The Left’s “defund the police” movement is “utter nonsense” in light of rising crime rates in cities across the country, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said this week.
“Last year, all of this talk about defunding the police was utter nonsense,” McConnell told the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce on Thursday while back in his home state, according to WDRB-TV of Louisville.
“I think communities decide how many police they want to have. And my guess is, in every single community where you have an outburst of violence like this, local governments are going to decide how to respond to that. They don’t need any advice from me. But I think more police, rather than less police, is a really important decision.”
Several large cities like Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore cut their police department budgets last year as Black Lives Matter protesters demanded fewer officers on the streets.
Department cuts have coincided in many cases with an uptick in crime.
JUDGE ORDERS MINNEAPOLIS TO HIRE MORE POLICE OFFICERS
In Portland, Oregon, the city cut $16 million from the police budget last June, including an anti-gun violence unit, but after a spike in shootings since last summer, the city plans to reinstate it.