Defunding Police Departments Will Leave Vulnerable Communities Decimated by Violent Crime

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The closer we get to November, the more extreme Democrats' rallying cries become. From "Medicare for All" to the "Green New Deal," Democrats have now turned their backs on the men and women in blue, calling for police departments to be defunded across the country - a dangerous proposal that delegitimizes law enforcement.

As U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has said, the people who have the most to lose by defunding police departments are the communities who need them the most:

"We know that violent crime disproportionally affects low-income communities, and that law enforcement plays a critical role in protecting life and preserving a free and functioning society. We also know that law enforcement has an important responsibility in upholding our criminal justice system. Though our nation has taken many troubled turns on our continuing march toward justice, defunding and abolishing police departments will undoubtedly take us backward in that endeavor."

Dave Patrick Underwood, an African-American federal officer, was killed in the line of duty last month as protests over George Floyd's death turned violent in Oakland, California. On Wednesday, his sister Angela Underwood-Jacobs testified before Congress in a hearing on police reforms, saying:

"[Defunding the police] is not a solution. It gets us nowhere as a nation, and removes a safety net of protection that every citizen deserves from their community's elected officials."

WATCH: Sen. Cruz: Dave Patrick Underwood's Life Mattered

Dr. Darrel Scott, author and senior pastor of New Spirit Revival Center, also testified before Congress, saying:

"The prospect of defunding and or dismantling police forces across the country is one of the most unwise [and] irresponsible proposals by American politicians in our nation's history and makes absolutely no sense at all, at least to me. [...] I also believe that it's a reactionary measure that can and will result in short and long term damage to American society, particularly in our inner city and urban communities."

As Heather Mac Donald, author of New York Times Bestseller ‘The War On Cops' and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recently wrote in the New York Post:

"The people who live in high-crime neighborhoods understand more about policing than the anti-cop agitators. Since the early 1990s, when the homicide toll in New York City was more than 2,000 a year, tens of thousands of minority lives have been saved, thanks to the NYPD's fiercely responsive, data-driven policing. [...] Most of the lives that would have been lost had killings remained at their early 1990s levels have been black and Hispanic."

Andrew McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and fellow at the National Review Institute echoed these sentiments in an op-ed, writing:

"Minority communities are the ones most targeted and most wronged by criminals. [...] The people whose families, property and lives would be most under siege if police departments were defunded are minority communities. The places that would collapse are the cities run by the progressives who promote this lunatic fantasy."

At a time when we're seeing violent crime increase, as noted by the Wall Street Journal editorial board, calls for defunding police departments are out of touch and dangerous and stand to put vulnerable communities in harm's way.

"As police have eased up, violent crime has increased nearly twice as much in the minority third precinct in Minneapolis as city-wide since 2018. In New York's Harlem neighborhood, which benefitted enormously from anti-crime mayors, murders have soared 160% this year [...] But law enforcement is mainly a state and local obligation, and in many cities now the defunders have power. Poor communities will be the victims if they succeed."

Jacqueline Helfgott, Professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Seattle University, recently penned an op-ed warning against defunding and delegitimizing police forces. Her city is now under siege from radical Antifa activists who are demanding the "total abolition of the Seattle Police Department."

"If we defund the police, those most affected will be the poor and the marginalized. Wealthy neighborhoods will hire private security as they are already doing, and poorer neighborhoods will have to fend for themselves even more than they already have to. Delays in police response and lack of police capacity will increase fear of crime, render victims of crime helpless and wreak havoc on communities, especially communities of color, even more so than is already the case."

While attempting to explain away these politically inconvenient truths, Democrats and the mainstream media have turned a blind eye to the fatalities of Black Americans who do not fit their political agenda, as Marc Thiessen noted in the Washington Post:

"It's hard to chant ‘defund the police' while demanding justice for a retired black police captain and a young federal officer who gave their lives, or the other innocent black Americans who were killed during the riots. So their stories are just swept under the rug and forgotten. Sorry, if we truly believe as a nation that black lives matter, then their lives must matter, too."

Watch Sen. Cruz's full remarks denouncing the violence that has gripped American cities in the wake of George Floyd's horrific death here.

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