Atlanta City Councilman Who Voted To Defund The Police Dials 9-1-1 :: 05/29/2021

Atlanta City Councilman Antonio Brown voted to defund the police. He’s not overly unusual in that, to be sure. A lot of city councilmen and women in large urban areas have voted similarly to Brown. Over the last year, there’s been a significant push to defund departments amid a flurry of anti-police sentiment.

As I said, Brown isn’t unusual.

However, no matter how common it may be, when you vote to defund the police, then you call them, you’re going to get noticed.

Atlanta City Councilman Antonio Brown, a mayoral candidate who voted to defund the local police last year, said he was forced to wait nearly an hour for police assistance Wednesday after a group of youths stole his car.

Mr. Brown told WSB-TV he was on hold with 911 for five full minutes before he was able to tell them he was the victim of a car theft following a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Dunkin’ and Baskin-Robbins combination store in Atlanta’s Dixie Hills neighborhood.

Mr. Brown said he was outside speaking with a business owner when four kids ranging from ages 7 to 11 got into his Mercedes parked just a few feet away. He said he tried to stop the kids from driving away, but they dragged him for about half a block before he let go.

“He started to speed up, and I knew if I had not let go, I could have killed myself because he was going so fast,” the councilman said. “I would start to tumble, and I didn’t want to hurt him.”

Mr. Brown said it took police 45 minutes to arrive because his call was incorrectly labeled a low-priority dispatch.

He said he won’t file charges against the suspects, who are still being sought.

I can’t imagine why it was labeled a low-priority call.

Now, I’m not saying they did that to punish Brown, though I certainly wouldn’t blame them if they did. Instead, I’m pointing out that a car theft generally isn’t very high priority anyway. Couple that with the fact that Brown has no interest in filing charges and I just don’t see how this becomes the number one priority in a city that’s already having enough issues.

Of course, what Brown doesn’t get is that while he may opt not to press charges, he shouldn’t be surprised when these kids–assuming they’re ever caught–end up committing some other crime, potentially one where someone got hurt.

Then again, I’m not sure Brown would even consider the possibility that pressing charges against what are clearly juvenile offenders might be enough to scare them onto the straight and narrow.

After all, Brown has his anti-police blinders firmly in place…even as he voted to cut their funding, then wonders why they didn’t send a SWAT team to respond to an auto theft.

Frankly, this is the typical defund the police mentality. Sure, cut the funding for law enforcement, then get upset when they’re not able to do everything you expect them to do with even less money than before.

It’s rank hypocrisy to complain about the time it took for police to respond, to argue it should have been a higher-priority call, and to lament the whole situation when you’re one of the jerks who voted to defund the department in the first place.

This is one of those “it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy” kind of moments.

https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2021/05/29/defund-the-police-n45833