
To defund the police, activists rewrote city budgets - SamWhited
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/06/defund-police-reform-peoples-budget-racism-city-funding/612517/
======
trixie_
Changing the laws to end 'qualified immunity' is much more important.
Demilitarizing the police is also important. Maybe defunding would help with
that.

Watching police impose an excessive curfew on 10 million people (LA county)
and then round up hundreds of peaceful protesters last night was sickening.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_cDengPeSY&t=2240](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_cDengPeSY&t=2240)

These people expressing their first amendment right to assemble should have
been protected not persecuted. Police are out of control.

~~~
thoraway1010
The curfews in our area were put in place by elected officials as the violence
was out of control at night. This was not a police action.

The Constitution provides a right to peaceful assembly. It does not provide a
right to violence and looting. During the day people who wanted were and are
generally able to march and peacefully express their views.

~~~
trixie_
The violence was not out of control last night.

Case in point the video above showing hundreds of police officers surrounding
peaceful protesters. I am offended by the massive waste of resources.

Case in point news helicopters not filming looting (as they would rather do) .
The only thing left to film that night was the true protest. Made so so clear
in the video above. The abuse of power if you can't see it you're blind.

This proves the curfew was ordered under false pretenses. And demonstrates a
complete lack of judgement and common sense by law enforcement.

~~~
kyleee
No doubt there were a lot of good faith / peaceful protests that were shut
down and hindered, but there has also been a lot of looting. Here are couple
good long form videos showing some of the looting in and around Santa Monica
on a couple of the days:

[https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=vr3LrRUfJsY](https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=vr3LrRUfJsY)

[https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=PbxTqyW8yI0](https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=PbxTqyW8yI0)

~~~
basch
You don't just get to ban good behavior to stop bad behavior. The presence of
illegal looting does not take away constitutional rights. If it did, the
government would have incentive to incite riots and looting to force the
breakup of peaceful protest.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny)

~~~
kyleee
I agree to a point, but I do think depending on the scale of the lawlessness
that temporary measures such as a curfew can be reasonable in order to avoid
large scale destruction and violence

------
aswanson
People focus so much on presidential elections, but the intrusion of freedoms
and use of force against the citizen is largely at the municipal and state
level.

~~~
Loughla
Also, I've noticed that people care greatly about misspent federal dollars,
and don't seem to notice when all local city or county contracts go to someone
in the local government's brother or cousin.

I know the federal dollars are larger, but the disconnect is just astounding.

What got me involved in local politics was when the local county board asked a
group of us to write a grant for federal and state dollars to fund a rural
transportation program. This would be curb to curb service, at a very low
rate. Turns out we were the only county classified as 'rural' in our state
that did not have this grant.

They brought us in 2 months before the deadline, after 5 years and 10 months
of doing nothing with the grant but sitting on it and not publicizing it. They
were confused why we couldn't put together a multiple-hundred page research
document in two months.

I was confused why they seemed so slapdash with this process. Until I realized
one of the board members' brother and sister owned the only 'taxi' service
that served areas outside of the 'city'.

What a mess.

~~~
dave5104
I live in the Bay Area, which as you probably know has a shortage of new
housing construction. The town I live in has a councilmember that is a staunch
opponent of state-level housing regulations and regularly votes against new
housing projects in the town (or votes for less units, more difficulties on
the developer, etc.)

Surprise surprise, the councilmember, and her husband, are both realtors with
a personal interest in keeping the housing market tight. And of course, no
recusals when it comes to discussing policies or issues that she would benefit
from as a realtor.

The number of conflicts of interest at the municipal level is crazy, to the
point of being depressing sometimes.

~~~
threatofrain
What’s the town in question, if I might ask?

------
crazygringo
To be clear, "defunding" here doesn't mean _to zero_ , just defunding _most_.

As the chart shows, reducing a city's police spending from 53.8% to 5.72%.

I mean... I'm actually shocked to hear that policing is a majority of the
budget. That seems _wild_. Surely a twentieth of the budget is more in line
with legitimate needs to fight crime?

~~~
bb2018
I think the chart is misleading for those just seeing it in isolated form on
social media. It doesn't include education budget because that is not
discretionary. The school budget is 4x the police budget. I'm not exactly sure
the right way to show what to include and not to include - but think it is a
bit misleading to represent it this way.

If I was running a company and didn't show the cost spent on salaries or
office space it might look like we were spending a ton of money on coffee.

(I am in favor of reducing militarization of police - just offended as a
statistician!)

