Take notice, every local economic development chief, chamber of commerce director and real estate salesman in rural Kansas; David Toland – stop wishing for more wind farm subsidies from your spacious Kansas Department of Commerce office cubicle and pay attention – the mayors of America’s largest cities are about to give you an early Christmas gift.
They’re talking about dismantling… yes, that’s right, I said DISMANTLING their police departments in the wake of the George Floyd killing.
So, yeah, that means… well, we presume… no more cops?
At least that’s the plan in Minneapolis, Minn., where city council president Lisa Bender and her veto-proof majority of council members are working to better serve the citizens of Minneapolis – by dismantling the only thing standing between them and total bedlam.
No, I’m not kidding. It’s like the script of the next Batman movie. In the first act, the Joker pumped city hall full of Stupid Gas and revoked Commissioner Gordon’s Target Rewards Card.
Remember those pictures of the Oklahoma land rush? It’s easy to envision at the city limits of Minneapolis – hoards of cutthroats, thugs and criminals massing at the borders with St. Paul, South Park and Edina, ready for the last city police paycheck to clear the bank – and likewise a hoard of law-abiding business people and upstanding citizens ready to high tail it south on I-35 for Burnsville and parts beyond.
It all makes perfect sense, under the influence of Stupid Gas. White cop murders a doped-up black career criminal while in police custody, and criminal thugs and political anarchists rush in to take advantage of mass protests to loot and burn black-owned businesses right along with everything else they can get away with. Their deeds – and those free 50-inch TV sets – mix with plenty of outside instigation to inspire similar criminal assaults nationwide. Astute city leadership’s response is crisp and effective:
First, disband the police.
I mean, what else would competent civic leadership do?
And Minneapolis isn’t the only city to embrace this genius plan. New York (of course), Houston, Los Angeles – others have taken a whiff of the dastardly villain’s half-witted redolence. The secondary explosion should and will send tens of thousands of small business people out of those urban hellholes in search of sanity and a new place to hang their shingle.
That’s where our local economic development gurus and their statewide grand poobah should have their marketing guns cocked, locked and ready to rock. Every newspaper, TV or radio station, Facebook Page, church bulletin and matchbook cover in those cities should have an ad from Kansas that says something to the effect of: “Looted, burned, and now no police protection? Bring your small business to Beloit or Council Grove or Wakeeney or Plainville– we’re more decent here.”
How many of those poor abused business people wouldn’t really rather live where people wave when they drive by whether they know you or not; where arguments are more civil; where police are still on duty and where the sunrises and sunsets are gorgeous?
Call that kind of opportunism inappropriate if you want, but you can’t tell me a lot of people in those cities aren’t asking themselves right now if it's worth rebuilding their business just to await the next unfettered urban assault from a bunch of thugs. Most of these city leaders couldn’t move fast enough to shut those businesses down and make their customers stay home during the coronavirus scare, but their authority was nowhere to be found to combat the criminals that beat those business owners, shot them and burned homes and businesses to the ground.
If this was Hollywood, Batman would have met the looting hoards with some superior firepower and outwitted the Joker to land him in jail. In the meantime small towns should make lemonade out of these lemons and like the rest of the country – pray we see the Bat Signal soon.
–Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Ks.
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