President Joe Biden announced last week that “state and local governments would be allowed to use their billions of dollars in COVID relief money to bolster their police departments — hiring new officers, paying for overtime, and buying gunshot detection systems to quickly detect and respond to acts of violence — part of a broader effort to address a rising wave of violent crime in the nation’s big cities.”

Murders and violent crime are on the rise nationally.

The “Defund the Police” politicians will have to contend with those seeking reelection in 2022.

This past week Eric Adams, a former police captain who advocated for more officers on the street, was emerging as the Democratic Party’s preferred mayoral candidate in New York. The line that Adams used time and time again: “The prerequisite for prosperity is public safety.”

“For William Bratton, the former Los Angeles and New York City police chief, [‘Defund the Police’] had dire consequences when it was put into action. ‘They got what they wanted,’ Bratton told the New York Times last month. ‘They defunded the police. What do they get? Rising crime, cops leaving in droves, difficulty recruiting.'”

Will Democrat defunding supporters like Mayor Keisha Williams of Atlanta, who now has a whole part of her city wanting to secede because Atlanta has become a war zone; Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, who has a city where there are more shootings per weekend than there are farmers markets; Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland which has been a city under siege since last year, and other defunding supporters take advantage of this opportunity to make their city safer?

Common sense says that with crime on the rise in most major U.S. cities and Biden allowing for COVID relief money to be used to hire more police officers, dealing with violent crime is the new key issue for many voters. 

Hector Barajas is a communications expert with decades of political, legislative and media experience. Nationally recognized for his work on political campaigns, ethnic media outreach, and public affairs from Capitol Hill to Sacramento. Mike Vallante has extensive experience in communications and public relations. Mike served as the Regional Administrator for U.S. Small Business Administration’s Region IX. He previously served as Chief Staff to the Co-Chairman of the Republican National Committee in Washington, DC. Before that, he was Chief Operating Officer of the California Republican Party from 2003 to 2007.