defund the police ap crop
(AP Photo/Matt York)

Raise your hand if you saw this coming…over a year ago. After the George Floyd killing, blue cities controlled by far left city councils and spineless mayors jumped on the newly fashionable “reimagine policing” bandwagon and cut their police departments’ budgets. Sometimes drastically.

The airy-fairy new approach to maintaining law and order floated at the time involved diverting money away from beat cops toward more “holistic” approaches to crime such as  social programs and “violence interruptors.” Cities would send social workers to respond to domestic violence calls rather than armed police officers. Fewer cops carrying guns, they said, would ultimately mean less crime and fewer minorities shot and killed.

How did all of that work out? Exactly the way anyone without a (D) after their name or an advanced degree in interdisciplinary grievance studies predicted.

Combine fewer cops on the beat with expanded zero cash bail policies and a new breed of prosecutors who have no interest in prosecuting any but the worst offenders and reimagining law enforcement has resulted in an unmitigated disaster.

As the FBI has reported, violent crime increased 5.2% last year. Keep in mind that all of the defunding took place in the second half of 2020 or early 2021, so that number doesn’t reflect a full-year effect. “The estimated number of aggravated assault offenses rose 12.1 percent, and the volume of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses increased 29.4 percent.”

In short, shootings and murders are at decades-long or all-time highs in cities across the country.

Harlem shooting crime scene
(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Surprising no one at all, the people most often victimized by the spike in violence live in urban and lower income areas. Most of them are minorities…the very people the vocal proponents of these utopian policies said they wanted to help.

Maybe that’s why virtually everyone who has asked has found that the people who are most often victimized by the increase in violent crime would rather have — wait for it — more cops on the street, not ill-conceived progressive “solutions” to society’s problems.

But it isn’t the human toll that really got elected officials alarmed. No, it’s the polling. And then Virginia happened. When electoral prospects are jeopardized, something really must be done.

So, as day follows night, cities are beginning to re-fund their police departments. Such progressive wonderlands as Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis and Baltimore have decided that maybe fewer police on the streets really wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Two of the latest to get on the re-funding bandwagon are Oakland and Los Angeles. In Oakland . . .

In a reversal of plans to divert funding from police to social services, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said Monday that she’ll push to reverse planned cuts to the city’s police department and seek to quickly hire more officers amid a spike in violence and homicides that has left some residents afraid to leave their homes.

The mayor’s announcement came after a weekend in which three people were killed, including a retired police officer acting as a security guard for a television news crew, bringing the number of homicides to 127 so far this year.

To address the violence, Schaaf said she’ll ask the city council to reverse funding cuts scheduled to take effect next year, though she still supports diversion efforts.

“When those messages and services are not effective … the consequences must be swift and certain,” Schaaf told reporters Monday on a Zoom call. “There is nothing progressive about unbridled gun violence.”

And further to the south . . .

The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday approved a $213-million budget increase for the Police Department next year, a plan that would raise police staffing levels.

The commission voted to approve LAPD Chief Michel Moore’s request for a $1.9-billion budget, representing a 12% increase in spending from the general fund over this year. More than half of the increase would cover police salary, related expenses and overtime costs, according to a letter Moore sent to the commissioners last week.

Moore wrote that he is seeking funding to add 94 positions to boost sworn staffing levels to 9,800 positions and to restore civilian positions lost through a recent city separation incentive program.

Homicides this year are up 14% over last year and up 45% compared with 2019, LAPD statistics show. The city is also seeing a rise in violent robberies, spurred by an availability of handguns, Moore told reporters at an afternoon briefing. …

“As the city grapples with increases in gun crimes, homicides and fatal follow-home robberies, it is critical that the department recovers from the ‘defund the police’ cuts and that city leaders stop listening to the reckless ideas of anti-police groups,” [police union president Craig] Lally said.

Violent crime across the country had been on a historic three decade-long decline until 2020. Then newly fashionable progressive policies — many of which are still in place around the country — were rammed through as responses to the George Floyd killing and fiery, but mostly peaceful protests that followed.

