Op-Ed: Biden Admin Intervening in Local Police Departments - Here's What It Could Do to Yours
As police departments struggle and violence spikes across New Mexico, many wonder what is happening. But it’s not a local issue.
It’s a Washington issue.
The Biden administration is intervening and strong-arming city departments, imposing “anti-brutality” measures designed to limit the use of force.
Things changed significantly for local law enforcement after a 2014 federal investigation concluded that the Albuquerque Police Department had engaged in a “pattern or practice of use of excessive force.”
Suddenly, Washington is involved. What happened to our constitutional republic? Does President Joe Biden think we have become one giant city-state?
The Albuquerque Police Association president, Detective Shaun Willougby, responded to the federal overreach, telling Fox News that the 2014 investigation “opened the door for the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., to basically almost govern and be intricately involved in everything this police department does.”
Even more ridiculous is that a use-of-force investigation could cripple a department for hours at a time.
Is it any wonder violence is running rampant in Albuquerque communities? Sounds a bit like “Defund the Police” Part 2. Democrats supposedly learned their lesson from Defund Part 1 when it caused spikes in city violence. Internal Democratic pollsters discovered that rank-and-file Democrats regretted giving support to the ill-conceived Defund the Police fad when crime rose in their own neighborhoods.
[firefly_poll]
But as a dog returns to its vomit, so do liberal leaders return to grabbing and maintaining all the control they can get away with.
You cannot shutter entire departments for a suspected crime while allowing the general public to commit countless more. It just doesn’t work. Moreover, investigations into alleged police brutality take away time, effort and resources from where they are needed most — in the community, keeping our neighborhoods safe.
“You have a weak-on-crime approach at the state Legislature — we have since the beginning of time,” Willougby explained.
He called his department “completely handcuffed,” a feeling shared by many officers today. It comes at a time when law enforcement is already short-staffed and battling strong anti-police public sentiment.
“This lack of support by the federal government only serves further to incite violence in our communities and against our officers,” said Michael Letts, CEO of InVest USA, a charity that provides bulletproof vests to police.
Violence is up across the country, with crime spiking in four major California cities: Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and Nancy Pelosi’s home city of San Francisco. Murder rates are also skyrocketing to near-record highs, especially in Philadelphia, Louisville and Portland, Oregon.
Obviously, something needs to be done about irresponsible policing, but shutting down entire departments for investigations is entirely ludicrous, especially when those “investigations” are nothing more than political witch hunts.
Here, the blame — and the ability to fix the problem — lies squarely with the Democratic Party. So, Dems, are you up for the challenge?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
