By Adam Pagnucco.
As Council Member Kristin Mink confronts a spate of crimes in her district and criticism over her calling a police district commander for assistance with a flat tire, it’s worth recalling her history of advocacy to defund the police.
In the summer of 2020, the national defund the police movement was at its peak and Mink, who was less than a year away from a county council run, was all over it. On July 9, she created a Facebook group called Defund The Police & Invest In Community (MoCo). Below are the first two posts in the group.
She then wrote, “Tell Marc Elrich to defund the Montgomery County Police and invest in our community!”
She stayed at it for the rest of the month, issuing a “red alert” when Elrich “cut a paltry 3% of the police budget,” calling on the county to “dramatically defund and reduce our police force” and pressuring Council Member Nancy Navarro to “support eliminating ALL positions for officers in schools (SROs).”
She made the case for defunding police on Twitter too.
And in an Our Revolution questionnaire response, she wrote:
There should be no police stationed in schools, including so-called “community resource officers.” We already have police on patrol and police standing ready to respond when called. When the county decided to make the call to move police outside the school buildings, they should have had the political courage to eliminate those positions and decrease police funding.
Mink does not use this kind of language these days, and showed up before TV cameras at a homicide scene in December. She is not alone as “defund the police” is now out of favor with many politicians.
Mink now shakes hands with the police.
Why is this relevant now? Crime is a hot issue and Mink sits on the council’s Public Safety Committee, which has the first shot at reviewing the county executive’s forthcoming police operating budget. Given her history, does she still favor defunding the police? We shall find out this spring.