Monday, June 08, 2020

Montgomery County Council weighs defunding the police

A day after the Minneapolis City Council vowed to dissolve its police department, the Montgomery County Council is now examining whether it should "defund the police." Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D - District 1) says the Council has received almost 700 emails from constituents "advocating for defunding police, reforming police, reallocating resources to mental health services, housing initiatives, restorative justice, and more." The Councilman said on Facebook that "[w]e have many important conversations ahead."

The all-Democrat Council has been mostly silent on the nationwide issues of dissolving the police or defunding the police to this point. Progressives in Minneapolis quickly turned against very progressive Mayor Jacob Frey, who has pressed through radical reforms like ending single-family-home neighborhood zoning, when he declined to support the City Council plan to abolish its police department Saturday. With Montgomery County and Maryland veering sharply left in the last decade, it will be interesting to see how the County Council addresses these issues with progressive voters, who are now the decisive factor in Democratic primaries.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure MS-13 loves this.

Anonymous said...

Democrats have lost their minds

My 75 year old mother was home invaded last year in Bethesda

The police were wonderful. They gave our whole family advice about how to prevent a future invasion. They sat with my mom for hours.

Because of the police, my mom could stay in her home.

Elm said...

I feel for the county police...no support from your own local county elected leaders.

Police have to provide security to all these protests with folks holding signs saying "F*** the police". Yet they are doing it to keep us all safe.

Friedson is very quickly weak in the knees. There are many of us who didn't email him who appreciate our local police force.

Anonymous said...

Montgomery County police and government have handled this really well. Kudos!

Anonymous said...

Seems “defunding” universally has been misrepresented as disbanding. I’m glad Friedson is looking into how our police can improve in positive ways. MoCo police have been doing a good job, and protestors have been fairly peaceful.

SocialNorm said...

As Taylor Swift sang, "you need to calm down". This article is simply stating that the council is addressing this issue, raised by a segment of the citizenry. Had they responded in a negative manner, the reception would be off-putting to the sender. There's no difference between this an the reply given to a citizens forum portion of open meetings. Thank you for your concern, next.