Following the officer-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the city became among the first to embrace the insane “defund the police” philosophy.
In a sane world the mass rioting and looting in the wake of Floyd’s death would serve as a reminder that police are the only barrier between civil society and anarchy, but ideology trumped reason on the Minneapolis City Council, which has zero Republican members.
Here’s a brief timeline of the predictable trainwreck that followed the defunding and demoralization of police, by the headlines:
- NPR, June 26, 2020: Minneapolis Council Moves to Defund Police, Establish “Holistic” Public Safety Force
- KARE 11, July 24, 2020: Council Moves Money [$1.1 Million] From MPD as Part of Revised Minneapolis City Budget
- KSTP, August 18, 2020: Minneapolis 2020 Homicides Surpass Last Year’s Total in Just 8 Months
- MPR News, September 15, 2020: With Violent Crime on the Rise in Minneapolis, City Council Asks: Where Are the Police?
- The Hill, September 28, 2020: Some Minneapolis City Council Members Would Like a Redo on Defunding the Police
- Washington Post, November 13, 2020: Minneapolis Violence Surges as Police Officers Leave Department in Droves
- Patch, December 10, 2020: Minneapolis City Council Diverts $7.7 Million From Police Budget
- CBS Minnesota, January 22, 2021: Early 2021 Minneapolis Crime States Show 250% Increase in Gunshot Victims
- US News, February 7, 2021: Report: Minneapolis Violent Crime Increased by 21% in 2020
Who could’ve seen that coming? I’d hope most people.
And now for the finale, per Fox News:
Minneapolis backtracked on its original push to defund the city’s police department in the wake of George Floyd’s police custody death after residents begged the city to hire more officers, citing longer response times and increased violent crime.
The City Council on Friday voted unanimously to approve $6.4 million in additional funding that police had requested.
The department says it only has 638 officers available to work — roughly 200 fewer than usual. An unprecedented number of officers quit or went on extended medical leave after Floyd’s death and the unrest that followed.
With new recruit classes, the city anticipates it will have 674 officers available at the end of the year, with another 28 in the hiring process, the Star Tribune reported.
This should end the “defund the police” debate once and for all, but of course it won’t. Just as communism has survived despite it being an abject failure wherever it has been tried, I’m sure we’ll soon “learn” from leftists that this wasn’t *real* “defunding the police.”
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