Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., in a column for the Washington Examiner, said Democrats' "radical socialist policies and dangerous rhetoric" helped spark the uptick in violence in America's cities.
"This past year of riots and disregard for law and order reminds me of growing up in the '60s," said Marshall, whose father was a police chief for 25 years. "Violence is up because of cultural changes created by turning heads away from violence, ignoring riots, and overlooking vandalism. And the uptick in violence is yet another crisis created by radical socialist policies and dangerous rhetoric. The bottom line? Socialist Democrats created this crisis.
"Like many of you, I sat with my jaw hanging when the Biden-Harris administration recently accused the GOP of defunding the police. It's simply not factual. While the White House tried to trot out a false narrative that its latest partisan COVID-19 package would have boosted funding for law enforcement, not once did the president or any Democrat say the funds could be used to fund the police when they tried to sell the bill.
"Now, after seeing a dramatic increase in violence across the country, they are saying that billions of dollars for state and local governments could be used to fund the police. Do they think people will fall for this? Certainly not after this past year, in which we saw numerous radical Democrats call to defund the police."
He claimed "these radical socialist views" have been implemented in over a dozen major cities.
Marshall maintained the "socialist Democrats" defunded police, created "anti-police mobs," and "quite frankly, destroyed the integrity of the police."
"It's been just over five months since Joe Biden was sworn in as president" he said. "In that time, people have seen crisis upon crisis — all self-inflicted and all completely preventable: the border crisis, cyberattacks, rising inflation, a labor shortage, and, of course, the crisis of violence in many cities nationwide."
His comments came after as a violent July Fourth weekend featured at least 118 people shot in Chicago and New York City combined, according to reports.
The historically violent weekend for Chicago saw 92 shot, including at least 16 fatalities, the most violent weekend of the year thus far, the Chicago Sun-times reported.
New York City saw 26 people shot, including two fatalities, according to Fox News.
And Marshall said: "The recent rise in unfair criticisms of law enforcement officers is personal to me. It's past time radical socialists look in the mirror, begin to understand the importance of law and order, respect their fellow man (including those serving in law enforcement), and realize that their calls to defund the police are dangerous and foolish."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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