>During a Budget and Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Supervisor Hillary Ronen voiced frustration that the city's police force appeared to be prioritizing retail theft over the safety of the residents in her district.

>"I've been begging this department to give the Mission what it deserves in terms of police presence, all year long. And I've been told time-and-time-and-time-and-time again there are no officers that we can send to Mission. And then I see these numbers protecting shoppers, and it hurts. It hurts. And I feel betrayed by the department, I feel betrayed by the mayor, I feel betrayed by the priorities of this city," Ronen said during the hearing. "It is not this board of supervisor's priorities -- we want our residents safe."

Once again... Defund the police was never about taking police away. It was allocating money in a different way so that there would be more specialists to deal with things that cops are really bad at. Like mental health episodes or suicidal people, so that they can do better at their actual job of dealing with criminals.

Which meant… fewer police.

/r/leopardsatemyface

Yes, where the ones remaining would be doing things other than babysitting department stores.

No. Which meant fewer police tanks, and riot gear, and payouts for terrible police behavior. Slightly reduced budgets for less police bloat, and more experts to handle delicate situations. That doesn't mean less police. But the unions sure wanted to make you think that's what it would do.

It’s meant fewer police in every major city that reduced budgets.

You realize those are off duty jobs, right?

Of course he doesn't.

Yes. More police but less police. More police when we need them but less when we don’t want them.

Also cheaper, and nicer (to the people we like) but also fully perfectly equipped and trained.

Very clear instructions

> Which meant fewer police tanks

Those are free.

Or fewer new swat vehicles. Maybe don't buy that tank or helicopter that your department doesn't REALLY need. Maybe only increase the budget by a LITTLE BIT this year. There are a lot of things you can skip out on and NOT decrease the number of boots on the pavement, but for some reason everyones mind goes straight to layoffs as if they've never had to finagle a budget before, meanwhile the top brass is sitting in their office laughing their asses off at all of us. Maybe the police unions need to step up to the plate and teach their members who the real threat to their employment is (hint: it's not the public whom they are sworn to serve and protect) and remind them that they're at the bottom of the pyramid in this situation along with the rest of us

The fuel and maintenance isn't.

Ya because they use them every day... right? lol. Immaterial cost.

You seem to not understand capex vs. opex. Equipment is capex. Officers are opex. When budget cuts happen, both get cut. And if you require additional positions that aren't sworn officers, that reduces opex spend, meaning fewer officers.

You and I likely agree about the over-militarization of police and what that's done to their relationship with the community, their focus, etc. We likely also celebrate the recent Texas court decision that forced McKinney PD to pay for SWAT damages to property. Accountability is key... but lowering the budgets when the vast majority of budget goes to sworn personnel results in fewer personnel on the ground, resulting in more harm before they get there and harsher response when they do because situations are more out of control.

Yes, it would mean fewer police because more of the police responsibilities would shift to specialists who are trained to be more effective at working with mentally ill people, etc. Police would be reallocated to do what police do well, and moved away from areas where we see repeat failure in policing.

As that transition didn't happen, though, we still need more police.

Maybe the mental health specialists they wanted instead of police can go help

Military equipment is free.

I can see the chants now

DEFUND THE POLICE BUT KEEP THE SAME NUMBER OF POLICE OFFICERS!

doesn't really roll off the tongue but hey

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No, I know nothing about opex vs capex, but neither do most of the tax paying public calling for smaller department budgets, they just look at the overall spending then see the military looking equipment on the road and say "why aren't we spending those tax moneys on helping people instead of hurting them".

I mean, opex and capex both come from OUR taxes right? The police department isn't selling stamps to pay line level salaries like the postal service. How our money is split and the system of budgeting in place is irrelevant to the person paying the bill but SOMEONE is responsible for deciding what money goes where.

I've always felt "defund the police" is, or at least should be aimed at THAT person. No one thinks a dude in blue and a badge is making the budget for the department. We all understand THAT guy is wearing a suit and tie sipping coffee in an office somewhere, but for some reason the lower rank and file seem to think that WE think it's up to them. As a union worker I'd never call for another union worker to lose their job over budget cuts, equipment spending should always come first. (Well really management salaries should come first cause they're always the most bloated but realistically I know no one making the budget is ever going to cut their own salary, looking at you top level politicians)

If "defund the police" didn't mean "get rid of police," it was a terrible mantra to begin with.

Mean what you say and say what you mean.

And where was that? I haven't seen a single major city that actually reduced police budgets. Tons of people talking about how "oh, they reduced police budgets and then needed police, ha ha!" but in literally every one of those cases (including this one, as San Fran increased its police budgets since 2019, https://abc7news.com/sfpd-budget-defund-the-police-department-funding/12321818/ ) the police budget went up and police usefulness continued to go down, and the "its because of defund!" was nothing but propaganda.

So which actual cities did this happen in?

Defund was always the wrong word. Audit would have been more appropriate. And imply that their would be some accountability against precincts that shield bad cops.

https://www.austinmonitor.com/data-graphic/austin-police-department-budget-2012-2022

>During the 2020-21 budget process, City Council cut $31.5 million from APD’s budget, citing the protests and “community outcry against the disproportionate impact of police violence on Black Americans, Latinx Americans and other non-white ethnic communities,” according to the approved budget.
The following year, however, Council members approved a record-high APD budget – more than $443 million.

