Black Lives Matter (BLM) staged yet another protest this weekend effectively shutting down a segment of downtown Toronto as they moved from Dundas Square west to the major intersection of Dundas and Spadina, all the while chanting to defund the police and ban prisons.
The woke crowd is so ridiculous.
Meanwhile, Toronto Police stats show shootings are up 13% with deaths from shootings up 39%. But sure let’s defund the police and ban prisons.
It certainly seems counterintuitive to anyone with critical thinking skills to think it would be a good idea to listen to the demands of BLM. Somehow these activists think gangs will go away, organized crime will cease to exist, domestic violence will no longer be a problem and property crime will disappear in a socialist paradise.
Meanwhile, in the city of Portland, Oregon, their police service has been neutered by left-wing politicians who, on July 1st, disbanded the 34 member Gun Violence Reduction Team as a result of police budget cuts. In just one month, Portland had the highest number of murder investigations in a one month period in the last three decades including a shooting incident in which more than 150 rounds were discharged.
In the liberal loony bin that is the city of Seattle, Washington, their city council proposed a motion to abolish its police department and replace it with “a civilian led department of community safety & violence prevention.”
And then there’s New York City where Mayor Bill deBlasio cut $1 billion from the NYPD’s $5 billion annual operating budget. The mayor ordered the disbandment of the effective 660 officer Anti-Crime Squad whose mandate was to work in high crime areas and target those committing crime proactively with a focus on gun crime.
As of August 2nd, 2020 New York has already experienced more shootings than in all of 2019.
These leftist activists seem to believe that some sort of peaceful coexistence will somehow result from defunding and emasculating the police. Because naturally, a beneficent government will provide for everyone’s needs and everyone will be happy.
The problem is that all men are not angels and evil exists.
But police are not simply the solution. They are only one part of it. The justice system, including the courts must act appropriately and responsibly as well. Prison must be an option for the sentencing judge and it must be used. Society is by far safer when an evil, violent person is contained in a jail.
Last week, there was a double shooting in Brampton which resulted in the death of Darian Hailey Henderson-Bellman. She was only 25.
She was killed by her former boyfriend Darnell Reid who had a long history of possessing illegal guns. But every time he was arrested, he was released by the courts who placed conditions on him not to possess weapons. Conditions upon conditions with each arrest that he ignored until he finally took the life of Henderson-Bellman.
She is dead because the system is reluctant to use jail whenever possible. Reid had been arrested in May on an illegal gun charge and domestic violence charges. He was held in custody for six days before being granted bail with conditions, one of which was not to be in contact with Henderson-Bellman, which he had breached on four previous occasions. Too many in the justice system want to think the best of people. Reality is different.
Criminals don’t obey the law and they certainly don’t obey court-imposed conditions. And they certainly don’t obey gun laws as this case shows tragically.
Toronto Mayor John Tory wants to ban handguns in the city. Such a ban will have no effect on the gun crime in that city. It would have no effect on the myriad of gangs that operate in the GTA no matter how much he wishes it were so.
Bad people exist and always will. The only way to protect society is to jail them when they are arrested and convicted. Banning police and prisons is a stupid idea.
As James Madison said, ”If men were angels there would be no need for government.” But they are not angels. Or Darian Hailey Henderson-Bellman would still be alive.
