The Patriot Post® · Defund the Police and Send the Feds the Bill?

It was almost inevitable that riots over “systemic racism” would yield calls to defund the police. From the placard-holding radicals marching through the streets to the most extreme leftist members of Congress to “progressive” mayors of big cities, the rallying cry is gaining steam. What’s worse, they want to send all American taxpayers the bill for their own malfeasance.

Calling for a “reduction of our NYPD budget,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the socialist Millennial representing parts of the Bronx and Queens, demands to know, “If you’re an elected official… I’m asking you to ask yourself what are you willing to sacrifice to make sure that over-funded police departments are defunded?”

Fellow “Squad” member Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis shouted during a rally, “We need to completely dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department because … there’s a cancer.” She continued, “We don’t want your damn reforms. … What we want you to do is to cut the cancer so that it does not continue to spread throughout our bodies. The Minneapolis Police Department is rotten to the root.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was booed out of a protest for refusing to commit to “the full abolition of the Minneapolis Police Department.”

Apparently, the Minneapolis City Council agrees with Omar, not the mayor. A veto-proof majority of the council has pledged to disband the police department. Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender aims to “dismantl[e] policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe.”

Nor is Minneapolis alone. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti plans on solving his city’s “systemic racism” problem by slashing $150 million from LAPD’s budget “to redirect [that money] to black communities.” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio added that he’ll work to divert money from the police department toward other social services.

These cities — particularly Minneapolis — have already seen mass destruction caused by rioting, looting, and arson. Disbanding or defunding police departments will only exacerbate those problems.

What’s Mayor Frey’s solution? Send the feds the bill — a.k.a. the American taxpayer.

Early estimates peg damage to the city at $55 million, but it’s almost certainly far higher, and Mayor Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz want aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, though FEMA denied aid to Maryland after the Baltimore riots following the death of Freddie Gray.

To aid in this charade, Walz and Frey have blamed “outsiders” for the damage. This wasn’t OUR fair residents, they insist, it was agitators from other states. Democrat Congresswoman Betty McCollum, whose district covers parts of the twin cities, says, “To be realistic, the odds of that happening are, at best, very difficult. [But] if it is demonstrated [that] outside provocateurs committed acts of destruction then there is a clear rationale for an emergency declaration by President Trump.”

Nevertheless, McCollum and Omar are working with Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith to secure federal funding for riots they allowed to happen in a city where they want to “dismantle” the police department. This is all while blue states around the country are busting their budgets and demanding a COVID bailout. We’re detecting a theme — Democrats run cities and states poorly. The rest of us shouldn’t have to pay the bill.