I'm not sure which is dumber.
1. Refusing to call the police
2. Announcing that you won't call the police in the pages of a major paper whose articles are syndicated
But the anti-police and pro-crime insanity is moving to its next inevitable stage. Divesting from policing.
Now, the church has joined a small handful of like-minded congregations with a radical goal: to stop calling the police. Not for mental health crises, not for graffiti on their buildings, not even for acts of violence. These churches believe the American police system, criticized for its impact especially on people of color, is such a problem that they should wash their hands of it entirely.
“Can this actually be reformed, when it was actually created for the unjust distribution of resources or to police black and brown bodies?” Torbett asked. For her and for her fellow church members, the answer is no — the police don’t just need reform. The police need to be abandoned altogether.
Two types of people will divest from the police.
1. Idiots who haven't thought through the consequences of their actions
2. People receiving "protection" from elsewhere
Assorted black nationalists and radical leftists have already tried replacing the police with local gangs and Farrakhan's Fruits of Islam. Which takes us to the "state within a state" problem.
The question then is whether this is really about doing without police, or replacing the police with local or ideological thugs?
The four Unitarian and Protestant churches that have joined so far include three in the Bay Area and one in Iowa City. The Northern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ has signed on to recruit from among its member churches, and the Bay Area churches are talking to more congregations in their area, from denominations including the Disciples of Christ and the Presbyterian Church (USA).
There will be a lot of signatures, but does anyone really believe that when there's a mass shooter in the building, they'll refuse to call 911?
The churches that commit to ending their use of police resources are training members in alternate responses to danger. Torbett said at First Congregational, church leaders have invited experts from several nonprofits to train members on de-escalating mental health crises, and on self-defense in the case of a violent person at the church. “Our goal is to never call the police,” she said. As members discuss self-defense, they’ve also decided that they will not arm anyone at the church with any weapon.
This plan is truly flawless. Especially after a number of mass shootings have taken place in churches.
But to Dunlap, resisting policing is among her religious obligations. “You’re talking about state violence against communities. You have to speak up and take a stand about that. There’s not a nice way to just play in the middle,” she said. “There’s not a way to reform our way out of police violence but to dismantle policing as a system.”
She envisions instead a form of local accountability, in which neighbors get to know one another and defend their own communities.
But without guns.
Dunlap said that even in a case of criminal behavior, she would ideally like to see churches not call police, because she doesn’t trust the criminal justice system to deliver a fair outcome.
“In the case of interpersonal violence, for the survivors as well as the perpetrators, we want to look at transformative justice,” she said. “Would a punitive police and legal system actually bring us the desired outcome for everyone involved?"
And now we get to the closing act of the pro-crime agenda, legalizing crime. That's cloaked in rhetoric about transformative justice and emotional reparations. But it's there on the agenda. And it's lurking in every single pro-crime think tank.