USA Today today notes that police forces in places like Tulsa and Oakland have essentially stopped responding to property crimes. The framing of the story is all wrong, of course — “cutbacks” have not “forced police” to stop doing their jobs. It is a choice they have made, evidently with the approval of their local political officials.
CMPD long ago downgraded property crime to somewhere between “we’ll get around to it” and “you are on your own” and that had nothing to do with available resources. It too was a politically-driven choice, this one to de-criminalize property crimes in Mecklenburg County, a policy which carried through all the way to sentencing. But if leaders elsewhere really want to claim poverty when it comes to limiting police response, that leads some interesting directions.
Tulsa must have some municipal infrastructure. Sell it. Now. You just admitted you do not have the funds to perform the primary function of government — why do you still have office buildings and water treatment plants? Same deal Oakland. Hock everything, pay for the police protection your citizens have an inalienable right to have. Or dissolve city government.
You have failed. Go away.
