Thread by @michaelharriot

Is Tim Scott right?

Do Democrats want to defund the police?

Let’s see.

A (short) thread

https://twitter.com/saletan/status/1442446922199961607

What Tim Scott is talking about is the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act’s provision that ties the money police get from the federal govt. In the Democrats plan, if local & state agencies didn’t ban chokeholds, no-knock warrants & report misconduct, they wouldn’t get $

Plus, they’d have to demilitarize, get training & stop shooting Black people in the face.

Do you know how many Black people cops shoot in the face???

Seriously, do you know? Because I don’t. Tim Scott doesn’t. No one does!
That’s because cops don’t have to report it.

You gotta remember, police initially said Breonna Taylor wasn’t injured.

When officer Michael Slager killed Walter Scott in 2015, they said he was shot during a struggle because they had no idea that a passerby had the entire thing on video

But one brave US Senator decided he was going to put a stop to this. He was astounded to discover that cops don’t have to report police shootings, so he came up with a plan.

He BEGGED Republicans to create a FBI database of every shot fired by an officer including:

The Walter Scott Notification Act wasn’t much, but with it, we could actually PROVE that cops disproportionately use force against Black people.

But Republicans refused.

In 2016, the Sen. tried again. Republicans refused. They refused in ‘17. Then in 2018, something happened

Congress passed the First Step Act. Contrary to popular belief, this was simply a Democratic policy passed under Obama. But the GOP had previously refused to make it retroactive because it meant Black people would get out of prison. The Sen. Saw his chance.

So he slipped the Walter Scott Notification Act into the First Step Act. Just before it passed, they removed the provision.

So the Senator gave up.

One of the provisions of the WSNA was that agencies would lose money if they didn’t report police use of force.

And he didn’t just want to punish police departments, he wanted to make the information public and subject to an independent review!

But after the George Floyd murder, he decided to try it again. He was gonna do it this time.

I actually talked to him about it! He was so excited, he let a roomful of policy experts walk me through his plan to reduce funding if police departments didn’t comply.

So this is where the Democrats got this idea from—this ONE DUDE who had been trying to get this done for six years.

The GOP still refused and that’s why the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act failed.

But Tim Scott was right. Technically, this was a plan to defund the Police

And it would have worked if Tim Scott hadn’t fooled this one senator’s plan to defund the police.

Now, I bet you’re wondering who was this crazy senator who’s been trying to defund the police for six years? Who created the Walter Scott Notification Act?

Who is this guy who created this wild defunding idea that he thought would hold police accountable until Tim Scott stepped in?

Well, his name is Tim Scott.

That’s right. If Tim Scott considers tying federal funds to police accountability rules is the same as Defunding the Police, the Tim Scott is responsible for the ORIGINAL Defund the Police legislation

So it’s not wrong to call Tim Scott a sellout

Because he actually sold out Tim Scott

Receipts (notice the date)

theroot.com/tim-scott-won-…

And just in case you think I’m twisting his intent:

Defund.
The.
Police