Gallup: Blacks Overwhelmingly Favor Maintaining Or Increasing Police Presence

Gallup: Blacks Overwhelmingly Favor Maintaining Or Increasing Police Presence

Results from a new comprehensive Gallup Center on Black Voices poll show that 4 in 5 black Americans support police either maintaining the same presence they have in local communities or increasing it.

The survey of nearly 37,000 people from four racial/ethnic groups was taken June 23rd through July 6th, a full month after the George Floyd protests and riots started. The results indicate that the Democrat/Black Lives Matter-led movement to defund the police, which has been the main goal of the ongoing marches, is not gaining the traction that the mainstream media has led people to believe it has.

Here’s a more detailed look at some of the key findings:

When asked whether they want the police to spend more time, the same amount of time or less time than they currently do in their area, most Black Americans — 61% — want the police presence to remain the same. This is similar to the 67% of all U.S. adults preferring the status quo, including 71% of White Americans.

Meanwhile, nearly equal proportions of Black Americans say they would like the police to spend more time in their area (20%) as say they’d like them to spend less time there (19%).

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The study includes large samples of Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans, weighted to their correct proportions of the population.

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Most Black Americans want the police to spend at least as much time in their area as they currently do, indicating that they value the need for the service that police provide. However, that exposure comes with more trepidation for Black than White or Hispanic Americans about what they might experience in a police encounter.

Here’s the full breakdown:

Per Gallup, it looks like the aggressive BLM/Dem-led push to defund the police is not resonating w/ most ppl. Black Americans in particular overwhelmingly support police presence in communities. Didn't see much on this from the MSM for some reason. https://t.co/2kHIuYcSM0 pic.twitter.com/3qVfCFj9i1

— Sister Toldjah Le Pew ? (@sistertoldjah) August 8, 2020

Gallup noted that the results in this survey corresponded with findings they reported last month on black Americans and their stances on defunding the police:

These results correspond with Gallup’s previously reported findings showing that only 22% of Black Americans favor abolishing police departments. However, the vast majority believe reform is needed, with upward of 90% favoring specific reforms aimed at improving police relations with the communities they serve and preventing or punishing abusive police behavior.

The reason why we’ve heard next to nothing about either of these polls from journalists who have spent substantial amounts of time covering the protests and riots is clear. This is a major blow to narratives crafted by the radical Black Lives Matter movement and Democratic politicians who want to see police departments defunded/abolished/dismantled, and to the media, who have falsely suggested for months that defunding the police was a viewpoint held by a vast majority of black Americans.

What this poll found dovetails with what’s happened in Minneapolis since the death of George Floyd and the violent social unrest in the city that followed. After the city council voted a month later to begin the process of defunding the Minneapolis PD, black leaders in the community pushed back big time.

Among the reasons cited by those leaders was the fact that none of them were consulted on the plan before the city’s vote. “We have not been consulted as the city makes its decisions, even though our community is the one most heavily impacted by both police violence and community violence,” civil rights attorney and former Minneapolis NAACP president Nekima Levy Armstrong told the Star Tribune.

Urban League Twin Cities CEO/president Steven Belton told them that although the black community is “subjected to excessive police use of force … at the same time we are also disproportionately victims of crime and witnesses of crime. And you cannot talk defunding the police if there is not a concomitant strategy of community safety in place as well.”

Others pointed to the fact that the city’s first black police chief, Medaria Arradondo, was someone who the black community trusted and could work with.

During an emergency press conference last month, some black leaders and violence prevention advocates demanded the city council reassess their view on defunding the police:

Lisa Clemons is a former officer and a peace activist with “A Mother’s Love.” She said to a crowd of reporters, “We cannot have bullets continue to fly in our community.”

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“It is time to stand up in this city, it is time to tell the city council that utopia is a bunch of B.S. We are not in Mayberry we are in the wild wild west and it is time for some answers,” Clemons said.

Here’s a CBS Minneapolis clip from that report that features leaders like Clemons and others speaking out against the city council’s plan to defund the police:

Wednesday, the Minneapolis Charter Commission voted to give themselves more time to review the city council’s proposal to defund the police, which effectively blocked the proposal from being put on the November ballot.

On the defunding the police debate, it sounds like cooler heads are prevailing as a direct result of black residents hitting the brakes on the idea – not just in Minneapolis, but nationwide, if the Gallup poll results are a reliable indicator.

This is good news for people of all races who favor law and order, and bad news for left-wing anti-police extremists and their Democratic allies who have an anti-America axe to grind.

— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —

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