Police Chief Jon Murad’s department is famously lacking resources, another side-effect of knee-jerk leftist policy. And sure, you pull state police off their regular work to lend a hand in Burlington, but is Burlington paying for that or every other taxpayer in Vermont? And where will the Vermont State Police find the resources?

The following commentary by Steve MacDonald has been republished with permission from GraniteGrok.

We’ve been charting the Democrat decline of Burlington, Vermont, for a few years, and it is swirling the bowl as predicted. Property crime has been rising, and now gun crime is becoming a problem, but the local police department lacks resources. Can you guess why?

The Dems running the city into the ground tripped over themselves during the summer of love, rape, looting, and riots to show BLM they were made of the right stuff by backing the latest thing: they cut police funding by 30%.

Burlington is also a sanctuary city that gave illegals the vote (local elections only) and continues to display the hallmarks of long-term decline under Democrat rule. As I said, swirling the bowl.

And, to be fair, it is what the people want: they just legalized prostitution and sex trafficking so it is illegal for the city to regulate sex work. This will result in more human trafficking, drug abuse, sexual assault, and maybe even more sexually transmitted diseases and crime.

A Baltimore or Chicago they may never be, but they’ll get as close as they can with the population and progressive antics at hand. And without the resources to investigate rising crime, what’s to stop criminals from committing more of them?

Police say [22-year-old Kayla] Noonan was shot and killed and that her friend, who lived in the apartment, was critically injured before 27-year-old Mikal Dixon shot and killed himself. …

[Acting Police Chief Jon]  “Murad said detectives are over-extended investigating other cases and that they have reached out to the Vermont State Police for assistance.”

Murad’s department is famously lacking resources, another side-effect of knee-jerk leftist policy. And sure, you pull state police off their regular work to lend a hand in Burlington, but is Burlington paying for that or every other taxpayer in Vermont? And where will the State Police find the resources?

Vermont State Police, with an authorized strength of 333 troopers, recently reported that it has over 50 vacant positions. Add to these numbers the wholesale dissolution of the Burlington and Rutland police forces and what the respective municipalities are attempting to do in re-staffing. It is unprecedented.

All of Vermont is already paying.

And it won’t stay in Burlington or Rutland, which also defunded its local PD and has 10 times more crime per square mile than the state average.

Brattleboro is another Vermont town the progressive policy-liquored left is driving into a ditch. And not long from now, the rising crime they created will require that they deprive you of other rights until your state looks less like the quaint New England for which it was once known and more like every other city Dems have ruined.

It might still be pretty from a distance, don’t get me wrong, but up close? Democrats destroy everything they touch, and Vermont is not immune.

Burlington is just the first to fall, and while it’s not yet buried, only the residents can change course. But to do that, they have to stop voting for Democrats (or Phil Scott-republicans) for the next few decades, and I’m not convinced they are able.

Sure, voters in San Francisco recalled their City DA because the crime exceeded their tolerance for it, but no Republican mayors or city councils are in their future because real change is not something in which they truly believe.

So, is Kayla Noonan the victim of a murder-suicide or her city’s ideological blind spots? Not to worry, since they can’t blame themselves, the Dems will blame white people, guns, homeschooling, wages, inequity, and anything but Democrat policy mistakes. Maybe they’ll even blame whoever threw ammunition on a hot grill in a South Burlington McDonald’s.

They had to evacuate the building.

Responding officers negotiated with the employee, who still possessed the handgun and additional ammunition, the report said. The employee agreed to leave the gun inside and surrender to police.

No name was given, but don’t be surprised if that person ends up being a school shooter someday. And everyone will act surprised.