I didn't think they'd care in Texas

"Defund the police" is usually what conservatives use to beat liberals over the head.

Caught unaware?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jesus wept

The victim was identified as Sean Bickings, 34. According to a transcript of the footage provided by the city, Bickings told Tempe police he was drowning and begged officers for help as they stood by and told him they were not "jumping in after you." This portion of the footage was not included in the edited video released to The Arizona Republic.

Since release of the footage, the Tempe Officers Association, the police union for the department, described the drowning as a "human tragedy," but stated officers do not possess water-rescue training and lack equipment to perform water rescues without putting the officer at risk.

[...]

Bickings was an unsheltered member of the Tempe community, the city said in a statement released on Friday.

[...]

The three officers who responded to the incident are currently under non-disciplinary administrative paid leave.

  MSN

This is a police department that could properly be defunded.

This is what defunding the police means

Turn about

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Don't stop the cameras

I'd like to see the part where Short Fuse Orange Man (look at that makeup line!) was flipping pages and coming up empty.

And of course, there was the tweet follow-up...

Thirteen hours ago.  That's the last tweet on his account.  I thought we'd get some ragetweets about Chris Wallace, whom he already denigrates periodically.  Did his head explode?

We can hope.

UPDATE:  The transcript...

They always cry when they get called out

Your house is a fucking fortress.  Ypou could just stay inside and lock your doors if you're afraid.  Call the police.  They'll come in a hot minute to your privileged community.

“When I saw that mob come through the gate with their rage and their anger, I thought that we would be overrun in a second. By the time I was out there with my rifle, the people were 20 or 30 feet from my front wall,” he continued. “I was literally afraid that within seconds they would surmount the wall, come into the house, kill us, burn the house down and everything that I had worked for and struggled for for the last 32 years.”

  The Hill

LOL. Bullshit.  Why were they going to pick his house particularly? (Also, if you've seen the video, you know there was no threat. Not from the protesters, who were marching very peacefully.) He and his wife were the ones acting threateningly. He wasn't afraid.  He just doesn't like the backlash for acting a fool.

The McCloskeys, both personal-injury attorneys, live in a mansion that has been valued at more than $1 million.

Lawyers. They know better. That's why he's pulling out the fear for his life bullshit.

"I don’t understand. I’ve spent my career defending people that are defenseless,” McCloskey responded. “For people that are having a hard time making their miracle happen, for people that don’t have a voice. My Black clients love us. The night that this happened, I had some of our Black clients calling us up till 2:30 in the morning telling us how wrong it was the way the press [was] writing us up.”

He added that the incident had “nothing to do with race.”

Then why did you bring it up?

The couple is now under investigation by the St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who said she was “alarmed” that peaceful protesters would be met with guns.

“We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated," Gardner said, adding that her office would not tolerate “the use of force against those exercising their First Amendment rights.”

UPDATE:

You might have guessed: these two have history.

UPDATE:

Gardner pushes back against Trump/Parson criticism:

[Missouri Governor Mike] Parson said at a news briefing that the couple “had every right to protect their property," while Trump went further in a discussion with Townhall.com, calling Gardner's investigation a "disgrace."

"They were going to be beat up badly, and the house was going to be totally ransacked and probably burned down like they tried to burn down churches," the president said.

"These people were standing there, never used it, and they were legal, the weapons," he added. "And now I understand somebody local, they want to prosecute these people. It’s a disgrace."

  The Hill

What total fucking bullshit.

Amen.

An apology isn't good enough

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Outlaws with a badge

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tone deaf racists

Just two examples...

A GOP state lawmaker in Ohio on Tuesday asked if “the colored population” is hit harder by the coronavirus because they possibly "don’t wash their hands as well as other groups" while speaking at a hearing on whether to declare racism a public health crisis.

Ohio state Sen. Steve Huffman, an emergency room physician, asked the question during a state Senate Health Committee hearing.

[...]

“Could it just be that African Americans or the colored population do not wash their hands as well as other groups or wear a mask or do not socially distance themselves? That could be the explanation of the higher incidence?”

  The Hill

He is an emergency room physician!

Ohio Legislative Black Caucus President Stephanie Howse (D) told the Daily News the rhetoric represented systematic racism.

[...]

“When we talk about the health disparities that happen because black folks aren’t believed when they’re actually hurt, they aren’t given the treatment that they need. Do you think that someone who acknowledges the ‘coloreds’ is going to give the love and care that people need when they come through those doors?”

[...]

