Democrats ‘stigmatized’ police profession, creating ‘crisis’ as crime rises across America, Rep. Banks says

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Biden 'being held hostage in the White House' by radical Democrats: Rep. Banks

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., reacts to Biden's plan to combat rising crime in the U.S. and Democratic policies, arguing 'every criminal in America is liking what the Democrats are selling.'

Left-wing Democrats have stigmatized the police profession with anti-law enforcement rhetoric, creating a recruitment crisis as violent crime spikes across America, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said Sunday.

Banks, head of the Republican Study Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace that funding alone will not help police departments put more officers on the streets to combat crime.

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"You can give them more funding, and that’s good, but if they can’t recruit people to become a police officer because we’ve stigmatized one of the most honorable professions in America then we’re at a dangerous point. And that’s directly related to the rise in violent crime across America," Banks said.

Banks said that some on the left wing of the Democratic Party have helped to stigmatize policing. 

"When Rep. [Ilhan] Omar says that policing is rooted in evil and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi compares police officers to Nazi stormtroopers, it makes it very difficult for police departments around the country to recruit people to become police officers," he said.

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But Quinton Lucas, the Democratic mayor of Kansas City, Mo., who has supported a $42 million budget cut to the city's police department, attributed the rise in violent crime to factors brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Lucas told Wallace that efforts on crime prevention and intervention were stymied by the pandemic and called Republicans’ articulation of the "defund the police" movement "a bit of a boogeyman."

"There is no major American city mayor who has made budget reallocation choices without actually first thinking about how do we continue to deliver core services," Lucas said. "But then how can we do better in addressing mental health, violence prevention?"

Lucas said that he doesn't view the $42 million cut as "defunding because another $45 million dollars is being added to the city’s police budget for crime prevention and intervention, social workers for the department, officers who are crisis trained, and community policing.