Tag: defund the police

Will Zohran Mamdani Defund New York City Police?

Central to Zohran Mamdani’s 2020 campaign for New York State Assembly was a pitch to radically constrain law enforcement. “Queer liberation means defund the police,” he posted two days after securing his seat representing Astoria, an apt coda to that election season.

It was November 2020, just months after the George Floyd protests began—a time when calls to defund the police were more common. Such a plan was arguably always a tougher sell in a mayoral campaign where candidates have to court a more politically diverse electorate than the one in western Queens, a district that overlaps with that of the socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.).

Which helps explain why Mamdani pivoted fairly dramatically on criminal justice in his run to be mayor of America’s most populous city. “I am not defunding the police,” he said on the campaign trail. “I am not running to defund the police.” One way he has tried to show he is serious about that promise: asking Jessica Tisch, who was an ally of Mayor Eric Adams, to stay on as New York City police commissioner.

That type of law enforcement partnership would have been difficult to imagine with the Mamdani who made his political debut just over five years ago. What might their differences mean for New York City?

On one hand, not much. A great deal has been made, for example, of Mamdani and Tisch diverging considerably on New York’s state bail law, which bars judges from contemplating a defendant’s dangerousness when making decisions about bond. It is the only state with that ban. While Tisch’s skepticism of that policy has merit—nearby New Jersey successfully eliminated cash bail in 2017 but did so in favor of a risk-based system—neither she nor Mamdani has the power to alter the legislation.

The same goes for their disagreements on New York’s Raise the Age law, which diverted most 16- and 17-year-old alleged offenders out of adult court. Mamdani likes the law; Tisch is against it. That debate is important, but it ultimately rests with state legislators.

Other differences are more consequential, or at least have potential to be. Currently, the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) can recommend disciplinary action after investigating allegations of misconduct at the New York Police Department (NYPD). The final say, however, belongs to the commissioner—something Mamdani campaigned on revoking.

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Defund the Police Group Bailed Out Domestic Abuser Who Immediately Murdered Mother of His Children

A defund-the-police organization bailed out a repeat domestic abuser who went on to strangle and slash his ex-girlfriend to death in front of their children.

Mohamed Adan, 36, had a documented history of violent assaults against Racheal Abraham, 36, the mother of two of his kids.

Adan was sentenced last week for the murder, and the prosecutor did not hold back in placing blame for Abraham’s death on the leftist activists who helped free him.

Despite clear warnings and multiple arrests, the Portland Freedom Fund, a now-defunct group dedicated to abolishing police and highlighting racial disparities in the bail system, paid $2,000 to secure his release.

Within days, Adan violated a no-contact order, attacked Abraham in her Portland apartment, and killed her by strangling her and slashing her face and arms.

In May 2022, Adan, high on methamphetamine and cocaine, strangled and punched Abraham in the head.

He was arrested again in June of that year, for another strangulation incident where he threatened, “I should kill you!”

Judge Benjamin Bushong released him on GPS monitoring, which Adan promptly removed.

On August 11, he was rearrested for beating Abraham with prayer beads.

Nine days later, on August 20, the Portland Freedom Fund stepped in, posting bail despite Abraham’s pleas to the court that “statistics show that strangulation cases lead to homicide. I don’t want to be a victim.”

Adan disabled another GPS tracker, hunted her down, and committed the murder while three of her children were home.

On Tuesday, Adan pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 25 years.

Senior prosecutor Melissa Marrero didn’t mince words at the sentencing, saying, “The Portland Freedom Fund, thinking it knew better than law enforcement professionals, decided to bail him out. It cost her her life.”

The New York Post reports, “The Portland Freedom Fund, which aimed to ‘bring attention to the racial disparity in the cash bail system,’ shut down in September 2022.”

This Portland tragedy is far from an isolated incident.

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Rep. Jasmine Crockett MELTS DOWN, Claims Republicans Are “Defunding the Police”

Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett used her opening statement this week to deliver one of the most exaggerated, unfounded speeches Congress has heard in years. 

Rather than focus on public safety, government accountability, or the crises facing American families, she launched into a rehearsed tirade accusing President Trump of running an “autocracy.” 

It was political theater—packed with conspiracy, missing context, and completely detached from the reality of Trump’s presidency.

Crockett claimed that since January, President Trump has used “the full power of the federal government to attack Americans.” 

But so far during Trump’s presidency, violent crime has fallen, immigration enforcement was restored after years of neglect, and agencies long criticized for politicization were finally forced to operate under clear, lawful boundaries. 

