Abrams says she’ll fund police if elected Georgia governor

Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) said that she will fund police departments in the state if she is elected governor in November. 

In an interview with Axios published Thursday, Abrams said she wants to establish a grant program that is focused raising pay for local law enforcement and implement changes to training standards and accountability controls.

Abrams’s plan would create new guidelines for police policies within communities, strengthen training standards on the use of force and incentivize local departments to adopt the new guidelines with state funding, according to Axios.

Abrams, who previously ran for governor in 2018, noted that Democrats can support law enforcement while addressing accountability changes with its departments, Axios noted.

“When we make smart investments in our law enforcement, we get better officer recruitment, we get better retention, we get better interaction with the community and we get a safer Georgia,” Abrams said. 

Abrams also said that she isn’t worried about progressive voters’ response to her initiative, saying that people care about their lives and not about their party affiliation 

Abrams’s interview comes as her opponent, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), released a new campaign advertisement attacking Abrams for her support of the “defund the police” movement, Axios reported, which gained national attention amid the high-profile killings of Black Americans by law enforcement in 2020 and the social justice and police brutality protests that followed. 

Abrams told the media outlet that Kemp “cherry-picked” information in his latest campaign attack against her. 

Abrams added that her new incentive would cost the state around $116 million and that she is confident she can raise the money without any additional taxes, Axios reported. 

“Georgia has the money. What we have not had is the leadership willing to invest the money,” Abram said.