The Cons to Defunding the Police

The Cons

  • Funds reallocated from the police will not necessarily get to the community nor do the programs created with said funds come with a guarantee of success. 

           Photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash

It’s no secret that occasionally city officials and employees have been discovered with the  embezzlement and misappropriation of  funds for nefarious causes. For example, read the news release that was put out by cityofpasadena.net where they report such a scandal and pay close attention how long this misbehavior went on for before being discovered:

City Officials Share Details on Audit into Embezzlement and Misappropriation of Public Funds

 December 30, 2014 News Releases

PASADENA, Calif.—City officials today are providing additional details on an audit that has led to the arrest of former City employee Danny Wooten in connection with misappropriation of public funds and embezzlement of up to $6.4 million from Pasadena over the past 11 years.

It is amazing to think that this city employee was able to go through 11 annual audits before someone said, “Hey, we might want to look into this.”  It would be laughable if it wasn’t so much of a common thing. All one has to do is google “city council embezzlement and misappropriation” to find many instances of city council and city employee misbehavior with citizen tax dollars. 

Even if we designate  an oversight committee to ensure the integrity of the funds utilized for the city social improvement programs, where are the funds going to come from to pay for this committee? You got it–from the community social improvement  funds. And of course, when lining up contractors to build gyms,  rec halls , and educational facilities, we can be sure that the committee voting on granting contracts to certain contractors will all be above board and without the hint of bribery, right? C’mon, we’re talking about government officials who are always looking  out for our best interests with all veracity, for sure.

Terrance F Ross, who is a former editor for the Atlantic, posted an article on January 30,2015 in the Atlantic magazine entitled “Where School Dollars Go To Waste”. In this piece he gives some disturbing information:

“Meanwhile, audits regularly find wasted funds at the district level, including one last summer that identified more than $2.7 million in misspent technology funding for schools in Fort Worth, Texas. Another audit—this one for Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky—resulted in over 200 recommendations for improvement.* The revelations were so damning that the state auditor, Adam Edelen, was quoted blaming the problem on “an unchecked bureaucracy that has become bloated and inefficient at the expense of the classroom.”

So how do we keep this from happening with community based programs that have not been developed as of yet? Many cities have immediately slashed the police budget with no realized and definite path to develop and implement these programs that promise a utopia in our communities–a Hooverian “chicken in every pot”, if you will. Have those cities that have defunded the police then immediately infused the existing programs with a cash boost. or are the funds still in the city treasury awaiting the development of new dynamic solutions to all our community ills? One would think that it would be more prudent to gradually make this transition from police to community so vetted proven programs were already in place. It would also be wise to check the effectiveness of the existing programs before leaving the communities so vulnerable to the criminal element. 

Which brings me to another point–how do we curtail the crime while we wait on the results of these social endeavors? What will happen in the short term? Can we live safely in the interim? We will explore these questions a little later.

Referencing the success that would be needed to validate a proven program, there is still one component not spoken of. Success of any program is made or destroyed by the level of willingness and participation in said program . Let’s take the housing for the homeless, for instance. The homeless must be willing to participate, take up the allotted housing and comply with the requirements of occupying the dwelling.

Now I am not going to address whether the homeless choose to be so or not, because that has been adequately addressed and the data comes out that the majority of the homeless do not choose to be so. There are, however, some issues with paranoia from those affected by mentally illness on the street that may be the cause some will not jump at the chance for a free home. Other issues may be in play as well. 

Further, if one is to get free housing, will there be an official definition of who the homeless are? Are there going to be requirements of upkeep and to live their life free from crime?  To not insist this in a contract with the homeless is to invite disaster. Have previous programs to house the homeless worked?

In 1992, a New York social worker by the name of Sam Tsembris developed a program that was believed to end homelessness as a whole across the nation. This program was named Housing First. These were good intentions and the heart, perhaps was in the right place, but it came at a cost.

The Cicero Institute website presented an article by Judge Clock on January 13,2022 simply entitled “Housing First is a Failure”. In this article he informs us:

“Why doesn’t permanent housing help people exit from homelessness? A simple reason is that it appears to attract more people from outside the homeless system, or keeps them in the homelessness system, because they are drawn to the promise of a permanent and usually rent-free room. A recent economic analysis shows that cities have to build 10 PSH beds to remove a single homeless person from the street, since the vast majority of such units go to people who would not have been permanently homeless. Even the removal of that sole homeless individual from the streets seem to fade over time as more people enter the homelessness system.

