[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by JerryLBell

A lot of people (I was one of them) think that "defunding" police departments means getting rid of the police department. It doesn't. Over the years, the governments of most cities and states have dropped all kinds of programs and had the police departments step in and do the work. For example, mental health clinics have lost all kinds of funding and now police departments are forced to deal with mentally ill folks that once might have gone to the clinics. Similar with other things like drug counseling and even animal control in many areas. The police have had their budgets increased in part to offset the loss of these services from other departments. "Defunding" police departments means taking some of the money that would have gone to the police departments and giving it to other community support departments like mental health clinics, drug counseling clinics, etc. This should offset the work in those areas from our overworked police officers and have it done by professionals specializing in those areas. It does NOT mean eliminating entire police departments and embracing lawlessness. At first, I was against the idea of defunding police departments but I am seeing how that may actually be helpful.

We shall see but from what I have been reading the citizens of Minneapolis are going to be in for a rude awakening down the road a bit.