{"id":4835,"date":"2023-08-09T11:30:40","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T16:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/?p=4835"},"modified":"2023-08-09T11:30:41","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T16:30:41","slug":"dcs-city-council-slashed-police-funding-now-its-members-want-more-cops-as-shootings-plague-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/?p=4835","title":{"rendered":"DC&#8217;s City Council Slashed Police Funding. Now, Its Members Want More Cops as Shootings Plague City."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Nation&#8217;s capital saw 13 homicides in first five days of August<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20370%20247'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"zeen-lazy-load-base zeen-lazy-load wp-image-4836\"\/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"736\" height=\"491\" src=\"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4836\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48.png 736w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48-370x247.png 370w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48-293x195.png 293w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48-120x80.png 120w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48-240x160.png 240w, https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-48-390x260.png 390w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" \/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Washington, D.C.&#8217;s city council in the summer of 2020 voted to slash millions from the police budget. Now, as homicides surge in the nation&#8217;s capital, liberal council members want more cops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After D.C. saw 13 homicides in just the first five days of August, left-wing council members Brianne Nadeau and Phil Mendelson&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.brianneknadeau.com\/updates\/press-release\/nadeau-statement-recent-shootings-and-update-public-safety\">touted<\/a>&nbsp;their&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/dc-md-va\/2023\/08\/06\/dc-homicides-violent-crime\/\">efforts<\/a>&nbsp;to secure more resources for police, with Nadeau especially stressing the city&#8217;s &#8220;hot spots.&#8221; Those efforts mark a stark turnaround for the council members, both of whom&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/lims.dccouncil.gov\/Legislation\/B23-0761\">voted<\/a>&nbsp;to cut $15 million from the city&#8217;s police budget at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020. Nadeau at the time&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BrianneKNadeau\/status\/1273688888112971780?s=20\">endorsed<\/a>&nbsp;&#8220;calls to defund MPD&#8221; and &#8220;get police out of schools,&#8221; while Mendelson&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wusa9.com\/article\/news\/crime\/dc-commission-report-calls-for-big-changes-reimagining-responses-to-crises-decentering-dc-police-mpd\/65-7f4a7724-0c80-4013-a311-58992e54c9df\">praised<\/a>&nbsp;a 2021 police reform&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dccouncil.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Police-Reform-Commission-Full-Report.pdf\">report<\/a>&nbsp;that lamented D.C.&#8217;s &#8220;harmful over-reliance on policing and incarceration&#8221; and called for a &#8220;realignment and reduction of MPD&#8217;s size, responsibilities, and budget.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nadeau and Mendelson&#8217;s sudden support for additional policing reflects the political toxicity of the &#8220;defund the police&#8221; movement, which swept liberal cities following George Floyd&#8217;s death but has since prompted backlash. City officials in New York and Los Angeles, for example, cut funding for police in 2020 only to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/nbcblk\/cities-vowed-2020-cut-police-funding-budgets-expanded-2021-rcna9864\">restore law enforcement budgets<\/a>&nbsp;a year later, citing spikes in violent crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">D.C. Police Union chairman Gregg Pemberton said the council&#8217;s &#8220;flip-flop&#8221; reflects an effort to avoid blame &#8220;regarding exponential increases in violent crime.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Councilmember Nadeau should be ashamed of herself for what she has done to the MPD during her tenure,&#8221; Pemberton told the&nbsp;<em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>. &#8220;If councilmember Nadeau actually cares about public safety, as she stated in her press release, she should move to repeal the two dozen [policies] \u2026 that have decimated the MPD over the past three years.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Neither Nadeau nor Mendelson returned requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Beyond the council&#8217;s embrace of the movement to defund police in 2020, D.C. lawmakers last year passed the controversial&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/code.dccouncil.gov\/us\/dc\/council\/laws\/24-345\">Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Act<\/a>, which would&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/norton.house.gov\/media\/press-releases\/norton-speaks-house-floor-opposing-resolution-nullify-dc-policing-reform#:~:text=of%20George%20Floyd.-,D.C.'s%20Comprehensive%20Policing%20and%20Justice%20Reform%20Amendment%20Act%20of,involved%20in%20an%20officer%2Dinvolved\">make it easier<\/a>&nbsp;to fire police officers. A bipartisan congressional group&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/118th-congress\/house-joint-resolution\/42\">attempted to repeal the act<\/a>, but President Joe Biden blocked the effort with a veto. Even D.C.&#8217;s liberal mayor, Muriel Bowser, condemned portions of the bill that would subject on-duty police officers to more government scrutiny, saying the city should not have &#8220;unfettered access&#8221; to all police records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In addition to Nadeau and Mendelson, another D.C. city council member voted in favor of measures that would slash funding from city cops only to express support for &#8220;first responders&#8221; amid the ongoing crime wave. That member, Brooke Pinto, last month\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookepintodc.com\/newsroom\/passage-emergency-public-safety#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%20DC%20Council%20passed,Unified%20Communications%20Transparency%20and%20Accuracy\">boasted<\/a>\u00a0of her work to ensure &#8220;police have the tools they need to keep communities safe.&#8221; Pinto, who did not return a request for comment, in 2020\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CMBrookePinto\/status\/1339596708951420930?s=20\">bemoaned<\/a>\u00a0D.C.&#8217;s &#8220;over reliance on policing,&#8221; which she said &#8220;continues to burden&#8221; city residents and &#8220;does not help us to resolve our most pressing issues.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Original Article: <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/democrats\/dcs-city-council-slashed-police-funding-now-its-members-want-more-cops-as-shootings-plague-city\/\">https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/democrats\/dcs-city-council-slashed-police-funding-now-its-members-want-more-cops-as-shootings-plague-city\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nation&#8217;s capital saw 13 homicides in first five days of August Washington, D.C.&#8217;s city council in the summer of 2020 voted to slash millions from the police budget. Now, as homicides surge in the nation&#8217;s capital, liberal council members want more cops. After D.C. saw 13 homicides in just the first five days of August, left-wing council members Brianne Nadeau and Phil Mendelson&nbsp;touted&nbsp;their&nbsp;efforts&nbsp;to secure more resources for police, with Nadeau especially stressing the city&#8217;s &#8220;hot spots.&#8221; Those efforts mark a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrats"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4837,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835\/revisions\/4837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}