Now comes the long, painful, expensive process of re-learning lessons about crime, punishment, law, and order that were conveniently tossed out with the charred, post-rioting rubble. If only someone could have seen any of this coming.

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48 COMMENTS

  1. any moves to repair the revolving court doors/ lack of patrol feet on the street will only be addressed to reduce a red tidal wave.
    it is no longer an election year.
    damage control.

  2. Go ahead and boost funding again, it isn’t the only problem they have now. After vilifying police for everything, no one wants to do the job. It will take years to recover from this staffing problem. Even when the police do catch the bad guy, SA/DA do not want to prosecute them because they fear retaliation by both the bad guys and the voters who elected them in on a “reform progressive” platform. The bad guys have no fear of anything anymore. The pendulum has swung too far to the left for it to make any difference. Let each protect their own.

    • Many of those officers that quit, either retired permanently or moved to more conservative locations. Essentially, the more Constitutionally aware officers were purged from the big city departments. Their replacements will go through academies that will have a greater focus on equity, diversity and very little about following the tenets of the Constitution or individual freedoms. The damage to these law enforcement agencies is permanent and unlikely to ever be repaired.

  3. The politicians and groups like BLM and your local antifa should be held accountable for what they did. Unfortunately BLM will probably get to continue their corporate grifting and social rage, and while some Dems may suffer in local/state/federal elections, the will likely be able to sweep a lot of it under the rug in a couple cycles. Maybe they lose some seats, but the media and general narrative will not hold them accountable, more like “weird, crime is bad, must be guns and stuff, need more bans and taxes for social programs.”

    It would be nice if those responsible could face a true reckoning, mocked, stripped of office, sued or fined, with a complete acknowledgement that they were wrong.

    • Those responsible should be publicly named and shamed, tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail.

  4. “There is nothing progressive about unbridled gun violence.”
    oh, but there is. essentially every dagnab thing about it.

  5. Let’s take a vote. Which is better in the Leftist Utopia…fewer cops and the general public is disarmed, or more cops where the general public is disarmed? Anarchy, or totalitarianism?

    Or…let the entire nation return to its roots and allow everyone to be armed, as they please, in the manner they please. Criminals would be less apt to criminal, really quick.

    • That all depends on the city, or neighborhood in which you reside.

      I live in a rural area just beyond the burbs. Shooting in my back yard is not illegal. To tell you the truth- the idiot defunding of police in large urban areas hasn’t affected my life at all.

      Don’t get me wrong- I absolutely reject the premise of tossing LEOs for idiot social workers but I also bet most of the policy-makers live in situations similar to my own and never go into the belly of the beast they are creating. Ever.

      Until the thug vermin can be encouraged to leave their own poverty-stricken neighborhoods and start preying on the affluent, nothing will really change. Much of the sudden rush to refund/WTF ever is due to the wanton smash-and-grabs and associated violence going on in the posh ‘hoods as of late. I don’t agree with them, but it’s about time those who create all this BS feel a bit of fear and lack of security.

  6. If the shop owners in SF and LA had been armed, the looting would have stopped with the first dead looter.

  7. Defund the police. Refund the Police. Yada, Yada, Yada. Thank all the fat and happy POTUS DJT bashers who failed to show up and out number biden’s fraudulent votes. Nonetheless the election was stolen. How do you know that you ask? The results show all the signs of a thief who steals a priceless concert violin and tries to play it.

  8. Activist judges & lawyers are the problem along with terror organizations like Antifa & B urn L oot & M urder, are the real problem here.
    Time for the people to take back the streets.
    Anyone who says a open carry society is NOT a polite society is a fool & a leftist.
    What you have now is the inmates running the asylum… & the thugs love it.

    • “ Anyone who says a open carry society is NOT a polite society is a fool & a leftist.”

      I don’t know… Kyle R was basically open carrying and what effect did it have on his attacker’s desire to do him harm?

      • Hmmm… seems to me that his attackers’ desire to do him harm was immediately (and permanently) ended right then and there, once they pushed him too far.* Hey, FAFO!