~~~
nharada
Frankly the fact that education is _only_ 4x the budget of the police force is
depressing in itself.

~~~
bb2018
Again - I think this is misleading and I should have specified. In California,
most of the money for schools comes from the state.

So, when I say school budget from LA is 4x the police budget, that is just
covering the 21% and 12% part of this graph. Doubling the LA school budget
would only increase the total school budget about ~33%

Again - if I was in charge I probably would lower police budgets and raise
school budgets - but I think those sharing the slices without being informed
are doing a disservice.

Source: [https://ed100.org/lessons/whopays](https://ed100.org/lessons/whopays)

I would love to be corrected on some of these issues, but in general looking
at just discretionary funds from a city and ignoring all other funds will lead
you to some wild conclusions.

------
gok
No, they didn't actually write a budget in any meaningful sense. They sent out
polls on social media [1] and asked respondents to rank four categories they
invented, three of which are unfocused concepts about what a civic government
might do:

1\. Universal Aid and Crisis Management

2\. The Built Environment

3\. Reimagined Community Safety

…and one category which covers an actual budget item:

4\. Law Enforcement

I should add that in order to take this survey, you had to decide to click
through a web page that says "We demand that the Mayor and City Council
prioritize care NOT cops", which... may have skewed the results somewhat.

Then they used those ranking to arbitrarily move numbers around. They decided
to skip over some important things like, I don't know, having a fire
department, or how they're going to pay for the pensions of those thousands of
now-unemployed police officers.

[1] [https://peoplesbudgetla.com/survey/](https://peoplesbudgetla.com/survey/)

------
cm2187
Except that minorities are the first victims of crimes, so defunding the
police will likely have the opposite effect, impacting the hardest the people
who cannot afford private security.

~~~
ChristianBundy
Smells like ideology to me.

EDIT: Downvotes don't change the fact that you didn't read the article. Nobody
is advocating for 'the purge'. Read the article or stop replying to my
comment.

EDIT 2: If you're too lazy to read this article (it's dense, I get it), here
are some others:

\- [https://www.newsweek.com/defund-police-movement-growing-
here...](https://www.newsweek.com/defund-police-movement-growing-heres-what-
it-actually-means-1508761)

\-
[https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/03/457251670...](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/03/457251670/how-
much-do-we-need-the-police)

~~~
djsumdog
Take the rod out of your own eye. What do you believe and why? Is it based on
facts?

Step back for a second. Some of these cities that are currently being ravaged
by riots in the US are being run by left/liberal democrats. In places like
Chicago/Detroit, they've been run by black democrats for years!

It is about class. They are well off minorities in power who are using the
system to keep themselves in power, just like their non-minority counterparts.
They are part of the problem. What if this is less about race and more about
class (and yes, systemic racism is likely leading to more black people being
kept in that lower class, but that's actually a slightly different issue).

In a period of extreme civil unrest, do we really need less security?
Disbanding the police didn't work in Iraq. It turned things to chaos.

How about just more police, with less guns, less expensive vehicles, and get
rid of all private prisons?

~~~
ChristianBundy
(I've responded to another comment in more depth if you're interested in that
sort of thing.)

> How about just more police, with less guns, less expensive vehicles, and get
> rid of all private prisons?

How about we disarm all street cops (think 'parking enforcement officer'), end
the war on drugs, and spend our money on things that actually help: healthcare
for all, housing for all, public transportation, and social programs.

> Disbanding the police didn't work in Iraq.

I'm not familiar, could you share a link? I'm not sure that I understand the
parallel, especially if you're thinking of the Iraqi Republican Guard ("elite
troops of the Iraqi army directly reporting to Saddam Hussein" [0]).

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Guard_(Iraq)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Guard_\(Iraq\))

~~~
kyleee
Would you be an unarmed cop in America with the prodigious amount of legal
(and illegal) gun ownership?

~~~
ChristianBundy
The fact that you're asking me a question like that illustrates that you
haven't read anything that I've said.

Community self-defense is absolutely necessary, and I'm not taking the
position that acts like murder should be shrugged off. No amount of healthcare
and housing and social programs will completely eradicate anti-social
behavior, and at the end of the day we need to maintain public safety.