State Sen. Cecil Thomas (D), who serves on the state Senate Health Committee, said audience members cringed at Huffman’s remark.

“He’s an example of why we have to have this discussion about racism and how it impacts people,” Thomas told the Daily News.

State Rep. Tavia Galonski (D) urged residents to vote “if you want a different Ohio than this.”

Very good idea.

Two owners of a Missouri newspaper have stepped down from the news organization controlled by their father over an editorial cartoon the publisher later acknowledged was racially insensitive.

"We saw the cartoon at the same time as our readers and were just as outraged and horrified as our staff and community," Susan Miller Warden and Jeanne Miller Wood, two of the owners of the Washington Missourian, wrote in a public apology titled "We're Sorry."

"Had we known we would have vehemently fought against publishing it. We believe this is the reason we were kept in the dark about its publication," they wrote.

The cartoon shows a black man wearing a mask and a hoodie stealing a purse from a white woman.

“Help!! Somebody call 911!” reads the cartoon.

“Good luck with that lady, we defunded the police," the man replies.

  The Hill

UPDATE: Huffman is fired from his ER job.

Verrrrrrrrrrry interesting

The Minneapolis city council has pledged to disband the city’s police department and replace it with a new system of public safety, a historic move that comes as calls to defund law enforcement are sweeping the US.

Speaking at a community rally on Sunday, a veto-proof majority of councilmembers declared their intent to “dismantle” and “abolish” the embattled police agency responsible for George Floyd’s death – and build an alternative model of community-led safety.

[...]

“In Minneapolis and in cities across the US, it is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe,” said Lisa Bender, the Minneapolis city council president, at the event. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period. Our commitment is to do what’s necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth: that the Minneapolis police are not doing that. Our commitment is to end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.”

Nine councilmembers announced their support and represent a supermajority on the twelve-person council, meaning the mayor, who earlier this weekend opposed disbanding the department, cannot override them. The remaining three councilmembers are broadly supportive of the effort as well, but weren’t ready to sign on, activists said. While the mayor has oversight over the police, the city council has authority over the budget and policy, and could work to dismantle the department through cuts and ordinances.

[...]

MPD150 [is] a Minneapolis group whose literature on building a “police-free future” has been widely shared during the protests.

[...]

The councilmembers are expected to face opposition from law enforcement officials and the police union, though activists emphasize that the veto-proof majority has the authority to move forward regardless of opposition.

  The Guardian

Expect some serious gun-toting white protesters to take to the streets.

It’s unclear how quickly this process could move, and what the transition could look like. Supporters are pushing for the council to start with taking money away from the police budget and investing in other government departments, social services and programs, while launching a community process for creating alternative systems.

DEfinitely ease into it.

An alternative safety model, advocates say, can start with finding “non-police solutions to the problems poor people face”, such as counselors responding to mental health calls and addiction experts responding to drug abuse.

[...]

There are a handful of examples of governments disbanding troubled local police agencies in the US over the years, though the authorities have had other regional law enforcement entities take over policing.

I would think you'd need some.

While the effort in Minneapolis is the most radical, a number of other US mayors and local leaders have reversed their positions on police funding. The mayor of Los Angeles said he would look to cut as much as $150m from the police this week, just days after he pushed forward a city budget that was increasing it by 7%.

Following days of protests and widespread accounts of police misconduct in New York City, mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday that some funding would be moved from the police to “youth initiatives and social services”. Some councilmembers and others, however, have been pushing for a $1bn divestment from the NYPD.

[...]

De Blasio also announced that enforcement of regulations involving street vendors – many of whom are persons of color and, or immigrants – should not be handled by police. “Civilian agencies can work on proper enforcement and that’s what we’ll do going forward,” he said.

Too late for Eric Gardner.

For years, abolitionist groups have advocated for governments to take money away from police and prisons and reinvesting the funds in other services. The basic principle is that government budgets and “public safety” spending should prioritize housing, employment, community health, education and other vital programs, instead of police officers.

[...]

Amid the current protests, abolitionist groups have put forward concrete steps toward dismantling police and prisons, arguing that defunding police is the first move, and that cities need to remove police from schools, repeal laws that “criminalize survival” such as anti-homelessness policies, provide safe housing for people and more. Colleges, public school systems, museums and other institutions have also increasingly announced plans to divest from police.

[...]

Advocates for defunding argue that recent police reform efforts have been unsuccessful, noting that de-escalation training, body cameras and other moves have not stopped racist brutality and killings.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: