Thanks to woke politics, keeping big city police departments staffed has become almost impossible.
And as crime continues to spiral out of hand, the problem is growing by the day.
Now one big city police chief just bailed in the middle of this crime wave.
The “City of Brotherly Love” is becoming increasingly dangerous
No doubt Philadelphia residents have city leaders to thank for the metro area’s downward spiral after they caved to the “Defund The Police” crowd’s demands.
Back in 2020 Philadelphia’s city council quietly removed a jaw-dropping $33 million from the police department budget.
According to Okay Player, the money was earmarked to be spent on “affordable housing” along with addressing “poverty, health care, job training, and other disparities.”
What followed was a record high of 516 homicides committed in the city in 2021.
Presiding over that disastrous spiral was Danielle Outlaw, Philadelphia’s first black female to run the police force.
“Her often-tumultuous tenure was marked by a series of unprecedented challenges, including pandemic shutdowns, record levels of gun violence and homicides, mass protests that her department responded to with heavy-handed tactics, and significant staffing shortages amid waves of retirements and resignations,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Now, Outlaw announced that she’s leaving the force—presumably before she could be fired and replaced by the next city administration.
“Outlaw acknowledged in an interview that stepping aside now gives ‘whomever the new mayor is the opportunity to select their commissioner,’” the Inquirer noted.
Outlaw called “terrific” by Mayor
Ironically, when explaining away Outlaw’s decision to move on, Philly Mayor Jim Kenney conveniently overlooked the role city leaders played in setting up the city’s police force for failure—instead making a weak attempt to randomly blame Donald Trump for Outlaw’s woes.
“She did a terrific job [during] unprecedented difficult times of pandemic, of civil unrest, of Donald Trump for four years,” Kenney told reporters. “She’s done a lot of reform measures that have changed the department, and we wish her well.”
Outlaw is moving on to a role with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—an agency that controls the region’s bridges, tunnels, ports, and airports.
Philadelphia’s homicide rate has declined from the city’s record high in 2021.
However, in 2022 the city was still home to an astonishing number of violent criminals with murders per 100,000 in Philadelphia six times higher than in New York City.
Stay tuned to Blue State Blues for any updates to this ongoing story.
