Monday, May 17, 2021

May, 2021, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Failure To Protect Citizens In Chicago, New York City, and Minneapolis, The Deadly Consequences Of Defund The Police

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) For far too many years and posts we have discussed the unending violence and killing that has been going on in Chicago. Despite the violence and nation leading murder totals every year, the city political class has never come close to finding a solution to the murders and shootings and, if anything, the violence is getting worse.

Consider a recent, and typical, weekend in the city:
  • During a recent weekend, seven city residents were killed by gun violence.
  • In total, more than 45 people were shot including a 14 year old boy.
  • That doesn't include the two others who were stabbed, one fatally.
  • The 14 year old boy received three wounds but is still alive.
  • Twelve of those that were shot were shot inside of a two hour window on a Saturday night.
  • While the year 2020 was the worst year for gun violence since 2016, the violence and shootings and deaths in 2021 are on track to exceed last year's spike in violence since there have already been almost 200 homicides through the month of April.
  • Over 1,000 residents have already been shot in 2021.
  • The number of people shot in the city in April is 299 vs. only 225 in April, 2020.
As we have often discussed, a basic, basic, fundamental role of government is to protect the lives and safety of its citizens. For years and years, Chicago politicians have failed miserably in that basic responsibility.

2) I would think most people would find that New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, has been a failure on just about any front:
  • His stupid advice in the early days of the pandemic likely caused the virus to spread much more rapidly than if he had kept his mouth shut.
  • His loathing of the NYPD has caused low morale among the force and bitterness between the mayor and the heads of the police unions.
  • His belittling of the police force along with his stupid efforts to defund the police has caused incredible spikes in all kinds of crime in the city.
  • As a result, many city residents have hit the road and moved out of the city as have many businesses.
Much like the mayor and politicians in Chicago discussed above, he does not seem to have any clue on how to fix what he has broken. This is pretty much verified by his recent idea on how to protect city employees:
  • Rather than fix the crime and violent criminal elements in the city, the mayor’s big idea is to have city employees have “travel buddies” as they travel to and from work.
  • This is especially true for those employees that use the subways as the subway system has become a focal point of increased city crime.
  • Part of the overall crime problem and the specific subway crime problem is a 2020 New York law that forced the judicial system to theoretically release criminals charged with non-violent crimes without bail or jail time.
  • Unfortunately, this law has some serious flaws as illustrated when a criminal suspect tried to push an undercover police officer onto the subway tracks.
  • The suspect was charged with harassment, aggravated harassment, and menacing with a racial overlay since the undercover officer was Asian-American.
  • Despite the criminal charges, the suspect was both arrested and released without bail the same day.
  • In the wake of this insanity the best de Blasio can come up with is a “travel buddy” system: “Our mission is to make New York City safer for everyone; that’s why we have transit officers and mental health teams in the subway system, and that’s why we’re spearheading this effort [travel buddies] to make our colleagues feel comfortable after a year away from the office,” de Blasio spokesman Mitch Schwartz, said in a statement.
  • He then tripped over his own logic when being interviewed, he said the subways were getting safer and more and more people were taking the subways to which the interviewer asked, “If everything is fine, why should people be buddying up?”
  • His response was pure political double talk with the conclusion that more people traveling in the subway will somehow make the criminal element go away.
Much like Chicago, clueless in New York on how to execute a basic function of government, protecting the lives of citizens.

3) Speaking of defunding the police and the resultant spike in crime in NYC, let’s revisit the birthplace of the “defund the police” movement, Minneapolis:
  • That city also saw a major spike in crime when it decided to defund its police force, much like de Blasio did to the NYPD.
  • Not surprisingly, after defunding the police, stripping it of officers and resources, city crime spiked significantly.
  • Things got so bad, that city council members, the ones that had voted to defund their police force, hired, using taxpayer money, private security guards to protect themselves, ordinary citizens' safety be damned.
  • As crime spiked, the council finally saw the error of its ways and decided to increase the funding of the police force to the tune of an additional $6.4 million.
  • But as a result of this circle jerk going from defunding to increasing the police force funding, crime went up and citizens started paying with their lives.
  • In a recent weekend, seven people were shot in a span of just 12 hours.
  • The mayor, Mayor Jacob Frey, has stepped in and has been holding meetings with community leaders to find any set of solutions to the increase in crime.
  • He also finally admitted that the defunding the police rhetoric and actions were at least partly responsible for the increase in crime: “The violence needs to stop, it’s unacceptable. People deserve to feel safe in their neighborhood, they deserve to be able to send their kids out to the sidewalk to play and to recreate without bullets flying by. That’s unacceptable. We should be holding those perpetrators accountable.”
  • One community leader, Pastor Dale Hume, knows what the real root cause of the crime problem is: “To people who think that the easy solution to this is defund the police, when you live here and something like this happens, you can obviously see that is not the solution."
Another city, another defund the police movement, another spike in crime and the agony and deaths that came with it. Looks like the political class across the country in major cities still cannot provide that basic function of government: protecting the lives of the citizens they serve.

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