Several cities and states show the failure of the Housing First approach. San Francisco has built enough PSH to house every single chronically homeless individual in the city back in 2011. Yet instead of “ending homelessness,” as then Mayor Gavin Newsom had promised, homelessness increased substantially until the city became an international byword for the homelessness crisis. The state of Arizona has built over 7,000 permanent homes for the homeless in this same time period, enough to shelter every unsheltered person when they began, but the number of Arizonians living on the streets has increased by 50%.”

So it appears from what was written, if I were evicted from or left my home because I didn’t want to pay rent,  I could then just go up to the program agency and they would immediately give me a room or a home free of charge with no questions asked. This would eliminate the necessity of those losing their home due to their negligence to search out and beg family or friends to house them until they can get back on their feet. Yet, in Housing First, if you were single and was tired paying rent, you can get housed, no questions asked. Where do I sign?!! (Oops, that’s right, I’m married.)

I can imagine how abuse can run rampant through that type of program. But you say, “No,  we will have requirements in place so abuse cannot occur and we will have a set of rules that the occupants must follow in order to stay there.” How inviting would that be for someone living on the streets, only being told every once in a while by a cop to move it along, to then walk into a world of expectation and obligation? Also, many homeless camps have a tight knit community (sometimes they have to in order to survive). Would it be a hardship for homeless individuals  to leave those they are familiar with to stay surrounded by strangers?

One of the problems we had in the city I worked at was the abuse that was occurring in the section eight housing communities. The occupancy in certain apartment complexes were for young mothers and their children only. Which meant, they could have guests from time to time come by, but no other individuals, especially males, could reside there. However, we officers,  many times,   were called to these communities for instances of domestic violence. It was a constant thing. We started reporting this to the management (because we were required to) so that eviction of that individual and, sadly, the mother and her children for violation of the tenant rules under Section 8 would take place. Now we have more individuals (and children) on the street. This will need to be addressed as well.

Also, the criminal element would usually be high in those areas. Sometimes we mean well, but what we do exasperates the issue rather than solves it. 

What about education and vocational training? If the motive to provide these programs is that they will eventually reduce overall crime, there are challenges to this reasoning. For those you wish to educate, you will have to adequately explain the benefits of, say, flipping burgers for minimum wage as opposed to the ability to make several hundred dollars a day from several nefarious activities. Also, you have to get them to the place where they have access to this education. Then they must want to learn and apply what they have learned. 

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for these programs mentioned, but we have to scale back our expectations of a crime free paradise. Many have attempted to transform where we live into a place where locking our car door or the front and back door of our home are unnecessary. All have failed. There have been some successes, and if it works, then I will be the first in line to endorse and promote these programs in my capacity. For the programs already implemented, however, overall the jury is still out regarding their benefits for the community as a whole. 

It would create a worse situation if there is no accountability, no oversight and no improvement of current programs. Just to throw money at a problem has never solved that problem. It may be a better idea to take the wasteful spending funds and utilize  them for  quality proven programs then to just take them from one “problem” and create multiple problems in the process. 

  • There are major concerns relative to taking police funds to develop a new first  offender unit.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Photo by Elena Smuseva : https://www.pexels.com/photo/shirtless-man-in-rage-9440988/

The first and foremost concern is the safety of the first responder unit where civilian professionals who actually make the initial contact with those that are mentally ill or those in severe crisis. These individuals will be embarking into the unknown. They may get information from dispatch concerning the mentally psychotic subject and the scene environment (such as how many people are present, what the subject is doing, whether or not the subject has a weapon, etc.), but from personal experience those that call 911 rarely give all the information needed, and many times the information is inaccurate. What happens if they come into a living room and they encounter someone as the one in the photo above? What would they do in that instant?

Officers, along with myself, would tell you that many times the first few minutes of an encounter with an individual experiencing a psychotic break will dictate the course of action needed in this interaction. There are times you just know, due to experience with this subject, his behavior and other factors, you will need to quickly go hands on for the safety of yourself, other officers, the public, and even the subject him or herself. It’s not uncommon for an officer to visit the emergency room for patching up after these types of encounters. 

