Watch: Black Cop Blasts BLM and LA City Councilwoman Over Police Budget Cut Plan
While all Americans can agree that the death of George Floyd was tragic and that police officers who abuse their power should face consequences for their actions, some on the far left have embraced the idea of throwing the baby out with the bathwater by “defunding the police.”
In Los Angeles, America’s second-largest city, Mayor Eric Garcetti has proposed cutting up to $150 million from the police department’s $1.8 billion budget.
This proposal did not sit well with Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz, vice president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
Sandoz, an African-American, blasted LA City Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez on Friday for threatening to cut the police budget and furloughing city officials while “finding the money to give $250 million to Black Lives Matter.”
Video posted of LAPD officers outraged over proposed cuts following protests addressing LA City Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez. “Now you’re cutting from their families and they put everything on the line? We are going to fight… At the ballot box.” @CBSLA @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/9YXcMCd3Hd
— JASMINE VIEL (@jasmineviel) June 5, 2020
Sandoz, surrounded by officers from the Valley Bureau, received a round of applause from her fellow men and women in blue as she slammed Rodriguez.
“You bow down to Black Lives Matter,” she said. “These police officers that are out here protecting this city, they’re protecting it from being on fire. If it wasn’t for them, this city would be burnt down right now.”
After explaining that Black Lives Matter protesters had thrown bottles at police officers, “cracking their skulls,” Sandoz expressed dismay that “you guys are listening to them” while forgetting about the “citizens that are law-abiding.”
According to Sandoz, all those citizens want “is these officers to protect them.”
Sandoz definitely has a point. It is law-abiding citizens, especially those in minority communities, who will suffer the most from “defunding the police,” either in full or in part.
Unfortunately, the situation in Los Angeles is not unique.
In Minneapolis, where George Floyd died while in police custody, City Council President Lisa Bender has enthusiastically spoken out in favor of defunding her city’s police force.
Yes. We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a transformative new model of public safety. https://t.co/FCfjoPy64k
— Lisa Bender (@lisabendermpls) June 4, 2020
When asked by CNN’s Alisyn Camerota who she would have to call if, “in the middle of the night, my home is broken into,” Bender gave an extremely pathetic and ignorant response:
“Yes, I mean, I hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors. And I know — and myself, too, and I know that that comes from a place of privilege. Because for those of us for whom the system is working, I think we need to step back and imagine what it would feel like to already live in that reality where calling the police may mean more harm is done.”
It is clear that Bender did not think about the consequences of defunding the police at all. Then again, neither did eight of her 13 colleagues who say they share her desire to “dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department.”
According to the left, all police officers are bad and racist and only people of “privilege” would ever need police protection.
Fortunately, most Americans disagree with that point of view. According to a recent YouGov poll, just 16 percent of Americans support defunding the police.
The Black Lives Matter narrative about the police in America is wrong and misguided. In Los Angeles, racial minorities comprised 64.6 percent of the force in 2013.
In other words, the idea of police as a white supremacist organization committed to terrorizing African-Americans does not hold up under scrutiny.
Do not expect the facts to get in the way of the far-left agenda to defund the police in America, which will move full steam ahead regardless of the negative externalities that will ensue for the “law-abiding” citizens that Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz talked about.
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