Dem-Run City Defunds Police By $150 Million, Reaches Highest Homicide Rate in Over a Decade
Ill-informed social justice movements and progressive policy proposals have defined 2020.
Coronavirus lockdowns, universal mail-in voting and mask mandates were horrible ideas, but perhaps the worst social-justice-warrior proposal of all came in response to the neo-Marxist Black Lives Matter movement:
Defund the police.
In the wake of the May death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died after an officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, BLM’s influence surged into mainstream America’s consciousness.
“Defund the police” then became one of the left’s favorite slogans.
Ultimately, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, caved to progressive demands by cutting his police force’s budget by $150 million, and the City Council approved the cut in July by a vote of 12-2, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The LAPD will be down to just under 10,000 officers by next summer — a staffing level not seen in the city since 2008, the Times reported.
L.A. citizens now are paying for that funding decision with their lives.
Nearly five months after the budget cuts were announced, Los Angeles has reached 300 homicides for the year, marking the highest such number within the city since 2009, as reported by KABC-TV.
A number we have not seen in over a decade—300 homicides in a year. Senseless violence & tragic loss of life.
Our people are doing everything they can to stop the violence, but we need your help. If you have any info, report it. You can remain anonymous.https://t.co/Ti3qvwDM7Y https://t.co/xy0LBVsj56
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) November 22, 2020
According to Police Chief Michel Moore, the budget cuts are directly affecting the department’s response to this year’s rampant uptick in violence, which he described as “a pandemic of crime.”
“These cuts couldn’t come at a worse time,” Moore told the Times. “My ability to put added resources [in the community] right now is hampered.”
Any reasonable person who first heard the left’s new battle cry of “defund the police” understood this was the inevitable result of such a horrible idea.
Those leftists who supported the movement hoped the police funds could be redirected into community programs, such as public schools and various social welfare subsidies.
This kind of “reinvestment” will only serve to exacerbate the black/white economic divide.
First, increasing education funding does not increase students’ test scores. The test scores of children attending public schools have stagnated over the past 60 years even though funding per student has increased by over $10,000 in that same time, according to The Daily Signal.
Introducing competition into the school system through the implementation of school choice would be a better solution, but liberals and leftists tend to oppose such policies because they prioritize students’ equality of opportunity over public school teachers’ job security.
When it comes to the social programs that defund-the-police supporters hope to invest in, one must remember the most basic rule of economics: If you subsidize something, you get more of it.
Time and time again, the liberal solution to poverty has been to create incentives for impoverished families to stay poor so they can continue to reap the benefits of welfare payouts, which keeps those recipients from working harder to gain additional market skills so they can climb the economic ladder.
Additionally, the lack of police presence in those communities likely will lead to more homicides if what’s happening in Los Angeles is any indication.
The violence caused by BLM doesn’t stop there.
Mass rioting and looting that took place during and after BLM protests have caused over a billion dollars in property damage, with many of the destroyed business being minority-owned.
It’s ironic that a movement claiming to protect black lives is responsible for destroying so many more than it has saved.
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