The National Institutes of Mental Health puts out a Journal–Innovation In Clinical Neuroscience. An article entitled “Violence Against Mental Health Professionals: When The Treater Becomes The Victim” written by Ashleigh Anderson DO and Sara G. West MD published on March 8,  2011 reports some alarming statistics:

“According to the United States Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey conducted from 1993 to 1999, the annual rate of nonfatal, job-related violent crime was 12.6 per 1,000 workers in all occupations. Among physicians, the rate was 16.2 per 1,000, and among nurses, 21.9 per 1,000. However, for psychiatrists and mental healthcare professionals, the rate was 68.2 per 1,000, and for mental health custodial workers, 69 per 1,000.1 And it appears that these events may happen early in one’s career, as the literature suggests that 40 to 50 percent of psychiatry residents will be physically attacked by a patient during their four-year training program.3”

Consider that  those statistics are gathered from secure or semi-secure facilities where help for an attacked professional  can be on the way in the matter of seconds. I personally have experienced this after I retired from the Suffolk Police Dept and went to work for a behavioral health facility for troubled youth. I can honestly say that in the 2 ½ years that I worked there, I had been assaulted (most accidentally while one resident was trying to swing on another resident) more times than I have been in all my 20 years of law enforcement.  Once, I was knocked on the floor when other staff came to quell the violent activity. Fights and assaults were common there. This was a secure facility. 

Now let’s look at the idea of putting mental health professionals who are unarmed in any way, who are not equipped with protective gear, such as a ballistic vest, and have no defensive tactics training and have no physical restraints to secure the subject for safety and transport. Their help will most likely be miles away. I guarantee you that the harm that will come to the professionals will make the NIMH statistics look trivial. Remember, when 911 is called on a mentally ill subject , it’s not only because they feel blue. Usually, the behavior of the subject has risen to concerns of this individual potentially  harming himself or herself, or others.  The chances of violence in homes and on the street are high. Otherwise, those that have called wouldn’t be. If it is just a person on the street acting bizarrely, most would go about their business. If it is a loved one, they would wait until their  member or friend would go to the doctor, since it is not an emergency. 

I can just imagine what will happen if someone gets seriously hurt or worse. Well, we just need to offer them defensive tactics training. If the suspect has a knife or gun, we just need to equip them with pepper spray or a taser and train them on how to use it. . If some get shot or stabbed, let’s get them a ballistic vest to wear. We also need to get them some type of uniform so that they can be easily identified. Wait a minute!! Minus the Glock, did I just describe a police officer??

When these professionals are recruited, are we going to tell them that when they respond to these situations, it’s a good chance their safety and well-being are going to be in jeopardy? I wonder how many of them will stick around for the rest of orientation to gleefully fill the positions of this first responder unit. As a matter of fact, whenever I, as a police officer, would take someone to the Mental Health facility to be evaluated, most of the time, even if they are docile, the mental health worker would request that they remain handcuffed. Does this tell you anything?

 And since people are people regardless of where they work, how long will it be when faced with someone off of their meds and belligerent that they too cross the line. You see, there is nothing inherent when you are a cop that you are more likely to assault and mistreat people. We are not taught that in the academy. On the contrary. We are taught that if things get personal and our emotions take over, tap out and allow another officer to handle the situation. You go and reboot, if you will. Go calm down and get your head back in the game. 

Another concern about the new first responder unit, is that it was suggested that a police officer standby close in case they were needed for safety. First, if something goes south, how long can a mental health professional hold out before the officer runs from his cruiser to get to him? Once the officer gets there, is he allowed to handle the situation in accordance with his training, or is he required to follow the directions of a mental health professional who has little or no training or experience subduing someone going through psychosis? If the officer has to switch gears and handle the situation according to other mandates, will this endanger the life and well-being of those on the scene? My experienced  opinion says yes, most definitely. 

I believe that we got the cart before the horse on this one. What I think would be helpful is if it is the mental health professionals who should standby and the officers first secure the scene. This makes perfect sense. Firefighter EMTs, who physically train on average  much harder than police officers, will stage until the police secure scenes where someone has been assaulted or shot. And these guys are no wimps. Ever try to lug around one of their fire hoses? Yet, they will not head to a volatile situation unless the scene is safe and secure. They recognize that the environment is an important factor that determines the success of their mission. 

Once the subject is restrained and the scene is safe, the mental health professionals can come into the home or on the scene and see first hand the results of the individual’s psychotic behavior. It would also give them insight when deciding whether or not further treatment is needed for this individual. They can speak with the witnesses, family members and loved ones on scene of the event and get a better understanding of what these victims of mental illness  are going through. They could also counsel the loved ones on how to manage the situation in the future. More importantly, they could speak with the subject and find out in real time what is going on.   It could streamline the entire process. Officers hate to spend sometimes the whole shift just babysitting an individual while the worker is evaluating him and trying to piece together the required elements for detaining them, and then the worker labors to find a bed. I think that, if the funds must be used for a responding mental health professional unit,  this would be a good compromise. 

