Republican Reardon Sullivan has been endorsed by the Montgomery County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35 in the primary election for County Executive. Increasing crime countywide has become a hot-button issue in the campaign for both of the major political parties. The police union criticized County leaders last year for defunding 27 police officer positions, amid a spike in armed carjackings that has continued through this year.
Amidst local and nationwide anger over police-involved deaths, and calls from some Democrats in 2020 to "defund the police," County Police Chief Marcus Jones said morale among his force was the lowest he had ever seen during his career here. Officer retirements are up, and recruitment of new officers has been difficult. Where applications once numbered in the thousands, the 2021 recruit class numbered only 14. This past January, the chief told the County Council that he is losing an average of 4 officers per month to retirements.
Reardon has zeroed in on this crisis in his campaign messaging, promising to "fully fund the police," and to "give the men and women of law enforcement the respect they deserve." He has also vowed to return Student Resource Officers to public schools, where several violent incidents including a shooting have led to calls for bringing SROs back to campuses. "We all know that crime is on the rise in the County," Sullivan said in a statement. "The time for change and new leadership is now. We need leaders that can bring common sense back to our local government."
5 comments:
Please voters, do not pull the lever for Blair. I switched my party affiliation solely to kick Elrich out and put Blair in. Well, I'm going to vote in the primary and vote for anyone but those two then vote for Reardon in the general. No on Blair. He's much the same as the status quo.
FOP complaining that 27 police officers were "defunded" (the officers were simply transferred between departments) while PD is unable to fill HUNDREDS of open and fully funded positions is peak comedy.
2:50 Anonymous:
Can you elaborate on why Blair is just more of the same?
Learning
10:58 - He's a liberal/progressive who's a wolf in sheep's clothing. Why not vote for him? Well, if he gets in, he'll have no problem hitting the county with a massive tax hike. Dig into his record and where he really stands. It's critical to get Elrich out and I think that'll happen. But we should be very clear who we're voting for and Blair shouldn't be it.
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35 could not be more out of touch if they tried. Police have a thousand problems - unchecked "bad apples," overseeing increased crime rates, generally not having the public's trust, not being able to convince people to join their force, etc. - but their ever-increasing budget isn't one. MCPD needs to look inward to try and solve some if their problems rather than just blaming politicians for everything.
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