Burlington, Vt. Defunded the Police by 30%. Here's What Happened

Burlington, Vt. is a city of 44,000 on the shores of beautiful Lake Champlain. Like most large and medium-sized cities, Burlington was the target of activists looking to defund the police because of racism and white privilege.

The city is about 6% black, and racial incidents involving the police have been few and far between. But Burlington is a very woke college town and the city council decided that defunding the police was the only option to achieve “justice.”

Three days after a proposal was introduced to cut the police budget in Burlington by 30%, it passed the city council by a vote of 9–3. There were no hearings on the issue and precious little discussion. One council member who voted against the measure said it felt like “pulling something out of a hat.”

NBCNews:

“We made this decision with no public process,” she added. “Nothing was sent to committee for discussion. No effort was made to reach out to groups beyond the activists.”
Though Dieng wanted police reform, he said he wanted it done with care.
“Let’s not be reactive,” Dieng said. “Let’s be proactive.”
“I remember telling the people back then that if we do it this way, we will regret it.”
The unintended consequences appeared quickly. Slashing the police force through attrition, a process that some councilors assumed would take years, instead took months.

Police officers left the department in droves, most citing a lack of political support. The department rolls dropped from 95 to a catastrophic 64. What should have taken years took a few months.

The results were predictable.

Because there were fewer officers, many specialized positions — including those dealing with drug trafficking and street crime — got the ax. “It’s easier to break things than it is to fix them,” Chief Jon Murad said.

Where cops are absent disease (e.g., democRATs) multiply.
DemocRATs are vile, evil, immoral, dishonest, and stink.
They turn formerly beautiful cities into piles of Obamastuff.
They can turn formerly respectable academic pursuits such as the humanities and even STEM into worthless piles of CNN-level stupidity.
We need more Daleks.
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

My son briefly considered a graduate degree position at UVM in Burlington, VT. After a brief visit he decided against it. It is a hippie college town where the smell of pot is common throughout town.

Kids that go to school there graduate having wasted four plus years of their life on degrees that are mostly worthless.

My wife and I used to go up there a lot years ago.

It has always been Leftist, but it began to change after 2000.

I became more and more extreme leftist to the point it was in your face no matter where you went. And the town became scummier. Think of San Francisco in a small scale.

Needless to say, we don't go there anymore.

The linked article said:

"...For now, the Burlington Police Department has incident data for 2021, which show that the total number of incidents fell by 11 percent in the first 11 months of the year compared to the same period last year. Certain types of incidents did become more common, however, including burglary, vehicle thefts and mental health issues and overdoses..."

The article also said they only had five officers to patrol at night. This is a college town, and is bigger than they let on due to the college population which isn't counted in their population of 45,000. Probably another 15,000 I would guess.

Five police patrolling seems crazy, but...I don't know. Others who have worked in Law Enforcement might know these types of levels better.

If they say in the article that incidents reported dropped by 11%, I bet they could get that number even lower by getting rid of more police officers. Hey, the problems aren't going away, but with nobody to report them or respond to them...

"Most violent and property crimes in the U.S. are not reported to police, and most of the crimes that are reported are not solved." https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/

The exceptions are homicides (because it's hard to hide bodies) and car thefts (because insurance companies require a police report).

“We made this decision with no public process,” she added. “Nothing was sent to committee for discussion. No effort was made to reach out to groups beyond the activists.”

The future of America if the Bidenistas continue in power.

“It's easier to break things than it is to fix them,”

Truer words were never spoken.

The city is about 6% black, and racial incidents involving the police have been few and far between.

Proof that the George Floyd incident was simply a catalyst to start a communist revolution. Burlington, VT had no business getting involved in a "defund the police" movement. Nor did Portland and Seattle. However, a lot of leftie loons live there.

This was a long article—I did not hit a paywall for some reason.

It looks like homeless people starting hanging out on the street hassling tourists and residents.

Small businesses had more break-ins and the homeless people in front of their business kept customers away.

There was a major increase in nuisance crimes of all kinds.

The homeless also suffered because the police used to help them get social services while taking them off the street—that is no longer happening.

The bottom line was that a reduction of police presence in well traveled business areas led to a loss of “civilization”.

What the article neglects to mention is that the City of Burlington has also reformed its police misconduct policy. Body cam video is to be made public within thirty days of an incident and the City will not defend officers in court for carrying out conduct that violates the Constitution and the laws of the State of Vermont or the City of Burlington.

Just my opinion here, but these reforms shook the proverbial tree and the bad apples fell out.

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