Another issue is PTSD. Now I know the mental health professionals know academically what this is, but some may have never experienced it firsthand. If this program is to be implemented, it must be understood that these first responder professionals will be exposed to sights, smells, sounds and stresses that they haven’t experienced from their offices. There must be someone to look after and debrief them after calls that would go beyond the stress level they are accustomed to. Officers see horrendous things, and experience traumatic events almost on a continual basis. Even they need a mental checkup from time to time. 

  • Defunding the police in part would limit or eliminate altogether, proactivity, community services, and many of the calls for service the citizens expect the police to respond to.

                                                     Photo by Erik Mclean:                                                       https://www.pexels.com/photo/anonymous-policeman-checking-car-on-street-5662835

In my career as a police officer, there were some shifts where  I did not even  have time to eat. I was dispatched from priority one call to priority one call with no chance to be proactive. It was during those times that I felt I was more of a firefighter than a cop putting out one fire after another. The big difference is, the actual  firefighters in our city would usually have adequate down time. With police budgets being slashed, there will be substantially fewer  police officers (I will be addressing the impact of fewer police officers further along in this blog). That means that we will only be reactionary, not proactive. Crime prevention will be a thing of the past. No time to investigate suspicious behavior or situations. The nightly patrol through your neighborhood will also be essentially non-existent. 

One night, while patrolling through a major business and retail district, Dispatch radioed me to keep a look out for a white older model Cadillac with four males wearing masks rolling though the Walmart parking lot. An older couple called it in and were very concerned. So was I. I called my partner in the adjoining zone to come over and help me look for this vehicle. We diligently searched for these subjects, to no avail, for about three hours. Thinking they may have left the area, I told the other officer that he could return  to his zone, but that I would continue the search until the end of my shift. 

About an hour before I was to secure, I noticed that there was a male standing by a pay phone in the parking lot of a convenience/gas station. The suspicious thing about him to me is that I knew that the pay phone he was standing next to  was one that accepted no incoming calls and the receiver was still on the hook. As soon as I pulled in front of the door to the store, a female clerk ran out and told me that the gentleman had been standing  by the phone but not calling anyone for at least 20 minutes. He had just been staring at the store. At that time, I noticed he started walking to the property adjacent. I drove over there  and, with the reasonable suspicion I had, stopped and detained the subject (at this time uncuffed) to question him. 

When I asked him why he was standing there for so long, he told me he was waiting for his ex to call him over the visitation of his 1 year old son. I asked him if he ever received a call from his wife on that phone before, and he said yes, it was the phone he would use to talk to his wife (lie). I asked him why he left when I pulled up, he said it was because he figured that his wife was not going to call him that night and he was going home (lie: I found it was not true because when I asked him where he lived, it was in the opposite direction of where he just walked). He told me he did not have an ID on him (lie) but that he would give me his name and social security number (lies). When I checked his information, it would not come back. I asked dispatch for backup and told the subject I was going to place him in cuffs for an investigative detention because everything he told me thus far were proven lies. He then quickly  admitted to having an ID on him and, when I ran his real information,  it was found that he had four bench warrants on him from this and other cities. When I was searching him incident to arrest (this time cuffed), he told me immediately that he had a B B gun in his inside coat pocket and I, in turn, pulled it out. Sure enough, it was not a real gun, but it appeared so in every way like my Beretta 9 mm pistol  I was carrying in my holster. I then Mirandized him and asked him why he had this B B gun in his coat. He said he was holding it for his son. “Hold on now, you mean your 1 year old son?”  “Uh… yeah officer. I was holding it until, uh… he got older.” The way he was stumbling through that reply I knew HE knew that it was a lame answer.  So I arrested him  for the warrants, and since the gun was not real I couldn’t bring him up on concealment charges, but I vouchered and placed it in our Property and Evidence locker and later had it destroyed since he never came back to HQ  to claim it. 

After booking him into jail, and while at the precinct, I called the convenience store and spoke with the clerk, informing her that since I arrested him she had nothing to worry about and also thanking her for letting me know about his  suspicious behavior. She then said, almost like a side note, “Uh, one thing that probably doesn’t mean anything. It was strange that some other males in a white Cadillac dropped him off at the phone and left.” It was then that I remembered among his property I had vouchered of his was a red bandana I got out of his left pants pocket. A mask, if you will.  Did I just prevent a possible robbery of that convenience store? I’ll let you be the judge. 

