Markowitz stated she is not in favor of defunding the police but contradicts herself by stating “I also think that we need to decide how and what the police force should be dealing with, and that may require redirecting certain revenue streams to alternative areas.”

Markowitz stated she is not in favor of defunding the police but contradicts herself by stating “I also think that we need to decide how and what the police force should be dealing with, and that may require redirecting certain revenue streams to alternative areas.” ♦ Markowitz stated during the 2020 Candidate forum: Yeah, so I'm really glad this question came up, because unlike many of the mailers that have been going out around me, I do not support defunding the police. I think that it is absolutely terrible idea to defund the police, and I think that the tagline that has been associated with all the Democrats for defunding the police is poor at best. I think, as Representative Gates said there are bad apples that we need to remove from the system, and we can do that through increased training. I also think that we need to decide how and what the police force should be dealing with, and that may require redirecting certain revenue streams to alternative areas, so if we're discussing a domestic dispute, we may not need to send a police officer out to that domestic dispute, but instead we would send counseling services out to take care of that, and mental health services, and just a myriad of other ways to handle things that don't require law enforcement officers, and so I think that we need to have a police force that is willing to protect the lives of the citizens of not just HD 28 in Fort Bend County and the state of Texas, but we also need to have alternative approaches to handle issues such as mental health issues and issues that may come up with regards to child custody and other issues that don't necessarily require a law enforcement officer coming to the house and having the the stigma associated with having the police come to handle a situation. Houston Public Media, “Election 2020 Candidate Forum: Texas House District 28, Gary Gates (R-I) and Eliz Markowitz (D)”, 10/23/2020, timestamp, 51:36-53:13 [Downloaded Video]