My point, which has been echoed by the various links that I've shared (and the
article (which you're commenting on (which you should read!))), is that the
vast majority of public safety problems don't need to be solved by the police.
Quoting an article, because explaining this repeatedly is getting exhausting:

> Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep
> imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them
> nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers.
> That's what distinguishes them from all other government functions. ... They
> have the legal capacity to use violence in situations where the average
> citizen would be arrested.

> So when we turn a problem over to the police to manage, there will be
> violence, because those are ultimately the tools that they are most equipped
> to utilize: handcuffs, threats, guns, arrests. That's what really is at the
> root of policing. So if we don't want violence, we should try to figure out
> how to not get the police involved.

People experiencing mental health crises don't need cops, they need social
workers. Someone with a broken tail light doesn't need a cop, they need
someone who can quickly and safely replace their tail light.

There are a small number of situations where public safety might require
violence, but police officers are over-armed and under-qualified for the vast
majority of calls they show up to. Last year the most common 911 call in my
city was for an "unwanted person" [0], which I understand to mean
'experiencing homelessness', where cops really can't do anything to help. I'm
optimistic that our communities would be better served by less-armed and more-
qualified professionals who can use tools other than violence.

[0]: [https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/02/06/portlanders-
call-911-t...](https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/02/06/portlanders-call-911-to-
report-unwanted-people-more-than-any-other-reason-we-listened-in/)

~~~
kyleee
Your starting assertion: "The fact that you're asking me a question like that
illustrates that you haven't read anything that I've said" is unnecessarily
combative.

I was basing my question on the part of your comment where you suggested:

"How about we disarm all street cops"

I am generally in agreement that many first line encounters between cops and
civilians could be better served by social workers, EMS, etc. but was curious
about the idea of unarmed police in the US and how that might play out,
especially in situations where the civilian is armed (which is not always
known by dispatch nor the cops themselves, until it's too late).

~~~
ChristianBundy
> where the civilian is armed

Nitpick: Cops are civilians too. Every time the cops show up, the community
has to deal with an "armed civilian".

> situations where the civilian is armed (which is not always known by
> dispatch nor the cops themselves, until it's too late)

Cops aren't the only government employees that interface with the [potentially
armed] public though. Parking enforcement officers don't have guns, and it
doesn't seem to me that they're regularly ambushed. I've found three cases
where this has happened, although I'm sure there are others:

\- Campus parking officer stabbed my school janitor
([https://nypost.com/2018/06/29/campus-parking-officer-
stabbed...](https://nypost.com/2018/06/29/campus-parking-officer-stabbed-to-
death-in-california/))

\- Ex-Federal Protective Service cop gets intoxicated and shoots at parking
enforcement ([https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/shots-fired-at-
park...](https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/shots-fired-at-parking-
enforcement-officer-while-on-the-job/2072813/))

\- "Man with AK-47 approaches parking officer during argument about tickets"
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDJ4OsYXul0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDJ4OsYXul0))

Anyway, yes, there are lots of people with guns, and that means that they may
act erratically (to neighbors _and_ government employees).

Showing up with guns and threatening them with violence makes many people
behave __more __erratically, not less, and my hope would be that we don 't
have to worry about "what if that guy has a gun" because 'maintaining public
safety' means replacing their broken headlight rather than giving them a
ticket and a court date and demanding to search their vehicle while you're at
it.

------
grey-area
Some figures for police budgets in US cities:

City of Orlando spends 31.6% of its budget on police. Oakland spent 41 percent
of the city's general fund on policing in Fiscal Year 2017. Chicago spent
nearly 39 percent, Minneapolis almost 36 percent, Houston 35 percent.

[https://www.usnews.com/news/national-
news/articles/2017-07-0...](https://www.usnews.com/news/national-
news/articles/2017-07-07/cities-spend-more-and-more-on-police-is-it-working)

These figures seem remarkably high compared to other spending.

~~~
inetknght
I'm a Houston resident. In a recent election there was a ballot measure which
would affect the pay of Houston firefighters. In particular our firefighters
were getting paid less than our police. The ballot measure was supposed to
increase firefighters' pay to match. It was accomplished... but didn't meet
the budget I guess. So firefighters were laid off instead. Here's [0] a
related news article about it.

[0] [https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
texas/houston/...](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
texas/houston/article/Houston-firefighters-begin-receiving-
layoff-13810648.php)

~~~
chomp
Also Houston resident. That whole thing was ridiculous. The problem goes back
many years. Municipal and Police blew up the pension budget to something
unsustainable through a variety of tactics, and firefighters got nowhere near
the amount of cash that those two departments got. Then like 20 years ago when
all of the cities in America started defunding pensions and then the chickens
came to roost, Houston started issuing crazy bonds to keep up with the police
and municipal workers, and firefighters actually had a decent fund that was
mostly self sustaining and didn't require external funding as far as I know.
Something super high like 90% of their pensions were fully funded.

