President Biden’s choice to lead the Justice Department, Merrick Garland, said on Monday that he did not support the withdrawal of police funds, despite calls from some liberals to do so.
“President Biden said he does not support the withdrawal of funds from the police and neither do I,” said Garland.
He added: “I believe and President Biden believes in providing police departments with resources to help them reform and gain the trust of their communities.”
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The question was asked of Garland by Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley.
“In the midst of this growing crime wave, there have been increasing calls from some activists, including members of the United States Congress, to take money from the police,” said Hawley.
Continuing, the senator said: “I must say that I think this sends exactly the wrong message to the police authorities who feel overwhelmed, underpaid, under siege … Tell me what your position is on police outlets. Do you support this movement, will you support that as attorney general? ”
After a summer of protests against the assassinations of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and the assassination of Jacob Blake, there was new scrutiny against the role that police officers played in harming minorities during their duties. As a result of so much pain and indignation, the term “plundering the police” was a call for those protesting against police violence.
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Some activists say the phrase represents a more subtle policy of allocating resources to alternative forms of law enforcement, such as providing mental health care.
Garland said, “I believe and I believe [Biden] also, that we need to put resources into alternative ways of confronting some actors, particularly those who are mentally ill and those who are suicidal, so that the police do not have to do a job for which they were not trained and that, as I understand it, do not I want to do. ”
“So these resources need to go to mental health professionals and other professionals in the community – he said – so that police officers do the work for which they were trained and so that confrontations, if possible, do not lead to deaths and violence. ”