A Year After ‘Defund,’ Police Dept's Get Their Money Back but the Slogan Scared Authoritarians [replacing Cops w/Community Hired and Fired Private Security who are Controllable is a Crazy, Crazy Idea]
Non-authoritarian Security. If a “public servant," such as a police officer, is uncontrollable, unaccountable, can’t be hired or fired by you, has irresponsible power over you and provides a compulsory “service” then he is actually your Master. Rather than reducing tax dollars budgeted to cops as a remedy to somehow stop police brutality, “Defund cops” could simply mean community hired and fired trained security workers who have a contractual duty to aid people in peril and a natural right to come to the defense of others but who have no right to initiate unprovoked acts of violence on people. Therefore, there would be no need for a police department. Private security is a way to solve the police are murdering & degrading Black people problem. What is authority or the right to rule others? Where did it come from? [MORE]
From [HERE] In cities across America, police departments are getting their money back. From New York to Los Angeles, departments that saw their funding targeted amid nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd last year have watched as local leaders voted for increases in police spending, with an additional $200 million allocated to the New York Police Department and a 3 percent boost given to the Los Angeles force.
The abrupt reversals have come in response to rising levels of crime in major cities last year, the exodus of officers from departments large and small and political pressures. After slashing police spending last year, Austin restored the department’s budget and raised it to new heights. In Burlington, Vt., the city that Senator Bernie Sanders once led as mayor went from cutting its police budget to approving $10,000 bonuses for officers to stay on the job.
But perhaps nowhere has the contrast been as stark as in Dallas, where Mr. Johnson not only proposed to restore money to the department but moved to increase the number of officers on the street, writing over the summer that “Dallas needs more police officers.”
“Dallas stands out for the amount of investment that the local government is putting into the department,” said Laura Cooper, the executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
After the mayor proposed increasing funding, no protests followed. When the Council backed a budget that restored many of the cuts made last year, few came to the public hearing, and even fewer spoke against the plan, which included the hiring of 250 officers. It passed with little fanfare last month.
In prioritizing public safety, Mr. Johnson, a Democrat, had drawn a connection between his approach and that of other Black leaders, like Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee in New York, who see the police as a necessary part of helping neighborhoods racked by crime. And he has drawn on his experience growing up in Black neighborhoods of Dallas.