Insane: Minneapolis Neighborhoods Have to Resort to Paying out of Pocket for Police Presence in Their Communities

Want to know what defunding the police looks like? Look at Minneapolis, where, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a city government official pledged to “end policing as we know it”.

Fortunately, residents voted overwhelmingly against a measure that would defund and replace the police, wanting their communities to be safe.

However, while that measure was voted down, Minneapolis has still lost about 35% of its police officers since St. Floyd of Fentanyl’s death and all the “summer of love” riots that resulted from his passing.

And, despite the cheery predictions from the city council officials that slashed the policing budget in St. Floyd’s memory, having fewer officers hasn’t meant that Minneapolis then has less crime. Rather, it has meant crime spiraling nearly out of control, with neighborhoods being ravaged by the depredations of the criminals empowered by the crackdown on cops. Shocking how that works…NOT!

Some residents of the city, however, aren’t content to sit idly by as their cars, homes, and businesses are looted by the criminals that are running roughshod over the city.

But, with the city council unworried about the criminal element and focusing instead on finding ways to further damage the police force, residents of the city are having to step up and do things on their own, paying for police officers out of their own pockets.

Just the News reported on that, claiming that:

Minneapolis neighborhood groups are raising money to hire off-duty police officers to work extra hours patrolling their streets, amid a sharp increase in crime and a decline in the ranks of the city police department.

[…]

The money will be raised by “crowdfunding” – typically the online solicitation of small-dollar donations. The solicitation of funds is allowed through an agreement between the Minneapolis City Council and a nonprofit group that handles the off-duty patrols.

The cost in about $110 an hour, per officer, and initiative recommends that residents plan on contributing for a minimum of six months

So, in hiring their own police force, they’re acting like the wealthy in South Africa, who have long (since the end of apartheid, more or less) effectively had to hire mercenary forces to protect their neighborhoods from the ravages of criminal elements. These Minneapolis residents are, if anything, just one step away from that and a few steps away from the days of the Wild West, when armed citizens were forced to step up and protect their own communities thanks to the absence of a large law enforcement presence.

And what they’re attempting to combat is real: crime is rising in Minneapolis and there are far too few cops on the payroll.

On the crime side, the data shows that, in the past year alone, violent crime is up 36%, thefts are up 31%, and carjackings are up 14%. Welcome to post-police America.

Then there’s the absence of officers, which is such a problem that the Minnesota Supreme Court had to rule on it, finding that Minneapolis is not meeting its obligation to employ a baseline number of officers, specifically 17 per 100,000 residents. According to that baseline, it needs to be employing at least 731 cops. Right now, only 580 are employed by the crime-wracked city.

And so, in addition to the tax dollars ostensibly spent on keeping them safe, residents of the city are forced to pay out of pocket to establish some police presence in their neighborhoods.

LEAVE BLUE CITIES!

By: TheAmericanTribune.com, editor of TheAmericanTribune.com. Follow me on Facebook and Subscribe to My Email List