Pence: 'Black Lives Saved,' Not 'Endangered,' by Police

Former Republican Vice President Mike Pence said that police ”save” Black lives rather than ”endanger” them as crime nationwide increases and police departments shrink following racial unrest from the George Floyd murder last year.

”Democrat efforts to defund the police, withdraw support for law enforcement, has set off a violent crime wave that’s wreaking havoc in families across the nation. Black lives are not endangered by police, black lives are saved by police every day,” Pence said Thursday night during the annual Hillsborough County Republicans Lincoln-Reagan Dinner in New Hampshire.

”We don’t need to defund the police, we need to defend the police and reject the anti-law enforcement agenda of Joe Biden and the Democrats in Washington and put the lives of law-abiding citizens of every race, and creed, and color first.”

Many federal and state Democrat officials called for defunding of police departments, especially in large cities after George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.

Viral videos of the incident led to racially charged riots across the nation, killing more than 30 people, and causing billions in property damage, according to The New York Times.

Many police departments in large cities, including New York and Los Angeles, saw a large increase in the number of officers either quitting or retiring in the wake of the violence, the Washington Examiner reported.

CNN reported April 3 that American cities saw a 33 percent increase in homicides amid the pandemic and a summer of rioting in the wake of the Floyd case.

According to the report, 63 of the 66 largest police jurisdictions had increases in at least one category of violent crimes including homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assaults.

”I think the abuse that’s been heaped on law enforcement over the last year is unfortunate,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a Breitbart story Friday. ”This is why the minority leader ”think[s] defunding the police has got to be one of the dumbest ideas ever surfaced by anyone in our country. And we need what you’re doing.”

Many of the cities that sought to defund the departments are now restoring money to them as the crime wave intensifies, the The Wall Street Journal reported May 26.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is adding $92 million to his budget for a new police precinct that he cut amid the summer riots, and Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott, who, as a city councilman, tried to cut $22 million from the police budget last year, is now asking to increase department spending by $27 million, according to the story.

The trend includes the country’s 20 largest law enforcement agencies, the Journal reported.

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