“Issue one, two, three in this election is crime and violence,” said former and possibly future Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, quoted in this article in the WSJ by Cameron McWhirter. As Bill noted yesterday, we are seeing shifts in public opinion and political campaigns as the country slowly from its “woke” delusions and recognizes the reality that softness on crime means more crime.
In Atlanta, both of the leading candidates are talking about fighting crime and increasing, not cutting, the police department, although there is a notable difference in tone and policy. A runoff seems likely from the poll numbers.
Considerably further north, Minneapolis voters will vote on “a ballot initiative [that] would replace the police department in the city charter with a department of public safety that would take a public health approach to safety and include sworn peace officers if deemed necessary,” reports Joe Barrett, also in the WSJ. If deemed necessary? Breathe some oxygen now, if deemed necessary.
Despite calls from the city council to reimagine policing after Mr. Floyd’s killing in May 2020, activists say changes haven’t gone far enough. Crime has gone up and the police force has shrunk. Tuesday’s election will be the first time the voters will have a say in the future of Minneapolis since the upheaval began.
So the “crime has gone up” change hasn’t gone far enough for the “activists”? They want it to go up further? Once upon a time, we used to instruct juries that people are presumed to intend the natural consequences of their voluntary acts. Such presumptions are verboten now, but the logical inference remains valid. It is hard to think that they really want crime to go up, but they are pushing policies that will have that effect. Yet there is massive denial, propped up by shaky evidence claiming that soft policies would actually reduce crime. See, e.g., this post on the bogus evidence cited by “woke” prosecutor George Gascón in LA.
Unlike the California initiatives of recent years where a massive spending imbalance enabled the proponents to mislead the people, it appears that the two sides in Minneapolis have comparable campaign budgets.
A city council race in a ward described as “one of the city’s more diverse wards” presents a stark contrast. Incumbent Phillipe Cunningham is all-in for the wokeness delusions and the initiative.
His challenger, LaTrisha Vetaw, a member of the city’s Park and Recreation Board and health policy and advocacy director for a local medical, dental and mental health center and human service agency, says the amendment leaves too many unanswered questions. The city can’t afford to lose any more police officers in the middle of a public-safety crisis, she said.
“We need more police, we really do,” said Ms. Vetaw, who is Black, adding that she wants to see a new substation in the ward to speed response times and an aggressive recruiting campaign to restock the ranks of the department with a new wave of officers with better training.
Should be an interesting day tomorrow.
The post Crime Policy on the Ballot Tomorrow appeared first on Crime & Consequences.