Defunding police an overreaction

By Letter to the Editor on June 25, 2020.

Bowing to mob demands, the mayors of Los Angeles, NYC and Minneapolis cut funds to their police forces. This is one of the worst political ideas ever. It won’t reverse the powerlessness, the failed self-worth, the fear at being unable to successfully reverse an attack against one’s own person.

George Floyd attempted to make a purchase using an obvious counterfeit $20 bill. It was police business to apprehend him. But it was out of line to put a knee down and crush the life out of him.

We saw a lesser extreme with the May 4 Stormtrooper – a girl in a costume who began crying when officers trained guns on her. She, too, got the knee, disingenuously reported as “a minor injury that did not require hospitalization”: she was pressed into the pavement until her nose bled. Great visual. It should have ended when that plastic toy gun clattered. The online ridicule was fully earned.

But “defund the police?” That’s a nuclear option, blindly reactionary and way overblown. It’s impelled by a child’s-level desire to punish. Not just offending officers, but everybody else, too, who’d find themselves powerless and without lawful recourse. Truckers already refuse to deliver goods to Antifa’s unlawful Seattle stronghold.

The replacement enforcers act without the oversight of superior officers or a police commission. They have far fewer resources, almost no chain of command for accountability, little crime investigation ability, and want to wrap a case quickly. They’re primed for a rush to judgment on anyone they apprehend. The good news, for President Trump, is that this meltdown and the politics driving it occur in Democrat districts. He’ll offer the presidential election as a referendum on how they’re doing.

Police have a vital protective role. We enjoy the outcomes of their work without realizing its effort and cost. It’s thankless for them all, when any are exposed as wrongdoers. This inflamed, indignant demand, if met, would be only the beginning of an injustice inferno. Cancel culture has never been so stupid.

Tom Yeoman

Lethbridge