Crockett ignored these facts because they undermine the narrative her party relies on: that accountability equals authoritarianism when Republicans are in charge.

Her next allegation—that Americans face “militaristic operations” in their homes and “reckless, illegal acts by rogue agents”—has no basis in any federal action under President Trump. 

What the record shows is that Trump reestablished stable enforcement protocols, reversed dangerous sanctuary-city policies, and reinstated cooperation between federal and local agencies. 

Meanwhile, the same Democrats yelling “autocracy” supported no-bail policies and police defunding efforts that caused homicide rates in major blue cities to surge.

Crockett also resurrected the long-debunked claim tying Trump to Jeffrey Epstein. 

She ignored the fact that Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, cooperated with prosecutors, and appeared nowhere in the criminal evidence. 

Clinton, on the other hand, flew on Epstein’s jet more than two dozen times. Crockett selectively referenced “Epstein files,” implying that Trump is hiding them, even though his administration supported their release and none contain evidence of wrongdoing by him. 

It was an attempt to manufacture guilt where none exists.

Her attacks then shifted to internal government processes—routine contracting decisions, old allegations unrelated to Trump, and administrative disputes she framed as “organized crime.” 

These claims collapsed under basic scrutiny. 

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‘Defund The Police’ NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Has Already Spent $33,000 on Private Security

Like many Democrats running for office, New York City mayoral candidate Mohran Zamdani is a glaring hypocrite.

Mamdani, a self-described socialist and New York state assemblyman who won the Democratic nomination back in June, has poured tens of thousands of dollars into hiring a private security firm for his personal protection.

Campaign finance records reviewed by Fox News show that in June and July alone, Mamdani’s team made three separate payments to Advanced Security & Investigations, each ranging from roughly $8,000 to $13,000.

In total, the campaign shelled out $33,495 over the two-month period.

The firm openly promotes itself as a “proud employer” of New York Police Department (NYPD) officers, despite Mamdani’s long-term support for defunding the police.

Back in 2020 at the height of the Black Lives Matter riots across the country, Mamdani described NYPD as “racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety.”

”NO to fake cuts – defund the police,” he wrotea the time.

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Taxpayer-Funded Immigration Group Chaired by DOJ Employee Wants To Abolish ICE, Defund Police

A left-wing group battling the Trump administration to maintain lucrative taxpayer-funded immigration contracts has called to defund police departments and abolish the federal agency that deports illegal aliens.

Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), a nonprofit chaired by Department of Justice employee Marisa Arrona, has received $17 million in federal funding since last year to provide legal services to illegal aliens facing deportation, according to federal records. ImmDef is a subcontractor for a $769 million program to provide services to minors apprehended at the border without parents.

ImmDef and its allies are desperately fighting against the Trump administration in an attempt to maintain funding for that program and others that provide services to illegal immigrants. ImmDef has accused the Trump administration of “playing games with children’s rights and their safety” and says the program is needed to “protect due process” rights for illegal immigrants facing deportation.

But ImmDef has gone far beyond merely providing legal services to illegal immigrants facing deportation. The group, founded in 2015, has called for the government to “dismantle the systems that seek to deport our clients.” During the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, ImmDef called for dismantling “the police state by defunding and decreasing police budgets.”

ImmDef says it is “high time we abolish the immigration prison system and abolish ICE” and sold “Abolish ICE” face masks during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. In September 2020, ImmDef circulated the since-debunked MSNBC report that a doctor at an ICE facility in Georgia performed unnecessary hysterectomies on female detainees. “#AbolishICE,” ImmDef wrote on a social media post at the time.

According to former federal immigration judge Matt O’Brien, funding for groups like ImmDef highlights Democrats’ efforts to “funnel taxpayer funds into the coffers of these radical groups” in support of an “anti-borders agenda.”

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Minnesota Liberal Politician Who Campaigned to ‘Dismantle the Police Department’ Falls Victim to Carjacking and Assault – Now Calls for Tougher Juvenile Penalties

Shivanthi Sathanandan, a vice chair of the Minnesota DFL Party and a vocal advocate for defunding the police, has found herself on the receiving end of the crime she once believed could be solved through social programs.

Sathanandan, who is of Indian and Sri Lankan descent, was violently carjacked and assaulted in her own driveway in broad daylight, as her young children looked on in horror. Sathanandan, who is now calling for tougher penalties for juvenile offenders, thanked the police officers who responded to her emergency.