Then when Houston made budget cuts recently, they disproportionately cut
firefighter pensions even though they were mostly responsible and funded, but
I guess it looked like a stash of cash to the city. Keep in mind firefighters
had previously made pay raise sacrifices to ensure their pension benefits
continued. So they wanted the pay raises back since the pensions got cut, and
they got laid off (and also some raise was given).

------
jeffbee
Numbers the article lacks. In 1993 the LAPD budget was $555m, or $985m today.
The proposed budget for next year was $1860m, almost double. The population of
LA has increased about 15% in the interim but the number of reported crimes
fell from 80k/year to 30k/year. The real-dollar cost per crime reported has
gone up more than 5x.

~~~
dk8996
Please feel free to ignoring the fact that cost of living in LA has gone up
above inflation rate. Check your bias at the door please.

"For example, the Bureau of Census reports that the average price of a new
home in January 2000 was $194,800.4 According to the inflation calculator,
that price in January 2020 should be $297,705.3 The same report places the
average sale price for January 2020 at $402,400, more than 35% higher when
accounting for inflation alone."

~~~
jeffbee
Great, now do the LAUSD budget. It has gone up less than baseline inflation in
the same period. So why are police getting a huge real-dollar increment in
their budget while schools get none?

------
clairity
i'm all for _people’s budgets_ over police-oriented budgets. yesterday's _take
two_ † had councilman mike bonin talking about LA's budget, also calling out
the increases in police budget relative to cuts in services that could soften
the economic devastation we've seen this year.

incidentally, the covid response (lockdowns, fear-driven justifications,
selective enforcement) and the protest response (needless curfews, calling in
the national guard, selective protection) has really revealed LA mayor
garcetti's weakness as a leader, someone who runs to use of force at the
slightest provocation. with such authoritarian tendencies, he needs to exit
stage left.

† [https://www.scpr.org/programs/take-
two/2020/06/03/20895/](https://www.scpr.org/programs/take-
two/2020/06/03/20895/)

------
Nasrudith
Really defunding the police is a natural punishment for their repeated
failures and lack of accountability. If more funding doesn't get better
results, and the purse strings don't even get responsiveness to their needs
then why bother beyond a bare minimium?

Even a temporary measure to bring them to heel and forcing them to recognize
who is really in charge could be useful for relations.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> Even a temporary measure to bring them to heel and forcing them to recognize
> who is really in charge could be useful for relations.

The police have a trump card. There really are bad people. And force is
required to stop them. In protest, they can just slow walk all calls and say
this is due to the budget being cut. If crime rises in the cities, people are
going to blame the city leadership. Remember that a lot of the “tough on
crime” emphasis of the 90’s came because of rising crime in the 70’s and 80’s.
People hate chaos.

------
Vysero
Yes let's de-fund the police. I am sure that will have no impact on future
police recruitment or their general sense of appreciation for that matter.
Which I am sure will have zero impact on their willingness to put their lives
on the line when they are actually needed.

~~~
djsumdog
I think it's important not to hate the police. If there are problems with the
system, it's the laws that need to be changed. We're seeing that right now
with marijuana laws, and it is having an impact.

We can do the same by at least offering better programs for people arrested
for meth/opioids. More free treatment. If they fail out, fine, go back to the
jail route, but give people a chance to at least try and choose.

The police do take a lot of money, but we're also seeing more money go to
teachers/schools, working-class city workers (garbage, sewer, public works).
That's not always a bad thing, but if you break down the numbers, you can
often find corruption everywhere (like a school district superintendent taking
like a $300k income).

I think the focus on police is the wrong policy choice right now. That's not
the core issue. It's everything else.

~~~
Nasrudith
The police have frankly earned every last scintillia of their hatred from
their actions and lack of accountability.

