Judge Issues Devastating Ruling for Defund Police Movement
Ever since George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis has been overrun with rioting, looting and an overall surge in crime. This problem has only been exacerbated by the left’s attack on police forces in the area.
A Hennepin County District Court judge finally ruled on Thursday that Minneapolis must hire more police officers, KMSP-TV reported. It was the first step in quelling the surging crime rates in the city.
Eight plaintiffs with connections to the Upper Midwest Law Center originally filed a complaint due to concerns about the rising crime rates.
KMSP reported the eight individuals were Cathy Spann, Sondra Samuels, Don Samuels, Audua Pugh, Jonathan Lundberg, Aimee Lundberg, Georgianna Yantos and Juliee Oden.
Currently, the Minneapolis Police Department projects they will have only 669 sworn officers on June 1, 2022. However, the new ruling requires them to add at least 61 officers to that number by the end of next June.
The judge ordered city officials to “immediately take any and all necessary action to ensure that they fund a police force,” which means at least 730 officers need to be sworn in and employed by June 30, 2022.
Former city council member Don Samuels said his goal in filing the complaint is simply to ensure enough officers are employed to keep the community safe.
“We have made the emotional appeal,” he said. “We have demonstrated the statistical uptick and now this is the legal action we are exercising because it seems as if the City Council cannot hear us and doesn’t feel what we feel.”
In response to Floyd’s death last May, leftist politicians in Minneapolis decided to villainize their police force. NPR said “a veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members pledged to defund and dismantle the police department” in June 2020.
Nine council members were photographed at a rally with “defund police” clearly spelled out in giant letters. Soon after, the council proposed an amendment to completely replace the police department with a “Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention.”
That amendment was ultimately killed by the Minneapolis charter commission before it reached a public vote, but the damage was done.
Public servants are typically kind-hearted, but they are not dumb. Most people do not want to work in a field where they are constantly mocked and even accused of crimes for doing their jobs.
Logically, as the public turned on police officers, they began to quit. In February 2021, ABC News reported Minneapolis had approximately 200 fewer available officers than their average.
The problem spiraled so far out of control that the city council unanimously voted that month to spend $6.4 million in an effort to recruit and hire more officers. This is the same city council that attended a “defund police” rally less than eight months prior.
Now the order to hire more officers has come from an even higher authority who will hopefully ensure the city council follows through. That is obviously a win for those of us who support law enforcement.
In a literal sense, the judge’s ruling provides a devastating blow to the left’s effort to defund the police. Not only that, but it also destroys their already tarnished image.
It does not take a genius to understand how defunding the police will lead to more crime. Yet the leftists in Minneapolis fought so hard for this illogical initiative that a judge had to intervene and force them to hire law enforcement officers.
It has only been a year since Floyd’s death, but America is already experiencing the disastrous consequences of turning our backs on the ones who keep us safe. For this country to survive, we need more people to follow this judge’s example.
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