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Update: 'Defunding the Police' Not Lookin' So Hot

New York City police recently made an arrest in the terrifying 'A-train Ripper' case of a lunatic who'd carried out four subway stabbing attacks, killing two people and sending two others to the hospital.  According to the New York Post, the suspect's "shoes were still splattered with his victims’ blood when he was taken into custody — and he was still in possession of the bloody knife, one source added."  Frightened residents had demanded a heavier police presence during the spree of attacks, and understandably so:

The bloodshed sparked an outcry for safer subways, and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea responded, announcing a “surge” of 500 additional cops for the department’s Transit Bureau to be deployed across the city immediately. The spree began Friday morning, not far from where the alleged stabber was caught, authorities said...Mayor de Blasio recently waved off NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea’s public concerns of a recent spate of subway attacks, which included a straphanger shoved onto the tracks.

De Blasio is the worst.  Well maybe not quite the worst-worst, but close.  There was a dangerous criminal on the loose, and citizens cried out for law enforcement to step up their efforts and protect them.  The resulting 'surge' was a direct response to an urgent need.  Over at Hot Air, Jazz Shaw offers a clever flashback to the recent stylings of New York's 'defund the police' agitators:

Allow me to take you on a brief trip in the Way Back Machine to June of last year. That’s when all of the calls to either defund or abolish the police were ringing across the city from Black Lives Matter activists. And Mayor Bill de Blasio was listening to them. One group called Communities United for Police Reform (CUPR) was actively advising the Mayor as he looked at slashing the NYPD budget to satisfy his liberal base. CUPR had a list of demands that they wanted to see the Mayor enact. While not all of them were fully implemented, they proposed more than a billion dollars in cuts to the NYPD budget, broken down into five key areas of “concern.”

Among their demands was this gem: "$96 million – Remove officers from schools, transit systems, homeless outreach and mental health response programs."  Remove officers from transit systems.  Like the subway.  Dangerous and insane.  These people should be ignored, and other voters should insist that they be ignored.  But DeBlasio didn't ignore them, proposing $1 billion in police cuts and 'redirected' funds.  When push comes to shove, people need robust police protection against criminals. 'Defunding' the police as violent crime rises (with shootings spiking dramatically) is incredibly irresponsible, and politicians who indulge the rantings of a loud fringe should be held accountable.  There should be a reckoning in Minneapolis, for instance:  Could could possibly have seen this coming?

The Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved $6.4 million in funding to hire dozens of police officers despite some council members and advocates in the city calling to defund the police department. The move comes after the city’s police department reported having only 638 officers available, which they said is about 200 fewer than usual. Many officers quit the department or have yet to return from extended leaves since the unrest and rioting in the city last summer, after the death of George Floyd while he was in police custody. The city now anticipates that it will have 674 officers by the end of the year, with another 28 set to go through the hiring process...Minneapolis has experienced a spike in violent crime over the last year, causing many residents to insist the city hire more police officers instead of working to dismantle the department.

The woke leftist city council voted to abolish the Minneapolis police department and 're-imagine' public safety last year.  Officers departed.  Crime exploded.  The city council was forced to pay outside departments to come augment their depleted force.  And now they're desperately hiring more police.  Defund the police, suffer greatly, refund the police.  Good work, everyone.  I'll leave you with this mind-boggling tweet mocking a San Francisco resident fleeing the city because of crime and deteriorating public safety and order:


The guy had his home broken into, his vehicle vandalized and his dog poisoned by human waste on the streets.  He's leaving.  And on his way out the door, he's being publicly ridiculed and trolled as a "Karen."  The tweet is mind-boggling because its author is one of the city's...police commissioners.  Are we absolutely certain San Francisco is a real place, and not a conservative simulation of absurdist leftist excess?