We don't accept a rapist or fraudster blaming society for the damage they do
to get the sex or money they want and we should certainly hold actual
authorities to higher standards instead of lower ones. The system being messed
up does not negate their own moral agency and deriliction from it. To acquit
them is even worse than even "just following orders" but an utterly insane "it
is unfair that I am being judged by the intentions and outcomes of my actions
taken on my own initiative".

~~~
Vysero
First of all: "The police have frankly earned every last scintillia of their
hatred from their actions and lack of accountability." Is just ignorant. The
VAST majority of police are wonderful people who have dedicated their lives to
helping others. Secondly, you have no idea what the stakes are for anyone who
is following orders, and it could vary from: none at all too: not being able
to pay for their child's leukemia treatments.

~~~
jdashg
Wow, no, following orders for a paycheck isn't acceptable. I think most of us
felt that was definitively decided at Nuremberg.

There are many other ways to get a paycheck that don't involve, well, all that
we keep seeing on the news.

~~~
newen
Thank you. I see too many "I was just following orders" arguments in the
internet.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I think 2020 will go down as the year, that housing prices drop in big cities.
Between the pandemic and the social unrest and property destruction, the
suburbs are looking more and more appealing, especially if you have children.

------
starpilot
Watch Swedish cops restrain a belligerent on the nyc subway. They take him
down, then keep asking him if he's ok. Why can't American cops be like this?
Why do they talk about "hitting them hard" rather than just "make sure they're
ok"? Why is the default relationship adversarial?

~~~
renewiltord
There was a belligerent drunk being an asshole to the conductor on my train in
Switzerland and these two guys sitting in the back suddenly pulled out their
badges (which were on chains around their necks) and turned out to be
plainclothes transport police.

It was an amusing interaction to watch because:

* The drunk fellow was much larger than the conductor but she didn't even seem fazed and was pretty much telling him that if he wasn't going to produce a ticket (I don't know if this was one of those buy-in-the-train trains) he was going to have to get off.

* He was being all up in her face but when the cops got up they just walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder

* They did have to restrain him but it was all rather civilized

I can't help but think that considering everything he'd be tackled to the
ground where I live now. It was sort of like a movie to watch these two guys
dressed like you'd see street punks in a movie suddenly turn out to be
transport police.

Naturally it's one incident and I don't know what use of force is like in
Switzerland or Sweden in general.

------
627467
I would assume that before you go make resources decisions you first reassess
the goals that society have for said funding. Maybe rethink the role of
police?

------
codeddesign
Less funding means less police, not better police. I don’t see how this
resolves any issues. In Detroit, you can see what happens when you heavily
defund police departments. Crime and police response time dramatically
increase. Defunding is like taking the clothes away from a mis-behaving child.
It doesn’t fix the child’s issue, the child is just naked now.

------
egberts1
I’m all for experimentation in these days and ages. We’ll be able to document
far-reaching changes (both good and bad). Sure, some communities and business
sectors may dissolved due to such disruption but that’s the price of
civilization and (d)evolving governance.

------
Symmetry
I think this is a bad idea. We really need drastically more police training on
things like de-escalation. I think we actually also need more police. Part of
our problem is that while putting police in cars and dispatching them
centrally via radio let us cut down on the number of police we use it also had
the effect of making police officer isolated from the community. The start of
this in the US was during Prohibition and this was looked on as a plus at the
time in terms of enforcing laws communities didn't agree with.

Making the police's only community contacts be with criminals means that they
subconsciously absorb social norms from criminals and I think that's on
display right now. We need to purse community policing even at the cost of
decreased efficiency. We can't get rid of the police and the US's current
system is obviously not working.

~~~
Ericson2314
Turning the other cheek and buying more training is not an effective strategy
of reforming an institutional adversary.