In a detailed Facebook post that included a graphic image of her face after the incident, Sathanandan wrote, “You could have been reading the obituary for me and my children today. But instead, I’m here. To write this. Look at my face. These criminals will not win. We need to take back our city. And this will not be the last you hear from me about this.”

The deeply unsettling event occurred at the Minneapolis home of Sathanandan and involved four young men, all armed. Sathanandan suffered a broken leg, lacerations on her head, and extensive bruising. Her children and neighbors were threatened at gunpoint during the incident.

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‘Defund the Police’ LA City Council member asks LAPD for EXTRA patrols around his office after his car broke down and had to be left in the parking lot overnight

A newly-elected Los Angeles city councillor who campaigned on a pledge to abolish the police has been left red-faced after a staff member rang the LAPD to request protection for his broken-down car. 

Hugo Soto-Martinez, a trade union activist and member of the Democratic Socialist party, was elected in December.

Soto-Martinez campaigned against ‘armed militias occupying our neighborhoods,’ saying that the existing policing system was ‘completely corrupt, immoral, and needs to be changed drastically.’ 

On Thursday night, a member of his team placed a call to the LAPD just before 10pm requesting assistance, because Soto-Martinez’s white Lexus had broken down.

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‘Defund the police’ councilwoman begs Seattle Police for protection after ‘poop’ thrown at her house

Kshama Sawant, the Seattle City Council member who led the charge to defund the police department is now requesting police to protect her home in response to repeated scatological vandalism.

Sources told The Post Millennial that over the past month someone has been throwing human feces at the Marxist councilmember’s home. According to the source, the Seattle Police Department responded and took a report, and the councilmember is now requesting a “permanent patrol presence monitoring her place from 5 pm -10 pm every day.”

This is not the first time the radical councilmember has asked for police protection. In December 2020 following the riots that rocked the city in the wake of the death of George Floyd, Sawant demanded police protection in response to threats. However, it was later revealed that Sawant had used the threats for publicity before contacting the Seattle police.

Sawant was one of the most vocal members of the defund the police movement in Seattle which led to hundreds of officers leaving the force. Following the defunding movement, crime skyrocketed, and the city is on track to beat last year’s record-high number of homicides. Rapes and assaults have also spiked. 911 response times have steadily climbed and many residents reported being placed on hold.

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Don’t Believe the People Blaming Crime on Defunded Police

Police budgets are up in cities across America. It’s a tale as old as time that politicians benefit by whipping up crime panic and accusing opponents of being soft on the issue. And so it goes in 2022, with candidates—mostly conservatives, but also some Democrats trying to position themselves as centrists—insisting that 1) crime is rising, and 2) it’s the fault of criminal justice reform policies. Both claims are highly suspect (see this recent Roundup for more on crime data), and especially so the flavor of blame that suggests this mythical crime wave is the fault of liberals and progressives “defunding the police.”

Yes, “defund the police” became a popular rallying cry in the summer of 2020, as people all over the country took to the streets to protest police brutality. And, yes, it can still be heard as a refrain in some activist circles. But even as some mainstream politicians briefly flirted with this rhetoric, it’s never been a serious policy proposal, nor one that many (if any) leaders—local or national—have acted upon.

President Joe Biden—long a friend of the police and proponent of dubious crime panic policies—recently proposed in his Safer America Plan some $37 billion in federal funding for cops. “President Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget requests a fully paid-for new investment of approximately $35 billion to support law enforcement and crime prevention – in addition to the President’s $2 billion discretionary request for these same programs,” noted the White House.

Cities and counties, too, have been raising police budgets. ABC News “examined the budgets of more than 100 cities and counties and found 83% are spending at least 2% more on police in 2022 than in 2019.”

The ABC News analysis included most major big and mid-size metropolitan areas, including Albuquerque, Anchorage, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boise, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York City, Newark, Oakland, Omaha, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Wichita, among others.

Of the 109 areas examined, 49 raised law enforcement funding by more than 10 percent and 91 raised it by at least 2 percent. Only 8 places cut funding to law enforcement by more than 2 percent.

Nonetheless, politicians, pundits, and police persist in spreading the politically convenient myth that law enforcement agencies have been massively defunded. “Despite what the public record shows, an analysis of broadcast transcripts reveals that candidates, law enforcement leaders and television hosts discussed the impact of ‘defunding the police’ more than 10,000 times the last two years and the mentions aren’t subsiding this campaign season, ABC found.

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