        And besides the immediate effect his open carry may or may not have had, you have to admit that after that night, nationwide, destructive rioting basically came to an abrupt end.

        Once the rioters saw that they could be the next one shot by residents who have had enough of the bullshit, their bravado disappeared and the “protests” became truly “mostly peaceful”… So it appears to me that this incident of open carry (and demonstrated willingness to use the rifle if needed) had a lasting effect on the population of this country.

        * While Grosskreutz probably still wishes harm would come to Kyle, IMO he certainly won’t take any steps to further that goal.

  9. Shucks, I was just beginning to enjoy the warm glow of burning cities and mountains of dead idiots who wanted the cops defunded.

  10. “Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.”

  11. They can dump all the money they want back into policing but the horrific damage done to the foundation of police as a legitimate and fundamental need to society wont be effected.

    You’d have to be crazy to want to be a cop in an urban democratic city.

  12. When I first visited this site the cop haters here were as thick as hair on a dog’s back. I was constantly defending my profession. They all became very quiet two years ago. I wonder why. Funding is one thing. Hiring is another. I talked to the Sheriff a few days ago. He is desperately short of patrol deputies. Despite a substantial increase in salaries. He doesn’t even have applications on file. He almost begged me to come back. I smiled and said, “I’m retired.”

    • Gadsden Flag,

      My complaint with police personnel is twofold:

      1) Police organizations often/largely fail to remove the bad apples from within their ranks.

      2) Police personnel often “follow orders” which directly contradict the United States Constitution, state constitutions, and/or simple decency.

      Arguably the most obvious and egregious example of number (2) above are police enforcing firearm laws against peaceable people who have no intentions of attacking anyone–such as a friendly and polite person who happens to be carrying a handgun for righteous self-defense in New Jersey (without a license of course since New Jersey rarely issues licenses to the general public). How many cops in New Jersey, upon discovering that a friendly and polite person was carrying a handgun for righteous self-defense with absolutely no intention of attacking anyone, would bid that armed person a good afternoon and send them along their way without arresting them? Answer: 0.00001%

      That is what so many people on this forum despise: police actions against good people who have not attacked/harmed anyone and who have no intention of attacking/harming anyone. No one in their right mind despises police for taking thieves, thugs, robbers, rapists, and murderers off the streets, myself included.

      • Uncommon, I’ve said it before, but I guess it needs repeating. After retiring I was called in by the FBI and FDLE concerning an issue with my former Captain. I was a lead prosecution witness in Federal Court. The piece of shit got seven years, was stripped of his retirement and is now a convicted felon. The blue wall is mostly media myth. And many eat it with a spoon. Violating the Constitution? That’s what he went to prison for. Citizens violating firearms laws when they’re otherwise good people? (You can tell the difference.) I educated them on how not to be arrested and sent them on their way. With their firearm. New Jersey? Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. I’ve been there a couple of times. Signal 0. I fully expected to be arrested if I were discovered.

        • Gadsden Flag,

          Thank you for your thoughtful response. It sounds like you were an exemplary law enforcement officer and I commend you for it. I wish 99.999% of all officers upheld the same ideals that you report of yourself.

        • +1

          I know a number of small town cops, game wardens, park rangers, state troopers, and deputies, from two different parts of the state. I minored in recreation LE in college (but didn’t pursue that career), I used to make a living repairing homes, and now I own a business that repairs vehicles, and many have been/are my customers, so I know their families as well. Only one I know of was nursing an attitude and he was weeded out early. Virtually all the others were/are stand-up American citizens first, as we would define that term, and my experiences with them have been positive. I don’t know any big city cops, which I acknowledge may be a blind spot, and I don’t dismiss “bad cop” stories, but aside from the one, I’ve not seen it in person. Gov’t bureaucrats, now that’s a different story.

    • Too many cops are simply ignorant bullies with uniforms and a license to get away with damn near anything. The solution isn’t to defund. The solution is to hire better people and train them well. And that takes more money, not less, and more cops, not fewer.

  13. “Raise your hand if you saw this coming…over a year ago…”

    Raising hand.

