Debate over funding Fresno police is healthy. A better department can be the result 

Elected leaders in Fresno are wrestling with a question being asked in communities around the nation: Should the police be defunded?

The issue will come up as Mayor Lee Brand and the City Council finish out a budget for 2021. Informing their thinking will be the findings of the city’s new Police Reform Commission.

The term “defund the police” carries loaded meaning and has many possible interpretations. Ultimately Brand and the council will decide just what that looks like here.

They will hear the perspective of residents who believe police provide necessary protection from law-breakers. Fresno’s leaders will also hear from residents and advocates for those living in neighborhoods that are predominately Latino or Black who view police officers as threatening and dangerous to their security.

In some places in the nation, like Minneapolis, the city where a Black man named George Floyd died under the knee of a white officer, defunding the police means abolishing the department entirely and starting anew.

That is unlikely in Fresno, a city with a longstanding gang culture and crime. But maintaining the status quo won’t happen, either, given the distrust many residents have toward police.

City leaders will take a hard look at the responsibilities undertaken by officers and ask if there are better ways to accomplish the duties. If yes, that may mean defunding some of what Fresno police currently do.

The backdrop is the large slice of the annual budget pie that Fresno police currently receive. The Police Department gets nearly $208 million, which is about 55 percent of the general fund.

Changing duties

To Fresno’s social justice advocates, defunding is about reallocating money from police for other uses, and letting those with specific expertise take over duties that have fallen to officers over the years.

Examples would be dealing with homeless people or those with mental illness. Rather than put officers in those situations, advocates say, social service experts with more training and experience should be utilized.

If that can be done, the reasoning goes, money for those services can come from the police budget, thus the “defunding.”

Besides, the advocates say, yearly increases in the police budget have meant defunding parks and social services. Efforts to check the police budget now would bring back some balance.

The advocates stress that their goals — supporting families, early childhood health, education, job training — are solutions that would combat poverty and reduce crime.

Scaling back officer responsibilities is probably acceptable to those supporting police, but not necessarily reducing the funding the department gets.

Mayor-elect Jerry Dyer, Fresno’s former police chief for 18 years, says easing the load for officers will allow them more time to perform community policing and essential work like following up cases. He is a proponent of reallocating duties, but not dollars.

To some in the community, defunding police is a dangerous slope. A demonstration in support of Fresno police occurred downtown Thursday afternoon. “Why would you take money from the people who protect the community,” asked organizer Tom Hardin, a retired Fresno officer.

Changing duties and reorienting the focus of police is happening in certain places already.

The New York Times reports that Camden, New Jersey, police now hand out more warnings than tickets and undergo training that emphasizes holding back on shooting at suspects.

In Eugene, Oregon, a crisis worker with mental health training joins a medic on emergency calls.

And dispatchers in Austin, Texas, ask callers if they need mental health help.

Changes under way

Some duties are already in line to be moved from Fresno PD.

The council, in forging a short-term budget covering July through September, signaled it wants to move the graffiti abatement team from police to parks. The Office of Neighborhood Safety and Community Engagement would also be sent to parks. A few other changes would result in lowering PD’s budget by $5 million.

The Police Reform Commission is to determine how calls for service involving mental illness or homelessness might be redirected from police to a different agency.

These are relatively easy steps. Whether to defund the police in more significant ways remains a big conversation Fresno needs to have.

Here’s hoping leaders and residents alike have enough courage to do it fairly, honestly and boldly. Fresno needs its police department to be a leader in helping and supporting the neighborhoods it patrols. Real community-based policing is the key. Funding should be there to make that happen.

This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 10:58 AM.