~~~
Symmetry
I think it's very important in situations like this to have a goal in mind. I
don't see abolishing the police as an option here, martial law and self-help
justice are even more undesirable than our current situation. So changes have
to be made with a view to creating a better world rather than just lashing out
to make ourselves feel better. Countries like Britain show that good policing
is a possibility so we should be working towards reforms that make that
possible.

~~~
Ericson2314
It's not lashing out, it's a calculated decision to reduce the power of the
adversary.

> Countries like Britain show that good policing is a possibility so we should
> be working towards reforms that make that possible.

Just because we call our thing "police" and they call their thing "policy"
doesn't mean there is a direct path of reform from one to the other.

The situation in the US is very different from other rich nations---former
widespread slavery, more guns, fewer social services. All this in forms the
culture of the institution in the US as much anything it has in common with
other rich countries.

Defunding and simultaneously reinvesting in this areas addresses _exactly_
these underlying conditions---the Police are forced to do less and other
agencies are empowered to do more. Then, and only then, can the US police be
expected to act like their Western European counterparts.

------
gnusty_gnurc
This smacks of utopianism - social policy won't do away with crime. And color
me surprised if the woke crowd successfully run with an austerity agenda.

------
Simulacra
I disagree with defunding the police because at some point, we run the risk of
losing the rank and file cop. What happens if 40% of LAPD calls out sick for a
week, and those remaining abstain from crowd control or enforcement.

I guess I’m just saying maybe defunding the police will make them feel
attacked unjustly which may spiral to worse depths.

~~~
uoaei
You are making the false assumption that we currently have exactly as many
cops as we need.

~~~
Simulacra
No, no assumptions here. If I had to make any assumptions it would be that we
do not have enough police officers in total, but that is largely dependent
upon geographical or local criteria, much it is with any public service entity
such as teachers, firefighters, etc. A $150 million cut (7.2%) in the LAPD
budget ($1.8 bn) might mean nothing in the overall functioning of the
organization, but to a smaller police department, a 7% cut in funding could
mean very bad consequences.

------
jb775
I wonder who the "activists" will blame when business investment moves to
other cities, property values drop dramatically, and crime goes through the
roof. I'm assuming whatever's in-vogue politically at the time.

------
beastman82
That sounds like a truly horrible idea

~~~
illumanaughty
The police do not need billions of dollars. Defunding the police is a great
idea. There are many more effective ways to spend this money. Police are used
as a (poor) bandage for issues that stem from lack of funding in other areas,
like healthcare, social work and housing.

~~~
dominotw
> Defunding the police is a great idea.

People saying this live in secure, peaceful suburbs( obviously).

~~~
marcinzm
Or aren't white and thus are more likely to be shot than helped by the police
no matter how crime ridden their neighborhood.

~~~
dominotw
do you any stats for this by any chance?

[https://time.com/5818553/gun-violence-chicago-
coronavirus/](https://time.com/5818553/gun-violence-chicago-coronavirus/)

how would slashing funding for police help. I don't follow this chain of logic
at all. People here in south side chicago die of gun violence not of police
harassment. General concensus here has been that city doesn't have enough
budget to grapple with gun violence that kills thousands of people here. Now
all of sudden its that they have too much budget. How can both be true.

~~~
uoaei
We can't keep having this same conversation over and over again. History
exists, and it's incumbent on you to take the time to seek it out instead of
asking others to do the work for you. Re-litigating the premise makes you look
uninformed.

~~~
dominotw
heh..ok i will research this more.

------
cmdshiftf4
Give the people what they want. Cut the budgets and reduce policing. If this
is truly what _the people_ want, then on their heads may it be.

~~~
dk8996
I agree with you in a game setting where we play multiple roads but that's not
possible and I think many people will be hurt by this.

------
peter_retief
It is hard to believe there are people who have such little understanding of
reality.

~~~
cmdshiftf4
We're in a period of mass hysteria, largely at the hands of social media
networks. The only thing a sane person can do right now is sit back and let it
play itself out before we're moved on to the next thing to be outraged and
divided over.

~~~
peter_retief
Defunded police are a danger to the society they serve, it is a dangerous
narrative as well.

------
User23
This is a good example of an area where the far left and the far right are in
total agreement. The far left is obvious, but the far right people also love
the idea of defunding the police. It sets back the gun control agenda because
without effective police the arguments for gun ownership become immeasurably
stronger. It sets back the feminist agenda because it means women will have to
depend on the men they know for protection, unless they are willing to carry
and use a gun.

