Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed those calling to abolish or defund police departments across the country on Monday.
While praising the massive peaceful protests across the country over the past week in honor of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black Americans who lost their lives at the hands of police, Mr. McConnell said it was unfair to blame all officers for the actions of some.
“If peaceful protesters rightly do not want to be lumped in with a subset of looters and rioters who seek destruction, then the vast majority of brave police officers cannot be lumped in with the very worst examples of heinous behavior. It is that simple,” he said.
The Kentucky Republican said the calls to gut police departments were “outlandish” and that the suggestion of implementing social workers rather than “strangers armed with guns” would not be effective.
“I’m all for social work and mental health,” Mr. McConnell said. “But — call me old-fashioned — I think you may actually want a police officer to stop a criminal and arrest him before we try to work through his feelings.
“I have a feeling the American people are too smart for this,” he said. “They know that what happened to George Floyd is totally abhorrent. They also know that riots and looting are unacceptable. And they also know that well-trained law enforcement officers are an important part of creating safe communities, not something to defund or abolish.”
The movement to abolish or defund the police has rapidly gained traction in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing in Minnesota, which sparked more than week’s worth of outrage and protests across the country.
The proposals put forward by key groups such as Black Lives Matter and other activists have called for gearing specific teams to respond to specific issues, including mental health responders for those kinds of crises, street outreach teams for homeless individuals, social workers for domestic violence calls. They’ve also called for a greater emphasis on “restorative justice” which would mediate issues between the victim and offender for crimes such as theft or property damage.
It would change how police handle more common issues in their purview, such as eliminating traffic stops in favor of mailing tickets or decriminalizing some drug-related infractions such as marijuana possession.
“When we talk about defunding the police, what we’re saying is invest in the resources that our communities need. So much of policing right now is generated and directed towards quality of life issues, homelessness, drug addiction,” Alicia Garza, Black Lives Matter co-founder, said on NBC this weekend. “But what we do need is increased funding for housing, we need increased funding for education, we need increased funding quality of life of communities who are over-policed and over-surveilled.”
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