At the same time national Democrats were gaslighting the American people by falsely claiming it was actually Republicans who wanted to defund the police all this time, Democrats in the crime-ridden city of Oakland, California voted to cut another nearly-$20 million in funding from the city’s police budget.
Oakland City Council president Nikki Fortunato Bas, a Democrat, was unapologetic over the vote last month, calling it “historic” and portraying it as a positive step for the future of the city. She also hinted that more cuts could be coming in the near future, telling a local news outlet that “because police have the largest share [of the budget], there could be more redistribution.”
Understandably, this greatly frustrated Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who gave an emotional speech the following Monday in which he spoke of how the cuts to his department’s already-depleted budget would further negatively impact police responses to crime:
“Saturday night, I went out to a scene of a young man who lost his life, and a lady yelled out the window, ‘Do something about it.’ Without the resources, it makes it challenging to make Oakland safe, and more families find themselves dealing with trauma,” the chief said.“I hope that we could politics aside and put public safety first. Put people’s lives first before political agendas,” he added.
Watch:
Over the weekend, Armstrong, who was born and raised in West Oakland, led a rally in the city and was joined by supporters of the police department including family members of loved ones who had been murdered. The goal of the gathering was to raise awareness of the rising violent crime rate in the city and to show support for the community and police:
“We continue to see shootings every night in the city,” Armstrong, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with #SAFEOAKLAND, said at the event. “It is time we come together and we unite behind reducing gun violence in the city of Oakland. There are people in our community who don’t feel safe. There are seniors in our community who cannot come out at night. There are young, African-American men and Latino men that are at risk in our city. We have to come together; this is not about politics, this is about saving lives.”
Nearby, however, there was an anti-police rally that appeared to involve members of Antifa. At certain points, things began to get tense:
Still, a group of dissenters stood at the back of the police-sanctioned event, carrying anti-law enforcement signs and naming, by megaphone, every person in recent years who has been killed by Oakland police.At different points, the two sides engaged in a heated dialogue. Some among the pro-police crowd shouted that the demonstrators were harming the Black Lives Matter movement. Black participants in the anti-police demonstration responded that they simply want Oakland police to stop killing so many people.Members of the anti-police group said later that most of them were not affiliated with the APTP [Anti Police-Terror Project]. While chanting the names of those killed by police in Oakland, the group lingered on Oscar Grant, who was killed by a BART police officer in 2009.
View some photos and videos of the tense moments between the two camps below. It’s hard to understand what was said, but just by body language and raised voices alone, you can tell the pro-police rally attendees were not interested in being lectured to:
My first thought upon seeing the tweets and watching the clips was that it was so infuriatingly typical for white liberals to try and tell black people what’s best for them. Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald expressed the thought much better:
The same thing happens with women and other minorities who don’t toe the left’s line because smug liberals always think they know best. Worse, you get accused of being a “traitor” to your group for simply daring to think differently.
If last year’s House elections are a reliable indicator, a growing number of minorities are fed up with the patronization they receive from Democrats and are moving away from the party.
It’s precisely why Democrats are desperate to get the Defund the Police albatross off their backs. Unfortunately for them, it won’t work.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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