Georgia targets $100M from feds to help police, lower violence – WABE

Georgia will give out $100 million in federal COVID-19 cash to bolster policing and cut back violence, Gov. Brian Kemp introduced Thursday.

Native companies can apply for as much as $1.5 million apiece if they’ll present that violent gun crimes and different violence received worse throughout the pandemic of their communities. State companies can’t apply.

“With these funds, I’m sending reinforcements to these on the entrance strains to assist with recruitment and retention, crime discount, violence intervention, and tools and know-how,” the Republican Kemp mentioned in an announcement. “I look ahead to the optimistic impression these investments may have and count on native governments to take full benefit of those obtainable funds to take the combat to the criminals.”

It’s the third announcement spending federal pandemic aid funds that Kemp has made in latest days as he runs for reelection, with extra prone to come. The bulletins infuriate Democrats, who say Kemp is utilizing cash he against bolster his probabilities towards Democrat Stacey Abrams.
“As soon as once more, Brian Kemp is popping to funds offered by Democrats’ American Rescue Plan, which he referred to as ‘a slap within the face for hardworking Georgians’ and urged Georgia’s U.S. senators to oppose,” state Democratic Celebration spokesperson Max Flugrath mentioned in an announcement.

Kemp has been hammering Abrams on the stump and in promoting, claiming that her statements and her membership on the boards of the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund and Marguerite Casey Basis present she favored defunding the police. Abrams says she doesn’t help defunding the police. In a public security plan launched in June, Abrams mentioned she truly helps rising police funding, proposing to lift beginning pay for state trooper cadets, jail guards and juvenile justice guards to $50,000, at a price of $182 million over two years.

Abrams additionally referred to as for $25 million in grants to lift officer pay and subsidize housing, saying native companies must undertake state finest practices to be eligible.

Kemp rolled out endorsements from 102 of Georgia’s 159 sheriffs in June and was endorsed Thursday by the Fraternal Order of Police. Whereas Kemp touts his “again the blue” stance, state paperwork clarify that a lot of the cash might go to different applications that goal to scale back violence that Abrams helps.

One use of the grants introduced Thursday could be to rent again for public security positions that have been eradicated or went unfilled between January 2020 and March 2021. Businesses might additionally rent extra officers than they’d earlier than the pandemic in the event that they meet sure federal {qualifications}.
The cash can even go for gadgets together with hiring outreach employees to attempt to persuade people who find themselves violence-prone to decide on different methods of addressing their issues, based on a doc printed by the state Workplace of Planning and Funds. For instance, some hospital-based applications attain out to taking pictures victims and their household and buddies to attempt to deter them from in search of revenge. Abrams helps violence intervention applications in her plan.

The grant doc additionally spotlights applications that reply to sure police calls with psychological well being professionals and different non-police personnel. Georgia lawmakers this 12 months handed a invoice requiring the state’s 23 neighborhood service boards to offer psychological well being co-responders to any native regulation enforcement company that desires them, and the grants might fund that program.

The grants may be used to pay for tools and know-how that enables police to reply to rising gun violence.

Purposes are due Nov. 18 and state officers are prone to resolve who will get the cash in January. Funds must be spent by Oct. 31, 2026.