A series of social justice and open borders lobbying organizations, many linked to billionaire George Soros, are demanding that the federal government end all funding of police in the United States.
While the Black Lives Matter movement leads a national “Defund the Police” campaign, left-wing groups are likewise demanding steps be taken by Congress to cut off federal grant money for local law enforcement.
In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, as well as to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), about 35 organizations urged that police stop receiving federal tax dollars.
A number of the open borders groups who signed the letter, such as CASA de Maryland, the Center for Popular Democracy, and Make the Road New York have been linked to Soros’s Open Society Foundation.
The activists write:
We write to demand that in this moment, Congress permanently end and cease any funding to local law enforcement in any form, whether it be money for training, equipment, hiring, re-hiring, overtime, etc. including all programs under the so-called Community Oriented Policing Services’ [“COPS”] program, and fully fund community-led public safety efforts.
Congress allocating any resources, even with strings attached, towards policing — an institution that already receives over $100 billion of public resources annually — particular in the wake of our current economic crisis and police violence epidemic, is both illogical and stands to inflame an already tense situation. Indeed, just last week, in the midst of an economic crisis and national uprising against police brutality and massive police budgets, the COPS office announced nearly $400 million in grant funding through the COPS Hiring Program (CHP), which will fund 596 law enforcement agencies to hire 2,732 additional full-time law enforcement personnel. In the wake of the COVID-19 disaster, the House of Representatives recently and bafflingly included an additional $300 million in funding to the COPS office in the “HEROES Act.” [Emphasis added]
…
Congress should immediately stop all funding to local law enforcement and condemn, restrain, and use the power of the purse to remove federally funded police and military from our cities. The COPS program has directly contributed to the increased size, scope, and role of policing across cities in our country, and subsequently the endless stream of killings and violence perpetrated by law enforcement on Black people particularly. The COVID-19 crisis and accompanying economic loss paired with the brazen and violent nature of policing has demonstrated the need for a nationwide reimagining of public safety that does not include allocating resources for policing, but one that fully funds the needs of all our communities. [Emphasis added]
The full letter can be read here:
Groups’ Letter to Congress by John Binder on Scribd
The lobbying effort comes as riots have broken out over opposition to law enforcement. The riots, which resulted in the deaths of many black Americans, have spiraled into calls by the Black Lives Matter movement to dismantle and defund local police departments.
Data collected by the Washington Post reveals that police officers killed about 1,003 suspects last year — more than 800 of which were armed with either a gun or a knife – while about 29 were carrying a toy weapon. Five percent of suspects killed by police last year were unarmed.
More specifically, police killed 14 unarmed black Americans last year, accounting for one percent of all suspects killed by law enforcement in 2019. About 25 unarmed white Americans were killed by police last year, accounting for two percent of all suspects killed.
In comparison, nearly 50 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty in 2019.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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