    “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”

    — George Orwell

  14. Quietly raises hand in the back of the room….
    Cough cough… Uhm who would want to work for these departments where the city and citizens don’t want to support them?
    It isn’t just less cops. It is Soros funded DA’s who won’t prosecute crime, but will throw a cop in jail for trying to do their job. It is the anti police rhetoric coming from city councils. It is the citizens themselves who have adopted an anti police stance, and make doing the job darn near impossible.
    So who wants to become a police officer now?
    Not the best and brightest. This isn’t bashing all the good cops out there, but when you talk to the rank and file about who would want to work in a place like Oakland, many want nothing to do with it. You slip up a little, just once, and you are thrown out of policing, and your pension is gone. Most would rather go somewhere where the city supports them.

    • Get everyone that wants to be tooled up and send all cops home for a few months The problem will straiten itself out

    • That’s my attitude, possum. There have been too many cops ever since Clinton and Biden decided to put 100,000 extra cops on the streets. There were maybe too many even before that.

      Arm all citizens, and lay off 100,000 cops, and see how things work out. After a year of three, we can lay off another 20,000 to 50,000. I have never liked living in a police state.

  16. REALLY COME ON YA ALL , NEED MORE POLICE , REALLY , STUPID HUMANS CAN’T CAN’T BE TRUSTED RUNNING FREE AND HAVING A SO CALLED WILD TIME .
    O YEAH MORE UNCONTROLED RIOTS AND GRAB N STEAL TIME . BS .

  17. They knew the results of what they did. They knew people would die, they knew how violence would increase and that the troubles would grow. Still they demonized anyone wouldn’t bend a knee to their far left socialism agenda. That is evil knowing the destruction that would occur and still do it.

    History shows the greatest psychopaths are leaders in Socialist, Communist and Fascist movements. They are in our Republic continuing thier historical methods.

  18. Hey, being 74 years old, We had a good 200+ year run in The USA. The liberals wanna end it all and the only thing I can do is vote against them. The media and education are owned by The marxist Democratic party. When the end comes and they (or the U.N.) come up my drive to disarm me, I guess all I can do is welcome them WARMLY!

    !

  19. What worries me is all these D’s that moved out of their shitholes into our regular states and will now start voting here…

  20. The problem with transitions is the Lefties want to throw out the old system now without having the new one in place. They immediately cut the police, but how many social service people were ready to hit the streets the next day, assuming they’d do any good? Hire some social workers, fire some police as crime drops, and repeat. Even with social workers, it takes time to fix someone’s problems and change their thinking, so cops will be needed for a long time. If they want to send social workers to domestic disturbances, drunk and disorderlies, druggie, etc, they could get rid of the proportionate number of police once social workers start taking those calls. Instead, they have fewer police to do the job and no social workers picking up the slack.

    They’re making the same mistake with gas prices. They want to move to renewable energy, so they cut oil production and pipelines, change us from an oil exporter to importer, and double the price of gas. Meanwhile, no extra electricity is produced, public transportation didn’t improve, our economy is now determined by OPEC, there aren’t charging stations everywhere, electric cars aren’t abundantly available and affordable, etc. It doesn’t help alternative energy get here any sooner — it makes everybody suffer, but especially hits the poor harder, which disproportionately affects the communities of color that the Lefties claim to champion.

  21. Crime has skyrocketed because self-hating white people who complain there are over two million Americans in prisons and jails want them released. These Libertarians liberals and leftists complain that the United States has the largest prison population in the world. It doesn’t matter that at the same time we have one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

    So these self-hating white people were successful at emptying the jails in the United States in 2020. What these people do not want to admit is it there is a certain percentage of the human population that is incorrigible. This percentage is very small. But there are some people who simply will not control themselves. And some of them enjoy committing crimes including, they enjoy killing people. They enjoy raping people. They enjoy stealing from people.

    These criminals should be shot dead on sight. The laws should be changed to allow law-abiding citizens to kill thieves when caught. Or kill those who trespass onto private property, and refused to leave when told to do so.

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