Sen. Bernie Sanders, who failed in his bid for the Deomcratic presidential nomination, rejected dismantling police departments, as Minneapolis seems poised to do, in an interview with The New Yorker published on Tuesday.
“There’s no city in the world that does not have police departments. What you need are — I didn’t call for more money for police departments. I called for police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals,” Sanders told The New Yorker. “Anyone who thinks that we should abolish all police departments in America, I don’t agree.”
Sanders, an independent from Vermont, wants to “redefine” police departments because officers often deal with people struggling with issues like mental illness or addiction that “should be dealt with by mental-health professionals.”
