[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 124 (Thursday, July 15, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4914-S4915]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Police Departments

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, it didn't take long. Just a year since 
``defund the police'' became a rallying cry and cities started cutting 
money from police budgets, crime is surging.
  At the beginning of June, the New York Times reported:

       Homicide rates in large cities were up more than 30 percent 
     on average last year, and up another 24 percent for the 
     beginning of this year.

  Homicides are up in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los 
Angeles, Columbus; and the list goes on. And it isn't only homicide 
rates that have risen. During the first 4 months of the year, Los 
Angeles saw a 73-percent increase in shootings.
  As of the end of May, Portland, OR, which has been ravaged by violent 
riots over the past year, was on track to exceed 1,000 shootings for 
this year, as compared to 389 in 2019.
  A Washington Examiner piece from June reported:

       Through the first 14 weeks of this year, New York City saw 
     an 81 percent increase in shootings, the highest number of 
     shootings during the same time period since 2002. Robberies, 
     grand larcenies, felony assaults, and shootings have all 
     increased in April and May compared to last year.

  San Francisco has seen a surge in car break-ins, among other crimes, 
with the San Francisco Chronicle reporting in June that ``last month, 
the Police Department's Central Station saw a 753 percent increase in 
auto burglaries compared to the previous May.''
  In Oakland, CA, carjackings are up almost 88 percent, shootings are 
up 70 percent, and homicides are up 90 percent.
  Unfortunately, I could go on all day. The crime surge is real, and it 
is frightening. I quoted a lot of statistics and percentages, but there 
are real people behind every one of those crimes--people whose lives 
have been cut short or ravaged by violence, people whose sense of 
safety has been destroyed.
  It turns out that--surprise--defunding the police is a terrible idea. 
It is no coincidence at all that cities that have slashed their police 
budgets have seen huge increases in violence. Some of them are even 
recognizing the mistake they made and seeking to restore the funding 
that they cut. A Fox Business piece reports:

       Cities like New York City, Oakland, Baltimore, Minneapolis, 
     and Los Angeles are planning to reinstate tens of millions 
     for the construction of new police precincts, increase police 
     department budgets, among other plans to bankroll more 
     efforts to confront the uptick in crime.

  Unfortunately, the problem won't necessarily be fixed that easily 
because ``defund the police'' rhetoric has not just resulted in smaller 
police budgets; it has also resulted in police demoralization and left 
departments worried about deploying officers to do their jobs. It has 
resulted in a wave of police retirements and resignations.
  The New York Times reports:

       Thousands of police officers nationwide have headed for the 
     exits in the past year. A survey of almost 200 police 
     departments indicated that retirements were up 45 percent and 
     resignations rose by 18 percent in the year from April 2020 
     to April 2021 when compared with the previous 12 months.

  That is from the New York Times.
  The city of Asheville, NC, has lost one-third of its police force--
one-third, Mr. President. It is not surprising. It turns out that when 
you spend months vilifying police officers and demonizing them for 
doing their jobs, some of them no longer want to stay. This is perhaps 
the worst consequence of the ``defund the police'' movement.
  Cutting police budgets is not a good idea, but resources and 
equipment can be built back up again, sometimes fairly quickly. It is a 
lot harder to replace good seasoned officers with years of experience 
protecting public safety. While it would be hard to replace them at any 
time, it is particularly hard today because it is difficult to imagine 
why anyone would want to become a police officer right now. Why would 
good men and women sign up for a job where they are regularly 
characterized as the worst kind of criminals? Why would they sign up 
knowing they may

[[Page S4915]]

be prevented from or punished for doing the job we ask them to do?
  Violence against police officers--always a danger--is up. The 
sickening scene of protesters shouting ``death to police'' outside a 
hospital where two ambushed law enforcement officers were fighting for 
their lives has to be emblazoned on the minds of police officers 
nationwide. Again I ask, why would anyone want to join the police under 
these conditions?
  The ``defund the police'' movement is not only costing us many good 
officers today, it has depleted the pool of good officers for the 
future, and that is a travesty.
  The unfortunate truth is, the Democrats bear a substantial amount of 
responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in because this is a 
party that either actively contributed to the ``defund the police'' 
rhetoric or implicitly endorsed it by largely staying silent, not to 
mention the less-than-censorious attitude the Democrats frequently 
displayed when it came to the violence and property destruction of last 
summer and the past year.
  California Representative Maxine Waters said protesters in 
Minneapolis this April should ``get more confrontational'' should the 
verdict in the Chauvin trial not go their way.
  Far-left Members of the House of Representatives spent the past year 
making statements like these:

       Policing in our country is inherently and intentionally 
     racist.
       No more policing, incarceration, and militarization.

  Now, more mainstream Democrats have become wise to the fact that 
their party's association with the ``defund the police'' movement may 
threaten their electoral chances next year. As polling demonstrated, 
Americans are squarely against the idea of defunding the police. So the 
President and other Democratic leaders all of a sudden announced their 
concern about surging crime, but they are still trying to have their 
cake and eat it, too, because missing from their messaging is any real 
condemnation of ``defund the police'' rhetoric and the terrible toll it 
has taken on our cities and police departments.

  In fact, President Biden, who is currently trying to reinvent himself 
as tough on crime, filled key roles in the Department of Justice with 
individuals who have gone on record with their support for defunding 
the police. President Biden's Secretary of Labor actually cut police 
funding while serving as Boston's mayor, and his Secretary of Housing 
and Urban Development has suggested that we should consider decreasing 
police budgets.
  Democrats' actual crime-fighting plans are long on punishing gun 
dealers and gun manufacturers and short on actually going after 
criminals. The President's nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives seems more interested in targeting 
law-abiding gun owners than in dealing with the surge in gun crime.
  I have one last point to make about the ``defund the police'' 
movement, and that is its fundamental injustice. Are there bad police 
officers out there? Of course there are. There are bad teachers out 
there, too, and bad social workers and bad small businessmen. But just 
as it would be outrageous to demonize all teachers because of a few bad 
apples in their profession, it is outrageous to demonize the hundreds 
of thousands of dedicated men and women defending public safety in this 
country because of a handful of bad offers.
  We owe our men and women in law enforcement a great debt--a debt we 
can't even fully comprehend. These men and women go out and risk their 
lives every day of the week, every month of the year, to keep us safe. 
But they don't just risk their lives; they also bear a heavy physical 
and emotional burden. Most of us go about our daily lives without 
having to confront much evil because our law enforcement officers go 
out every day to confront it for us. They confront violence so that we 
don't have to, and they pay a price. It is tough to have to see evil on 
a daily basis, to spend years rescuing children who are in trouble or 
supporting victims of violence or bringing rapists to justice, but it 
is a price most of them are glad to pay. They signed up to protect the 
innocent, to keep the public safe and evil at bay, and they are proud 
to do it. We owe them and their families our profound gratitude.
  It is abhorrent that anti-police rhetoric has become such an accepted 
part of our national conversation and has been winked at or endorsed by 
so many Democratic leaders. We owe our police officers much better.
  I hope the belated realization among some that police officers are 
essential to keeping our communities safe will spell the end of the 
``defund the police'' movement. It is time to focus on protecting 
public safety and honoring men and women who spend every day working to 
promote it.
  I yield the floor.