With dissolving funds, catches like that will not be a thing. Preventing crime will be left up to individual citizens and groups. Will they be effective? Who knows? The only thing I do know is that crime prevention is out the window and time will be against us when criminals plan and plot their schemes. We, as police officers,  will be the ones that arrive a day late and a dollar short, literally. We, as American citizens, will have to be content that whatever happens, happens. The only solace for us is that maybe an officer will have time to investigate who did it, but probably not.  

There are some community services that, at least, my department offers our citizens. One is the daily check on their homes when they were out of town. All you had to do before you went on vacation was to go see the nice clerk at the window of HQ and fill out a card and it was set. We would go to your home either overnight or early in the morning and check to see if it was secure each of the designated days, up to two weeks while you were out of town.  If there was an issue, dispatch would call the homeowner and notify them.  Another service is that we attend all neighborhood and civic league meetings to field questions and get intel on what was going on in that particular community. Yet another program  that I was personally involved in was hosting seminars for communities and businesses instructing them from the NRA curriculum, “Refuse to be a Victim”. Believe it or not, the segment in that program on guns as weapons was just a small part of the presentation. The rest were tips  like, how to be aware of your surroundings, if you are followed in a parking lot you can roll up underneath a SUV and scream–things like that. Every time we would hold a seminar, the citizens would give positive and enthusiastic feedback. In a defunded department, this also would not be a thing.

Also, every  year just before Christmas, we would take donations from the police and dispatchers. We would then go into the communities and select kids in those communities that were indigent and would not otherwise have a Christmas. A uniformed officer would pick him or her up in their patrol car (Neat!!) and would take them to Walmart to get the toys they selected. It was reward enough to see the reactions of these children and the appreciation of their parents. These services are good stuff!!

 All of these services except for the last one will be eliminated simply due to no funds to underwrite the expenses. The last one may still be done, minus the patrol car since officers would have to do it on their own time and use their own cars, which I know they would probably still do. However, this service for the kids is not a question of money, but of time. With budgets being slashed, overtime gigs and raises will not be available. Officers would be forced to work part time doing other things than law enforcement. They would simply not have time. 

When it comes to calls for service, this is another area that the public must scale back their expectations. When Minneapolis officers stopped being proactive after the George Floyd killing, homicides shot up that year more than double from last year. Their proactive policing was replaced with chasing down murder suspects. Along with the homicides, other crimes increased in the city as well. When a police department is overburdened with that boost in major crimes, I can imagine the conversation between dispatcher and citizen in that city will be something like this:

Dispatcher: 911, what is the location of your emergency?

Caller: Yeah I’m over here on Main St. and there is this guy that broke into my vehicle and stole my laptop and my wallet.  He’s heading towards  the old dump. Do you want his description?

Dispatcher: No sir, that won’t be necessary since we don’t go out to those types of calls anymore. If you wish I can generate a report number and redirect you over to our central files clerk to take your report. If you know who it is, you can take him to claims court. Otherwise just give this number to your insurance company and they will be able to compensate you for your loss. Have a good night sir. I’m sending your call to Central Files right now. 

Caller: WTF??!!

Let’s say that you come home late from work and notice your next door neighbor is having a major shindig with blaring music and drunks urinating in your bushes. What’s more, one of the partiers  has parked on the street in front of your driveway and you cannot pull in.  You know that you do not get along with your neighbor and talking with him will be useless. So. like a good citizen, instead of taking out an uzi and  exacting revenge upon the urinator for killing your roses, then taking a sledgehammer to the windows of the blocking vehicle, you instead call 911. To your shock and dismay, you will be instructed to just park down the street and wait for the party to end so that you can return your vehicle to the driveway. As far as the noise is concerned you have the option to stay in a hotel or using ear plugs. Your dead roses, well, you can file with your insurance company or just take the loss. If you have a homeowner’s association, you can lodge a complaint in the morning. It’s a nuisance call. We don’t handle them anymore. 

You may say, there’s no way that will happen in my city. The truth of the matter is, we have depended for so long on the police for a great deal of nuisance and quality of life issues to solve. Like I said before about triage, the officers will not have time to deal with what you’re personally going through unless someone is about to be murdered, raped, robbed or assaulted with dire injuries. YOU must deal with them on your own. I can imagine some will in the form of a vigilante. Otherwise, during  this absence of police presence, the crude phrase “Sucks to be you” will be more often applicable.

  •  Equipment needs will be lacking due to the lack of funds to procure and then maintain them. 

