Bratton: During ‘Defund Insanity’ There Was Push to Take Cops out of Schools, Crime Crisis ‘Created by the Politicians’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” Homeland Security Advisory Council Co-Chair and former Police Commissioner of Boston, Los Angeles, and New York Bill Bratton said that the crime problem in the U.S. “has been created by the politicians in many of our cities and states,” and the consequences of defunding police has been seen in “serious crime rates” in some cities. Bratton also said that “during the height of the defund insanity in this city,” there was a push to take police out of schools.

Bratton stated, [relevant remarks begin around 2:10] “I speak out frequently…about the need for more, the stupidity of the defund the police movement that they quickly retreated from. We have almost 100,000 fewer police officers today than we had several years ago. Many departments did suffer defunding, Los Angeles, New York, and we see the consequences of that defunding before they reversed it in the serious crime rates that those cities are experiencing. One of the things that we need more funding for certainly is training of police officers. We don’t do enough initial training, and we certainly do not do enough in-service training throughout their career. … The crime crises in America today have been created — has been created by the politicians in many of our cities and states, certainly the case here in New York City, with their misguided criminal justice and bail reform efforts. So, let’s look to the source of this crime spike that we’re experiencing. It’s largely political, with the laws that they passed and the attacks on police.”

He added, “I don’t think most school teachers want to be armed. That’s not what they signed up to do. They signed up to teach. So, the decision about what level of security we need in our schools is left up to each municipality. Here in New York City, during the height of the defund insanity in this city, there was an effort being made to basically take…police out of the school. The irony of it was that the majority of those school police are minorities themselves, many of whom have children in that school system.”

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