Biden Calls Out Republicans on Guns and Crime in Pennsylvania Speech

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Biden gave a forceful defense of the F.B.I. during a speech in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and called out allies of former President Donald J. Trump for failing to condemn those who attacked law enforcement officers during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

During a visit to a key swing state, Mr. Biden took a set of political vulnerabilities for the White House — policing and rising crime — and made the issues central to his message ahead of the congressional elections in November.

“It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the F.B.I.,” Mr. Biden said, referring to some congressional Republicans, including members of leadership, who called to “defund” or even “destroy” the F.B.I. over its search of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8.

“I’m opposed to defunding the police,” the president said. “I’m also opposed to defunding the F.B.I.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/us/politics/biden-speech-gun-control-crime.html

[ancianita]

1. More from the article about local (mis)spending, imo, of pandemic funds on law enforcement.

Sniper rifles, ballistic helmets (whatever they are) and drones? Seriously? Just who are the "enemy" that require this kind of police weaponry?

I hope this article prints an op-ed, or at least a letter to the editor, about the use of pandemic money for militarization that implies what police fear from the public. Police need better policing themselves, and this money doesn't appear to be going toward solving police vs public problems of safety and protection rather than just 'policy enforcement'.
"Police" is the short form of (polič )ē (nforcement).

Nearly one in five dollars, or about 18 percent, of the $79 million of pandemic relief funds reported to the Treasury Department as community-based prevention investments in 2021 went toward purchases for police departments, according to the report.

In Independence, Mo., officials spent relief funds earmarked for “community violence intervention” to equip officers with sniper rifles and ballistic helmets. In Alhambra, Calif., relief funds were used to put more drones in the sky, according to the analysis. Communities throughout the United States have used the one-time injection of federal money to purchase police technology and replace police vehicles.

“The history of funding policing in the United States is writing blank checks to the tune of billions of dollars with no accountability attached,” said Bree Spencer, a senior program manager at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a legislative advocacy coalition. “That seems to be what we’re doing now, so that in no way is indicative of police reform. That is business as usual.”