                                       Photo by Caleb Oquendo from Pexels

When I graduated from the police academy, the night of said graduation I met with my fellow graduates in the parking lot where a sergeant handed out our gear. At that time, it consisted of a gun belt, uniforms, a Beretta 9mm with ammo in three magazines, a night stick (one of those huge bulky sticks that bruised the side and back your leg when you ran), a set of handcuffs, a radio, and an OC spray can. As the sergeant and other armed officers stood by, some unfortunately had to go straight to work. So they put their equipment on while the rest of us stowed it away in the trunk. That was back in 1999. 

Fast forward to the present, the additions to the gear on our belt  in our department when  I retired was  now an asp baton (that will not bruise your leg when you run), a taser, now a Glock 40 caliber pistol, a body cam, police tourniquets and now the mandatory donning of a  ballistic vest. The cost to equip the Suffolk police officer has gone up dramatically. 

In the Basehor Sentinel, Kellis Robinett reported that for a single Lansing police officer to be equipped it cost around $3200 to the city.  And that was back in 2005. This is just basic equipment. 

In addition, the officer will need a Police Interceptor vehicle, a speed measurement device (radar or Lidar), gloves, an AED defibrillator, a NARCAN kit (to prevent overdose deaths of drug addicts) Citations, Citation books, a metallic clipboard, a flashlight, a dash cam, emergency equipment for the cruiser (lights and siren), a police radio also for the vehicle, forms and paperwork, a computer with affixed computer stand, etc. The list goes on. 

This does not include equipment we had to sign out, such as a Preliminary Breath Test device or a window tint measurement device. Now I know that giving you this massive list of equipment might in some way bolster the position that we don’t need all that to police. However, I will tell you that in my career, I have utilized every one of those forms of equipment (other than my weapons) almost every day. 

One may ask why police officers need AEDs,  NARCAN kits  and tourniquets in our possession? Don’t we have paramedics equipped with the same devices? The short answer is yes. So why equip officers with the those devices as well?  Isn’t this a waste of money? The answer is simple if you think about it. Where are EMTs when an emergency comes out? They are at the station cleaning equipment, cooking dinner or just relaxing. This is not to minimize what they do, because I think they are amazing guys and gals  myself. But the fact is, that they are at the station and not patrolling through different parts of the city. You need to understand, unless you live right next door to the firehouse, it will take time for them to suit up and head out to the scene. Most times, police officers are much closer and can get to the scene where some people need emergency care within a few minutes at the most. It’s not uncommon for the police to administer this care as much as five minutes before EMTS can arrive. Early care saves lives. Just in our department alone we have had several cases where officers administering early care has saved lives. Multiply that among all of the law enforcement agencies across this great country of ours. I would venture to estimate the lives saved by police officers  with early care nationwide are in the thousands. You probably don’t know this because in all the years as a police officer I have heard very few  press conferences or have read in the papers or seen on the news  that officers have saved a life with these devices. It’s not dramatic enough. Perhaps police officers running into burning buildings to save those that are trapped  may catch the attention of some media broadcasters. But the statistical  truth is that police save  way more lives than end them, justifiably or otherwise. We just don’t hear about it.  

So you are in the hot seat. You are the Chief of Police, the Mayor or City Council member. The budget for the police department is slashed in half. You must decide which equipment is to stay and which is to go. Remember, the cost of police equipment does not end with the initial purchase. The real expense is in the routine maintenance, calibration, testing, and occasional replacement of such devices. Of the equipment items I have mentioned, you must make a decision of what equipment must be eliminated. Are you ready? GO!!… Not so easy to decide, is it, especially  if you have ever done a ride-along with the police or are knowledgeable of what police officers really do?

Let me just clarify something.  I have seen repeatedly where proponents of defunding the police have claimed that we are being militarized with military equipment. One in particular is the grenade launcher. Very few times, if any, do they explain what this device is being used for and what actually is being launched. When the average citizen hears that police officers are using grenade launchers, they immediately and mentally go back to the war movie or world news segment they watched where military forces are placing explosive grenades into the weapon and they are being propelled with explosive results. They get visions of tough criminals  walking down the street with malice in their hearts when they meet up with  Police Officer Dude lobbing a grenade at them, making their bodies mince meat. The truth of the matter is that the grenade launchers are used to propel  tear gas grenades or smoke grenades in the midst of an unlawful riotous mob to get them to disperse or when they have barricaded subjects inside a house or building to have them comply with surrender. It is a less lethal device to deal with potentially lethal results by the criminals.  Believe me, you would have heard it on the news if police officers in the United States propelled live explosive grenades into a building or amidst protesters. 

