Democratic cries to ‘defund police’ fade in U.S. mayoral races as crime surges
Oct 29 (Reuters) – Felicia Moore, Atlanta’s city council president, vows to hire 250 police officers to help combat her city’s rising crime rate if she is elected mayor next week. Her most prominent Democratic rival, former Mayor Kasim Reed, wants to go even further, putting 750 more officers on the streets.
Public safety is at the forefront in dozens of major U.S. cities poised to elect mayors on Tuesday. However, a year after “defund the police” became a rallying cry at protests against racism and police brutality, Democratic candidates from Atlanta to Minneapolis are eschewing proposals to reduce police funding www.reuters.com/world/us/murders-surge-democrats-find-new-message-fund-police-2021-08-17 even as they emphasize the need for reform.
Keep or Replace? The Fate of the Minneapolis Police Is in Voters’ Hands.
MINNEAPOLIS — Days after a police officer murdered George Floyd, protesters gathered outside Mayor Jacob Frey’s home demanding that the Minneapolis Police Department be abolished. The mayor said no. The crowd responded with jeers of “Shame!”
On Tuesday, nearly a year and a half since Mr. Floyd’s death thrust Minneapolis into the center of a fervent debate over how to prevent police abuse, voters in the city will have a choice: Should the Minneapolis Police Department be replaced with a Department of Public Safety? And should Mr. Frey, who led the city when Mr. Floyd was killed and parts of Minneapolis burned, keep his job?
Minneapolis became a symbol of all that was wrong with American policing, and voters now have the option to move further than any other large city in rethinking what law enforcement should look like. But in a place still reeling from the murder of Mr. Floyd and the unrest that followed, residents are deeply divided over what to do next, revealing just how hard it is to change policing even when most everyone agrees there is a problem.