What this doesn't say, though, is that the operational budget was still cut and the increase in overall Police Budget was because several other operations that were moved out of APD were then merged back into APD and/or expanded the next year... like the combined city dispatch center, additional calltaker support, etc.

Austin, today, has fewer sworn officers on the streets but also a higher response times to priority calls, than previously, indicating it's not keeping up with demand despite taking street officers off of nonviolent property crime calls. A significant chunk of that budget increase was in non-sworn positions and 311 calltakers to deal with those issues, where APD issues a case number over the phone for non-violent property crimes (and never follows up).

People shouting "Oh, you wanted to defund the police, huh?" are the same idiots that go "It is snowing, where is that global warming now?"

That isn't even remotely the issue at hand...

> Once again... Defund the police was never about taking police away

The real NotTheOnion is always in the comments.

I really can't imagine why anyone thought "Defund The Police" meant defund the police.

Maybe it was this from the New York Times Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police

Blaming others for your inability to communicate your own dumb ideas.

The idea is sound, you just like to be obtuse on purpose.

No, the idea isn't sound and you're lying about the intent.

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police

I'm going to believe the professional activists being DTP about what it means over some lying internet troll.

Edit: Coward blocked me, as they do when their disinformation gets debunked.

Oh, an opinion piece! You sure showed me.

Stop being an idiot.

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You must forgive him, boot polish is a known carcinogen

I can't help but think that something shady and heavily data stealing-y is going on with this website, judging by how I couldn't even get through the cookie popup in an entire minute and it literally says that it may take a few minutes to make the cookie changes. There is no clear and transparent way of handling my user data that should cause such delay.

...So budgets went up, and usefulness continued to go down, and the people crying "it's because of the defund people!" continue to be liars. Exactly as I said. Neat? Thanks for the additional source I guess.

Also, fun fact about Austin. While they did officially cut police budgets in 2021, they put that extra money in a fund ("Decouple and Reimagine) designed to be used to move stuff to other areas but used for police business in 2021.

https://theaustinbulldog.org/did-austin-defund-the-police-here-are-the-numbers/

Taking officers off the streets (APD has fewer sworn officers today in actual numbers an in terms of officers per 1000 people) has resulted in increase operational burden, meaning longer waits for critical calls and deferment of non-critical calls to other departments (which I support).

So it was always about doublethink. Gotcha.

… So the title is still oniony, and the subject is still hypocritical. What’s the problem again?

I think you may have misunderstood that meme or this situation

Nah, it's still FTP because they'll always protect property over people

So Hilary Ronen is a boot locker too, right?

Allocating less money… defunding.

What would the expression be for taking away their ability to bill taxpayers for the lawsuits they settle for negligence, violence etc?

But the point is that defunding the police doesn't fuck over the guy making the budget, he gets to keep his job. It fucks over all the guys in blue with badges who are out there on the beat.

You think policing is bad now, think how bad it will be when all the good, competent officers are forced to find a different profession because it no longer pays enough. The only people left will be those at the bottom of the barrel.

Money isn't the problem. Accountability is the problem. On a fundamental level I agree with all the grievances of the defund the police crowd. Their diagnosis is largely correct, but their prescribed cure is not.

Can you explain the bootlicker part?

Cause it seems to be a direct contradiction here if your claim is that you are not abolishing police.

The property of good citizens is worth more than criminals.

>Edit: Coward blocked me, as they do when their disinformation gets debunked.

I did? Really? Then how am I replying to this? First you use an opinion piece to "debunk" something and now you don't even know how Reddit works.

That is just sad.

If your morals are guided by laws

"Reframe the job of police and provide adequate resources in the other broken areas of society so that untrained police aren't the first ones to the scene of a mental health crisis, who are a bit trigger happy because they were trained that everyone is out to kill them, or even better, provide adequate community investment and resources such that ideally both crime and mental health doesn't reach the point of crisis which requires police officers, at least less of the time if we are being realistic here" isn't as catchy of a slogan. You can't exactly chant that during a protest.

Could it have been said better? Sure. But more than half the country actively rejects any attempts at nuance, thinking that if you can't stop ALL school shootings, or have a vaccine that is 100% effective at preventing infections, that it isn't worth doing at all. It's hard to get people on board with your nuance when they only acknowledge binary thinking.

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She’s right. What she’s pointing out is that the PD is punishing her district because she is vocal about the need to change its priorities. This headline is completely misleading.

LMAO, how naive

Defund is the worst term ever concocted for this situation. Two problems exist in policing: 1.) police officers are violent idiots who can’t always be trusted to enforce laws fairly or judiciously 2.) communities brutalized by police are also underserved by police enforcement against crime, which feeds poverty and blight (see: clearance rates) Defunding implies flat cuts. It is the wrong communication. All because weirdo activists think that “reform” magically neuters anything they do and fucks their wives

That’s defunding when you take away money

It’s only an issue when it effects her.