Some of us are old enough to remember the LA shootout in North Hollywood with two  bank robbers in 1997, two years before I became a police officer. Police officers, even their Swat team, were so outgunned by these two gunmen that they actually had to run to a gun dealer to acquire the arsenal necessary in order to subdue them. Wikipedia accurately informs us:

 “Phillips and Mătăsăreanu carried Norinco Type 56 rifles (a Chinese AK-47 variant), a Bushmaster XM-15 Dissipator with a 100-round drum magazine, and a Heckler & Koch HK91 rifle, all of which had been illegally modified to be select-fire capable, as well as a Beretta 92FS pistol. The robbers wore homemade body armor which successfully protected them from handgun rounds and shotgun pellets fired by the responding officers.”

Eleven police officers and seven bystanders were wounded in this shootout. Fortunately, the only deaths were that of the gunmen. This event was the justification for the LA Police Dept to update their issued firearms in case this happened again. One could ask the question if they already had the firearms required to end this shooting, how fewer people would be injured as a result. If gunmen knew they were armed with such weaponry, would they still have the indifference to commit the crime anyway? How many would not have been hurt had the police been equipped with the weapons they needed?

If police departments nationwide would be forced to scale back the potency of their weapons, and another event happened like this, what would be the solution? Allow the gunman to continue shooting until their ammo is spent? Oh, can’t the police  run to Fred, the friendly neighborhood gun shop owner and get what they needed for this one time event? Uh, no. He only sells 38s and 40s pistols and no high powered rifles due to the scale backs of gun control initiatives. The only solution is to bring in the National Guard who have different rules of engagement and do not have to follow the guidelines and policies of the police dept. Full warning: a  government military unit is coming to a city near you. 

  • When defunding the police is implemented, one of the first things to go is training for police officers. 

Photo by Kindel Media:

https://www.pexels.com/photo/an-

officer-frisking-a-man-7785078/

In Virginia, when I served as a police officer, DCJS required 40 hours of in-service training every two years for every officer after graduating the academy. . I am here to tell you  that it was not nearly enough to be proficient  in our job. From time to time the department would put out ancillary training bulletins, such as advanced crash investigation, interview training, training on new equipment, mental health and cultural diversity training, evidence collection officer training, and so on. Each time an officer took advantage of this training, it would take funds out of the training budget. Once the budget funds were gone, training would be halted until the next fiscal year. If you want training, you better put in for it at the beginning or you will have to wait. 

Some of this training required officers to attend schools out of town. That meant the cost of the training, hotel accommodations and meal expenses were also a drain on the budget. Most of these training schools were well worth it. It expanded the ability of the police department to give worthwhile services to the city and community. 

Anthony Lamorena, a contributor to thecrimereport.org, published an article entitled “Don’t Defund The Police, Spend More on Training” where he claims:

“While many passionate advocates have called for police departments to be defunded and abolished, this is not the right path forward. A police force is necessary in any community and many officers are good people who joined the force for the right reasons.

A more reasonable solution lies in investing more time and money in the training of our police officers. The sad reality is when police budgets are cut, one of the first things to suffer is the training program.”

Some may complain that police programs haven’t worked so far, but the training needed to reform the police departments requires that the budget be not reduced, but expanded. Whether it is in the form of Verbal Judo (a de-escalation technique involving the tone, body language, verbal guidance and active listening) or a training program such as CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) that has been put out by none other than NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) departments and cities have seen their worth. The latter was developed so that mental health professionals partner with the police to reduce unnecessary incarceration of these suffers and teach police officers how to safely handle these types of situations. . This is a groundbreaking program that gives officers a different way to handle calls involving mentally ill individuals and those in crisis. On its website, it claims:

“The Benefits Of CIT

Not only can CIT programs bring community leaders together, they can also help keep people with mental illness out of jail and in treatment, on the road to recovery. That’s because diversion programs like CIT reduce arrests of people with mental illness while simultaneously increasing the likelihood that individuals will receive mental health services. CIT programs also:

NAMI promotes the expansion of CIT programs nationwide by providing NAMI Affiliates and State Organizations, local law enforcement, mental health providers and other community leaders with information and support about CIT implementation. NAMI also works with local and national leaders to establish standards and promote innovation in CIT.”

