Rubio wonders why Val ‘27 years a cop’ Demings has “a sudden interest” in violent crime
Rep. Val Demings (D-FL), who is running for Marco Rubio’s (R-Fl) Senate seat, is to the right of many progressive Democrats when it comes to cops. She is not a fan of the ‘defund the police’ movement. And she is an advocate for the bipartisan Violent Incident Clearance and Technological Investigative Methods (VICTIM) Act, which calls for giving the police more tools. In explaining her position at a press conference on Wednesday in Washington DC she said,
"When we take the time to talk to communities throughout our nation, particularly those in high crime areas, you know what they tell us. Those communities say we want to fund the police. Matter of fact, we want to see more police. In Congress, we spent a lot of time and energy on too many issues that simply don't matter. And many days we spend time vilifying each other when there are some issues, and this is one of them, that we should all come together when our communities are experiencing disturbing increases in violent crime, including violent crime against law enforcement."
And, as soon as the words were spoken her opponent, the combed-over oil-slick, took to Twitter to pooh-pooh her position. And in doing so proved Demings prescience when she said ”we spend time vilifying each other when there are some issues and this is one of them that we should all come together”.
Rubio’s rebuttal came via his ‘team’. And they sneered that Demings’ support for policing was that of a ‘Johnny come lately’ to the party. And amounted to no more than political expediency as Rubio characterized her act as “a sudden interest in combating the rise in violent crime.”
Demings did not take Rubio’s causticity sitting down. She swatted his foolishness away by pointing to her 27 years in law enforcement, starting in 1983 as a patrol officer in the Orlando PD. In 2007 she was appointed Chief of Department, an appointment she held until 2011. During that time, she oversaw a 40% decline in violent crime. Meanwhile, at the time, Rubio was an adjunct professor at Florida International University teaching politics.
Combining an increase in violent crime with the Democrat's call to ‘defund the police’ will work in the GOP’s favor — unless Democratic candidates can make the point that Trump left behind a higherviolent crime rate than Obama did. This is hardly surprising as violence is a hallmark of Trumpism. And Republican gun policies have led to an explosion in the number of guns in the hands of violent people.
Nothing is a better exemplar of the Republican promotion of violence than the J6 insurrection - with its police-beating terrorists. Police whose wounds were salted by claims the riot was a “normal tourist visit” and "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."
Again the Democrats seem to be missing an opportunity to hang violence around the GOP’s neck like a millstone. There should be an endless loop of videos of the blood-thirsty mob attacking the heart of American democracy, while the losing candidate egged on the unconstitutional sacrilege with words and inaction.
And I have no idea why Democrats don’t point out that violent crime is generally higher in red states than blue. The 2019 FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) shows the rate of violent crime in the Northeast is 292 instances per 100,000 population. In the South — the land of Bible Belt and its ‘love your neighbor’ hypocrisy — the rate is 407.
Val Demings should ask Marco Rubio why, after he has been an elected official in Florida for 19 of the last 22 years, the state still has a higher violent crime rate than New York.