And that's barely scratching the surface. The number of higher order
consequences of defunding the police are mind-boggling. Insurance costs will
obviously skyrocket for one, if policies even continue to be offered at all.
Seeing a market opportunity, organized criminals will certainly step up their
classic protection rackets. The wealthy will have to spend slightly more on
private security, but obviously that doesn't really bother them. And of course
if all that money is instead sent to minority communities, well I guarantee
there will be some kind of struggle over who gets control of it.

~~~
renewiltord
Well, the high-liberty right is anti-police because they are the arm of state
violence so there's a more direct relationship.

------
throwawaysea
The "People's Budget"? The folks calling for defunding are small in number and
do not represent the views of all or even most of the "People". I don't want
to see the police defunded, nor do most reasonable people around me. Here in
Seattle, given the sharp increase in property crimes and blight over the last
ten years, I would like to see the opposite - increased policing and increased
prosecution. It's an especially big problem since most people are so jaded
from the total lack of police response, that they simply no longer report
property crimes.

We've already hamstrung our justice system due to calls from activists. For
example, the city regularly releases criminals instead of sentencing them,
which resulted in infuriating situations, like a man with 74 prior convictions
including 15 assaults being released, only to then throw hot coffee at a
toddler ([https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/no-felony-
charges-...](https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/no-felony-charges-for-
repeat-offender-who-threw-coffee-at-toddler-in-seattle)). Reducing policing
simply further removes disincentives for crime, beyond what we've done
already, and will remove all the good we get from policing as well.

The calls for "community programs" also seem incredibly vague and wasteful,
and are unlikely to provide any substitute for the societal safety that comes
from enforcing laws. Instead, I suggest we focus on more nuanced and precise
actions - like banning or altering training around carotid artery holds, like
banning no-knock raids, like having always-on body cams, like revisiting
qualified immunity ([https://fee.org/articles/to-curtail-police-impunity-rep-
just...](https://fee.org/articles/to-curtail-police-impunity-rep-justin-amash-
announces-legislation-to-end-qualified-immunity/)), etc.

~~~
Bjartr
Here's the prosecutor's office's response to the release of the man who threw
coffee at a toddler (from the article you linked in fact).

\----------------

In evaluating whether there is sufficient evidence to support a felony charge,
we are ethically bound to apply the facts of a particular case to the law as
established by the legislature. This is regardless of the history of a
particular defendant or the outrageousness of the conduct.

In order to elevate an assault against a child from a gross misdemeanor to a
felony, there must be some level of bodily harm to the victim. The details of
this law are specified here:
[https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.36.140](https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.36.140)

Throwing coffee on a child is horrible and abusive behavior. Due to the
Seattle Police Department (SPD) patrol’s response we were able to answer the
questions we needed to determine the appropriate charges in this case. We
learned from the police report that the child, thankfully, did not appear to
have been injured in any way and we were told that the child received no
medical treatment. In other words, the facts of this particular case didn’t
support this being a felony. That said, we were able to refer the case to
Seattle Municipal Court to ensure the offender was kept in custody.

\----------------

According to the laws in place, no matter how many police there were or how
well funded they were, the man, by law, should have been released in that
particular circumstance. If that's unacceptable, then the laws should change,
but as it stands this event was the justice system working as designed.

~~~
monocasa
The prosecutor is wrong, and you can tell that they know they're wrong because
they linked to the wrong statute.

[https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.36.130](https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.36.130)

You can upgrade to second degree for "or (ii) causing the child physical pain
or agony that is equivalent to that produced by torture."

I think you can make the argument that pouring near boiling water on a toddler
counts as that.

~~~
Bjartr
Playing devil's advocate:

You could also make the argument in the other direction, so this isn't as cut
and dry a case of the prosecution being clearly at fault.

Additionally, this is a legal document, and there could be a strict definition
of "torture" or for how one determines "pain or agony equivalent to" that
doesn't make intuitive sense, but applies in the legal context (as I
understand things as a non-lawyer, it's not that uncommon for words to mean
surprising things in legal documents, which is a big part of why lawyers are
valuable, they know how to currently interpret words that would mean something
very different in conversational English)

Do you have more information on this that would eliminate that ambiguity?

~~~
monocasa
I mean, he only cited the weakest part of the statute.

> and there could be a strict definition of "torture" or for how one
> determines "pain or agony equivalent to" that doesn't make intuitive sense,
> but applies in the legal context (as I understand things as a non-lawyer

Those are called "matters of fact" (in contrast to matters of law) which is
what you need a jury for. The question of "did he cause pain or agony" would
be the core question the jury would be answering.

~~~
Bjartr
The are good points. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

