Leftist-Run City in Vermont Having 2nd Thoughts After It Defunded Police: ‘A Mistake’
Burlington Vermont, population about 45,000, decided to “defund the police” and went from 105 police officers to 74. Then, when they realized it was a mistake, upped the approved staffing level to 87. The result:
According to Fox, “violent crime is up significantly in Burlington, with crime data showing that aggravated assault has increased 40 percent and gunfire has gone up nearly 300 percent. Some local residents told Fox they find it ‘dangerous’ to be out in public at night.”
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In a letter posted to its Facebook page on Wednesday, the Burlington Police Officers Association — the union that represents the city’s officers — charged city leaders with failing to support its officers, which the union said was reflected in the fact that Vermont Police Academy cadets showed no interest in working in the city.
They now have 68 police officers.
It isn’t going to get better anytime soon:
If Burlington residents are truly making the connection between leftist policies and the results that follow, it isn’t showing up in the election results. In the March election that returned Traverse to office, VTDigger reported, the city elected a candidate from the Progressive Party as mayor and gave Progressives a fifth seat on the 12-member city council.
Democrats hold six seats and an independent holds one.
So a city that was run by a Democratic mayor and council in 2020 is now run by a Progressive mayor and Democratic/Progressive council.
They are going to have a long string of, as Robert Heinlein called similar circumstances, “bad luck.”
Further, , this is what happens when you rely on the good nature of people who, as Heinlein also said, do not have one.
Obviously guns are the reason for the increase in violence. /sarc
I live in Vermont. Burlington is a sh*thole that anybody with any sense avoids if at all possible.
A mistake????? It was a mistake? BS. They would have us believe they’re so ignorant they didn’t know it was going to be open-season on honest people when they dropped the cops?
Ya, no one would ever plan the destruction of whole cities, right? Make them one big ghetto where you can’t live without being a victim?
Sorry, even if the government was actually that incompetent?
Criminal negligence and criminal intent can and do carry the same penalty.
And I don’t see how anyone should call this less than aiding and abiding criminals.
They’re going to get what they want…..good and hard
I’m sure it has nothing to do with an influx of foreign immigration over the last few of years who are encouraged to stay diverse and not try to fit in, right?
They are trying to destroy the city, because when there is an emergency, they they will grant themselves emergency powers to deal with it…. If an emergency doesn’t happen naturally, they will create one.