Oakland’s Democrat Mayor Pleads for Reversal on Defunding Police After Getting Mugged by Reality – Opinion

Back in June, we reported on the emotional speech Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong gave in response to devastating cuts to his department’s budget to the tune of $17 million that came courtesy of the Defund the Police proponents on the Oakland City Council.

Armstrong was born in West Oakland and was raised there. He made a powerful case against the taking of money from police.

“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,” he said at the time. “I hope that we could politics aside and put public safety first. Put people’s lives first before political agendas.”

Armstrong continues to raise alarm about the lack of leadership and budget cuts in order to address violent crime, which has increased dramatically over the past few months.

It might have appeared that no one was paying attention during this time. However, it turned out someone was. Oakland’s Democrat Mayor Libby Schaff is now aggressively demanding that the City Council reverse course on their partial defunding of the police, saying now is not the time to pull money from those who put their lives on the line.

In a CNN interview done yesterday, Schaff responded to a question about last week’s brutal murder of retired police officer Kevin Nishita, who was working as an armed security guard in Oakland to protect a local news crew at the location of a prior “smash and grab” looting incident on which they were preparing to report. Schaff acknowledged how tragic the death was, and said that the city desperately needed more police officers and “appreciated” them (really?) but that “the defund rhetoric is challenging our ability to attract and retain recruits. And we know that that is not unique to Oakland.”

The coronavirus pandemic was also blamed on staffing issues and training difficulties.

In addition to calling for a halt to defunding the police after being pressed by CNN’s Kate Bolduan on how police unions and the like had been pushing back against the city for months, Schaff suggested that everything was on the table for review, and hinted that controversial bail reform measures supported by Democrats, which some have blamed for the horrific Waukesha, Wisconsin car plowing massacre that killed six, was among the things that should be reconsidered.

“We are looking at the interruption of our entire criminal justice system, the court system, the impacts of new policies with regard to bail. Everything is on the table as we look at a comprehensive approach to turn the tide of this spike in violence,” Schaff pointed out. Her call for federal and state resources was also made to assist local police in combating organized crime and coordination that has been evident in the region in recent weeks.

Watch:

Oakland Democrat Mayor Libby Schaff – The defunding of the police force by the far left is hurting our cities. We need more police. pic.twitter.com/RkEAUdGHU0

— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) November 30, 2021

In a Zoom call on Monday with reporters, Schaff also talked about the city’s need to provide the police department with the funding it needed, saying that “There is nothing progressive about unbridled gun violence.”

I should note that this is not the first time Schaff has pushed back on efforts to defund the police, although she has supported similar efforts to “reimagine” policing via using social workers instead of police officers in certain instances. But it appears that this is the first full-court press she’s done in vocal opposition to the city council in the aftermath of their vote to pull millions back in June.

Considering how “woke” members of the council reacted with unbridled glee after the vote to partially defund, it’s not known if Schaff will be successful in her attempts to essentially shame members into changing their tunes.

But her vocal push, which as noted above she’s taken to the national level presumably out of desperation, just goes to show once again that in these Democrat-run cities, mayors are proving to be the last line of defense between sanity and chaos when it comes to defunding the police. We’ve seen it in Buffalo. New York City. Minneapolis, Minnesota and Other.

The “Defund the Police” movement hasn’t just been a disaster for Democrats politically, but it’s also proved to be devastating and deadly in the cities where it’s been tried.

It’s scary to have to rely on Democrat mayors to be the voices of sanity on this issue, but in cities with large concentrations of Democrats, you have to work with the hand you’re dealt. If you’re in such a city, keep the pressure up on your mayor when the Defund rhetoric heats up, because oddly enough they may turn out to be the lone voices of reason after all the chips are put on the table.

Flashback: Here’s Why the Prog Left Are Running Away From ‘Woke’ as Fast as They Can