Police departments should not be defunded, but ways must be found to initiate needed change, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin told Fox News’ "America’s Newsroom" on Tuesday.
The Michigan congresswoman explained that “I don't support defunding the police. I don’t support dismantling it. What I think we need to do is listen to people – community leaders, for instance, in my community who are telling me that we have to fundamentally make change in this moment.”
Slotkin was one of the congressional Democrats who on Monday introduced legislation that would usher in sweeping reforms to police departments nationwide by, for example, creating a country-wide registry to track police misconduct, ban the use of chokeholds, lower legal standards to pursue criminal and civil penalties for police misconduct, and prohibit no-knock warrants in drug-related cases.
"We can't just put kind of lipstick on things right now," Slotkin said, adding “that's what's important to me and the bill."
She said that the idea of defunding the police is not practical, as they have an important role to perform.
But she emphasized that there should absolutely “be more accountability… [and money should] be based on good policing… but that’s different than defunding the police."
Calls to defund or disband police departments have increased during the nationwide demontrations following the death of George Floyd while in police custody.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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