Why is this a surprise?
Citing Fox News as its source, KMJ NOW Newstalk Radio reports that crime, especially violent crime, is soaring in cities where police departments have been defunded.
Since George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, calls to defund the police erupted across America. Defunding means reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the city.
More than 20 major cities have reduced their police budgets in some form. As examples:
- Austin, Texas: The city council voted to cut roughly one-third of the city’s $434 million police budget. Councilman Gregorio Casar, who helped pass the major cut, told The Guardian,”We are showing the country how reinvestments from the police budget can actually make many people’s lives so much better and safer. This will build momentum for changes to police budgets across the country.”
- Los Angeles, California: In July 2020, the police department’s budget was slashed by $150 million.
- Minneapolis, Minnesota: In December 2020, the city council shifted $8 million from the police department to other programs, and in July 2021, diverted an additional $1.1 million from the police department’s $193 million budget to the Office of Violence Prevention.
- New York City, NY: In July 2020, the City Council slashed $1 billion from the police budget, including $484 million in cuts and $354 million reallocated to other agencies ”best positioned to carry out the duties that have been previously assigned to the New York Police Department, like the Department of Education, the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene and the Department of Homeless Services.” Another $162 million was slashed through “associated costs.”
- Portland, Oregon: In May 2020, city commissioners voted to cut nearly $16 million from the police budget in response to complaints about police force and racial injustice.
We now have the results of #DefundPolice:
- Austin: 26% increase in aggravated assault reports in 2021 as of February, compared with the same period last year.
- Los Angeles: 38% increase in murders in 2020; 28.3% increase in murders in 2021 through March 13.
- Minneapolis: 46% increase in murders from Dec. 11, 2020 through March 28, 2021, compared to the same period last year.
- New York City: 76 murders in 2021 thus far, compared with 68 from the same time period in 2020.
- Oakland, CA: 314% in homicides and 113% increase in firearms assaults compared with the same time last year.
- Portland, OR: 300% increase in murders from July 2020 to February 2021. In the first two months of 2021, 17 people have been murdered — a 1,600% increase from the one murder reported during the same time period in 2020.
~E