listening for the rumbles of warnings of evolving progressive agenda items. He came under pressure to defund the police and on his own authority the NYC police are now absent about one billion dollars in funding.