Sharpton: ‘Defund the Police’ Slogan ‘Misleading’ — We Want to ‘Reinterpret How We Do Public Safety’

Monday, MSNBC’s Al Sharpton weighed in on the push across the country to defund or even abolish police departments in some cases in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in Minneapolis police custody.

Nine Minneapolis City Council members on Sunday said that they will “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department.”

Sharpton on “Morning Joe” backed the push to reform policing, but said the slogan of “defund the police” is “misleading.” He emphasized that the message is to readjust “policing as we know it” by reallocating funding and sources.

“I’ve heard they’re really talking about adjusting and, in many ways, recommitting the funding toward things like community policing, like mental health, intervention that does not involve policing as we know it and putting a lot into police training,” Sharpton told host Joe Scarborough. “I don’t think that anyone, other than the far extremes are saying we don’t want any kind of policing at all, any kind of public safety. It’s to reinterpret how we do public safety and to reallocate those resources in ways that solve the problem in the areas that I just outlined. So, I think that the slogan may be misleading without interpretation.”

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