Black activist says those calling to defund police should offer own zip codes as trial areas

Those now calling for defunding police "should demonstrate by example by getting together and offering zip codes and then declaring themselves a police-free zone," black economic empowerment advocate and community activist Robert Woodson told Just the News. "And then watch how all the criminals will line up to go there."

Cities nationwide, including Los Angeles and New York City, have contemplated cutting police funding amid violent social unrest and widespread protests demanding an end to police brutality against blacks. The Minneapolis City Council announced it would vote to disband the cities’ police force altogether after the death of George Floyd, an African-American, in Minneapolis police custody last month.

Woodson told Just the News that he was troubled by the disproportionately negative media coverage of police and noted that while Floyd's death was prominently covered by the media, there was comparatively little media coverage of the death of David Dorn, a retired St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department captain who was killed while reportedly defending a friend's pawn shop from looters. 

"The media really hypes what a minority of black elites advocate," Woodson said. "I never believed that upper-income blacks who live in gated communities and send their kids to private schools presume to be speaking for low-income blacks in public housing, who rely on the police."