Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the movement to defund the police "outlandish" and "nonsense" and said it won't get support from the majority of U.S. citizens.
“I am all for social work and mental health,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said on Monday from the Senate floor. “But call me old-fashioned. I think you may actually want a police officer to stop a criminal.”
McConnell said police shouldn't be “lumped in with the very worst examples of heinous behavior.”
On Sunday, nine of the 13 Minneapolis City Council members said they wanted to defund the police and enact an alternative public safety strategy.
Minneapolis was ripped apart by protests and riots in response to the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody after a white officer kneeled on his neck for close to nine minutes.
"Even if some left-wing leaders fall for this nonsense, I have a feeling the American people are too smart for that,” McConnell said. “They know what happened to George Floyd is totally abhorrent. They also know that riots and looting are unacceptable. And they know that well-trained law enforcement officers are an important part of creating safe communities, not something to defund or abolish."
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