Another Radical Left Fiasco: Defunding the Police
– By Howard Sierer –
Last summer’s riots – aided and abetted by the radical left, led some of our most dangerous cities to demonize their police forces and defund them. As a direct result, hundreds of black men, women, and children have been murdered, mostly by other black men.
Heather Mac Donald writes, “Homicides rose 50% in Chicago in 2020, 46% in New York City, and 38% in Los Angeles. The U.S. saw the largest annual percentage increase in homicides in recorded history in 2020. That increase has continued in 2021. The number of shooting victims in Chicago was up 43% in the first three months of 2021 compared with the same period in 2020. Through May 16th, the number of shooting victims in New York City is up 78.6% over a year ago.”
She continues: “The local murder increases in 2020 were startling: 95% in Milwaukee, 78% in Louisville, Ky., 74% in Seattle, 72% in Minneapolis, 62% in New Orleans, and 58% in Atlanta according to data compiled by crime analyst Jeff Asher. Dozens of children, overwhelmingly black, were killed in drive-by shootings. They were slain in their beds, living rooms and strollers. They were struck down at barbecues, in their yards, in malls, in their parents’ cars, and at birthday parties. Fifty-five children were killed in Chicago in 2020, 17 in St. Louis, and 11 in Philadelphia. In South Los Angeles alone, 40 children were shot, some non-lethally, through September.”
Not so fast says the radical left, we initiated “peaceful protests” to call attention to systemic racism and police killings of innocent blacks. So, take a look at supposed police force systemic racism.
In 2018, the most recent year in which federal data is available, there were 3.7 million police-initiated contacts between police officers and black people where either force or the threat of force was used. The Washington Post police shooting database shows that 232 blacks were shot dead by police that year.
Doing the math, about one in every 16,000 cases where lethal or nonlethal force was involved resulted in a black death. And of the 232 deaths, in only about 20 cases was the black suspect unarmed. Only those with a race-hustling agenda could call these deaths evidence of systemic racism.
Let me be clear: George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in May 2020 was an outrage. Any wrongful death at the hands of the police should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Floyd’s murderer, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is headed to prison for a long time. As I wrote last year, police officers with multiple complaints on their records should be thoroughly investigated by outside authorities and disciplined or removed as necessary.
Calls to defund the police resulted in a dramatic drop in police presence where it is needed most: inner cities. Radical leftists once again forced policies on an unwilling public that were supported by only a small minority: A recent Gallup poll reported that only 10 percent of blacks wanted a smaller police presence in their neighborhoods while 38 percent wanted an increase.
A Google search of “police officer resignations” shows that thousands of responsible and honorable police officers across the country with clean and praiseworthy records have resigned rather than continue working as suspected racists.
Many officers who stayed on the job pulled back from confrontations with blacks, giving criminals free rein in high crime neighborhoods. The result: hundreds of innocents died and as always, they were disproportionately black. For example, at least three-quarters of Minneapolis’s homicide and shooting victims were black, though the city is less than a fifth black.
Race hustlers like Black Lives Matter and Al Sharpton loudly encouraged last summer’s riots and led the calls for defunding the police. They’re now silent and unwilling to face up to the consequences of their demands. Belying its name, it’s apparent that Black Lives Matter, founded by admitted Marxists, sees these black deaths as collateral damage in pursuit of its openly socialist political objectives.
Too late and only after the avalanche of homicides attributable to their actions, a number of cities governed by leftist mayors and city councils are backtracking. Police department funding is being restored and even increased in cities where murder exploded over the last 12 months: New York, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Louisville, Denver and Atlanta among others.
The barn door is being locked long after the horses have escaped and at the cost of innocent lives.
To the overwhelming majority of police officers who put their lives on the line day after day and who do their best to treat all citizens fairly, I extend my thanks for all you do.
Back the Blue.
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