Letter: City is defunding GPD to create “violence interrupter” positions
The local government within Gainesville wishes to create “violence interrupters” to target high-risk criminals and neighborhoods with large amounts of criminal activity. They plan to freeze two police officer positions within the next year, in order to fund these “violence interrupter” positions. According to the article, they plan to create six more “violence interrupter” positions by November 2022.
How do they plan to pay for it? Are they going to continue to defund more police officer positions?
I am constantly seeing on the news that there are more and more shootings occurring in Gainesville. Gainesville doesn’t need “violence interrupters,” they need their police department to be properly funded!
This is just another way to defund our police. By defunding the police, politicians are putting all of us in danger!
The Crescent City police department in Putnam County was already dismantled and defunded back in February 2021, and now the Gainesville Police Department is being defunded to create “violence interrupter” positions.
We must #backtheblue now more than ever!
Joanne Waters, Alachua
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com.
What the heck is a violence interpreter?
A “violence interrupter” is a safety mechanism built into every firearm that stops gang members from shooting at each other when the firearm runs out of bullets.
If true, it’s very tragic again how Gainesville keeps repeating the same mistakes of other cities. We even hire $100,000 consultants to Google the old ideas for us, but omit the most recent search results showing they failed 😢😡
Well either the Chief is lying or the original article is wrong, because GPD already has 5 “Violence Interruptor” positions. And they”be worked out so well already!
Remember, with a proper license, you can carry your own violence interrupter, but you must keep it concealed.