LETTER: Defunding the police?
I’m hearing protesters demand that police departments be defunded. They even booed the progressive mayor of Minneapolis when he refused to embrace that approach. Regardless of where someone falls on the issue of police brutality, the community needs that thin blue line which keeps it from anarchy and crime. What’s the alternative, vigilantism?
We can have a civil discussion on whether or not the police need funding to be a paramilitary organization or whether that same funding should be used instead for community policing and reforms. But to eliminate the police whole-scale is insane.
Activists lose support from those of us who commiserate with their grievances when their demands become more unreasonable and uncompromising. This causes impasses and then nothing changes.
