The “Defund the Police” movement — once embraced by prominent liberal politicians — appears to be imploding. Born of violence, it appears to be dying of violence as the predictable outcome of a major uptick in violent crime sweeps through those cities that bought into the false promise that peace and prosperity would reign supreme if we could only rid ourselves of cops.
Just over a year ago, the death of George Floyd — while in the custody of Minneapolis police — sparked a new wave of anti-police sentiment. The predictable protests, riots, and looting followed a familiar script. But this time, something was different. More than 20 cities across America sought to quell the violence by taking steps to defund their police departments. In those battles in the War on Cops, BLM, Antifa, and other Marxist groups appeared to be taking the field.
But that was then; This is now.
And now, there is indisputable proof that the Marxist social experiment of defunding or outright abolishing police to create a more peaceful and prosperous world is a failed experiment. Evidence of that failure is both evident and legion.
For starters, as police force numbers have been reduced — partly because of budget cuts and partly because fewer new cops are coming on board in this time of police demonization — violent attacks against police are on the rise. The math is simple: Fewer cops means less backup for police who answer calls that may and do put them in harm’s way. And while that makes logical sense and could easily have been predicted, it is not merely theoretical.
A recent report from Fox News shows that as of May 31, 128 police officers have been shot in the line of duty this year. That is a noticeable increase from the same period over the past two years. By May 31, 2020, that number was 118; the same period in 2019 saw 104. Of the 128 police officers shot so far this year, 26 of them died as a result.
Of the officers shot in the line of duty this year, 35 of them were shot in 27 separate ambush attacks.
Patrick Yoes, National FOP president, told Fox News, “I think that the present climate that we see throughout the country right now and the dehumanization of law enforcement is certainly, I think, having some impact on the aggression towards law enforcement.”
So, the War on Cops has — by the near-constant drone of the false narrative that cops are the bad guys — created a climate where cops find themselves being gunned down with extreme prejudice. And for many of them, their shooters are lying in wait for them.
It was once widely understood that the murder of a police officer was a crime not only against that officer and his family, but also against the entire community. After all, anyone who would shoot a cop — an armed, trained member of a police force whose job it is to protect society from criminals — would certainly have no qualms about shooting an unarmed, untrained individual citizen.
Again, the facts prove that point. After years of declining crime rates — due largely to proactive policing by better staffed, equipped, and trained police forces — crime, including violent crime, is on the rise.
To say that the connection is easy to see falls short of the mark; the connection is hard to miss. The recent decline in the number of cops as a result of defunding police departments has led to an increase in crime. If the trend continues, America’s cities are well on their way to returning to the bad old days of the early 1990s. Already, crime rates are higher in many cities than they have been in decades. This reality is so evident that many of the more than 20 cities that loudly and proudly partially defunded police in the past year have moved to quietly and sheepishly refund those departments.
In an article published online May 23, the New York Times laments that cities across America — having stood high on the mountain of Utopian promise and looked into the valley of a prosperous and peaceful future without cops — have been forced down the other side of the mountain into the valley of reality. And that reality is that citizens have had enough violent crime and they want more police officers to respond, investigate, and apprehend the criminals responsible. Citizens want police to protect them, Utopian dreams be damned.
That article reports on what is happening in Los Angeles, saying:
A year after streets echoed with calls to “defund” law enforcement and city leaders embraced the message by agreeing to take $150 million away from the Los Angeles Police Department, or about 8 percent of the department’s budget, the city last week agreed to increase the police budget to allow the department to hire about 250 officers. The increase essentially restores the cuts that followed the protests.
What led to this sudden reversal? Well, for starters, Los Angeles is “awash in new guns,” according to the Times’ own report. And murder rates were up a staggering 36 percent last year. Chief Michel Moore of the Los Angeles Police Department said Los Angeles has “lost more than a decade of progress” in the fight against crime. The previous several years of proactive policing had led to a steady and significant decline in crime — especially violent crime.
In New York City — where there has been a 45 percent uptick in murders — a major point in the race for mayor is the funding of police to fight crime. The connection between police presence and crime statistics is so apparent that radical Leftist Andrew Yang — who, after failing in his bid for the presidency has set his sights on being mayor of the Big Apple — has recently been vocal in his criticism of the idea of defunding police. During an appearance at the Crossroads of the World Sunday morning, Yang — a front-runner in the mayoral race — said, “The truth is that New York City cannot afford to defund the police.” He added, “New Yorkers are concerned about rising rates of of violent crime, petty crime, street homelessness. This is what we are seeing, and we need our city’s leaders to step up right now.”
Yang has promised to increase the police budget and bring on an additional 100 officers to the division devoted to combating gun violence. He also said, “Nothing works in our city without public safety, and for public safety we need the police,” adding, “My message to the NYPD is this: New York needs you. Your city needs you.” He said that if police do their jobs “professionally, responsibly, and justly,” then “the people of New York will have your backs. I will have your back. Defund the Police is wrong for New York City.”
So, New York, Los Angeles, and other cities — such as Portland, Seattle, and dozens of others — have tried the Marxist social experiment of defunding the police in an effort toward a policeless society. And some of them have already seen enough of the data to begin abandoning the experiment.
Here is to hoping this is a lesson learned.