In my department, I was one of the instructors for CIT and I have to tell you that it is an outstanding program. We provided training for all the Western Tidewater law enforcement and corrections agencies. The officers that were reluctant, skeptical, and sometimes were voluntold  by their department to be there and thought it was a waste of time left the training one of the biggest proponents of the training, saying it was the best training they have ever attended. I can tell you when we started training our department’s officers, it wasn’t long when the use of force events took a nosedive. This was not just for mental health calls, but all calls that were volatile in nature. Officers found themselves de-escalating the situation where before it would end up with someone tased, pepper sprayed or injured. I had officers come up to me telling me, “Man, CIT works!!”

But even CIT is not without cost. Even though the training is provided by NAMI for officers to attend, the officers, trainers, and members of mental health all are on the clock. Lunch at our department was provided on certain days and props for the scenarios needed to be purchased. A defunded department would be hard pressed to continue this excellent training.

And isn’t this what it’s all about? Law Enforcement Officers need constant and continual training. The old phrase of “ If you don’t use it, you lose it” is so applicable when it comes to police training. If funds are taken, the few officers you do have patrolling the street will be sorely undertrained and overburdened. You will have one mean, lean, fighting machine. 

  • Defunding the police will mean fewer officers.

                                           Photo by Mathias P.R. Reding: https://www.pexels.com/photo/faceless-traffic-police-officer-walking-on-asphalt-road-44893

Defunding the police will actually mean fewer officers, and fewer officers will mean, well fewer officers. The argument is that with fewer officers those officers will only concentrate on the more severe calls and allow other more qualified professionals to handle the others. So, police will not be there for you when you have a dispute with your neighbor, your mentally ill loved one is off their medication and acting bizarrely, suspicious activity is occurring in your community but you can’t put your finger on what’s going on, or you may be walking home at night and wish that a police officer would patrol around your neighborhood and basically keep an eye out for criminal behavior.. 

As a matter of fact, most of the time you will be on your own. You can ask the Seattle residents within the “NO COP” zone shortly after the death of George Floyd where protesters cordoned off several blocks and did not allow police in. A report of a 19 year old male bleeding from a gunshot in the street did not get medical attention because protesters would not allow police escorts of the paramedics into that zone. That led to his death. Others who were interviewed by news reporters had mixed reactions. However, curbed.com’s Wudan Yan interviewed this female who was inside the zone. She published an article entitled, “Life in Seattle’s Autonomous Zone, According to the People Who Live There” documenting  her observations  of being inside the zone:

“One woman who lives next to CHOP posted on Nextdoor that she was looking for an alternate place to live. “I am a liberal and supporter of #blm,” she wrote. “I am however being held hostage in my place by the Occupied protest. I can’t get to and from my apartment safely. I have been verbally harassed and physically threatened by occupants. (I am choosing to differentiate them from the #blm protestors.)”

Once you experience what it actually means to have fewer officers on the street and being on your own in providing for your well-being and safety, how will you react? If you know that a possible threat to your family does not qualify for police response, what will you do? Will you sleep soundly in your beds, or take shifts sitting in front of the front  and back door of your home with a shotgun in case you are the target of a home invasion? Will you feel safe on the roadways knowing that there are no officers observing and enforcing highway laws allowing  reckless drivers and those that are driving under the influence to jeopardize you and your family.  Traffic details will be a thing of the past due to lack of funding that makes possible the acquisition  and maintenance of the equipment necessary to police the highways. It will be a free-for-all.  Police will not have the equipment or the time to be proactive. They will only be able to respond to pick up your loved ones’ remains once they are involved in a fatal crash. 

Some may claim that this is far fetched. If we just get rid of the police oppression, citizens will relax and settle into this new freedom and will, out of gratitude, behave themselves. One proponent (not sure who said this, but I’m sure that this is echoed by many of like belief) has said that if we just put these social programs in place and decriminalize “victimless” crimes, that there will be need for someone to go out and rob a bank or a store. If you believe that, you may not like this, but you are hopelessly naive. 

Fewer officers mean that those officers so employed do not have the backup they need. I have worked some nights when it seemed that the whole city went to hell in a hand basket. Sometimes, I would be dispatched to calls where the dispatcher would tell me, “Be advised, I have no available units to assist.” These are calls like domestic violence issues, a sighting of a prowler, belligerent and possibly dangerous customers in a store, or actual fight calls. It was not common, but it happened. Now, consider that from now on, police officers will have to handle calls like this alone all the time. We have seen an exodus of officers either by quitting or by taking early retirement these last couple of years. Imagine the reaction  of police officers that have to put their lives unnecessarily in danger because there are no funds to hire more officers. I don’t see a line forming at the recruiter’s office either. But not to worry, right? Our social programs will solve all our ills.

Please go to Blogs to read the conclusion of this discussion

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