By Jason Rantz
In their zeal to defund police departments across the country, Black Lives Matter (BLM), fellow activist groups and other radical ideologues haven’t yet realized that what they’re doing is racist by their own definition.
The cities that the “defund” movement has hit the hardest have seen remarkable increases in crime. And BLM-inspired policies to “reimagine” the criminal justice system routinely result in more hardened criminals being quickly released from jail.https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=3533
The victims of these crimes? The very minority communities the movement claims to ostensibly support.
Last year, the Portland City Council voted to disband the city’s Gun Violence Reduction Team. The result was that the homicide rate in Portland rose 800 percent. The majority of the victims were black men.
In Seattle, the city council ran out the department’s first female black police chief, then cut the budget by 20 percent. Officers have abandoned the force in historic numbers due to politically motivated attacks on the police. Predictably, Seattle then saw a 26-year-high homicide rate. And while the black population of Seattle is about 7 percent, black victims accounted for 49 percent of Seattle homicides.
And consider BLM-inspired policies where repeat offenders get off scot-free—not even held on bail because “cash bail is racist.” What happened after calls to remove police from majority-minority communities?
We just learned that a homeless man in New York City accused of a random, vicious sucker punch attack had been arrested at least 17 times prior to the incident. His victim? An Asian American.
One suspect in Los Angeles was arrested on suspicion of a car burglary in South Los Angeles, one of the most racially diverse communities in the state. He was released within hours without bail. Later that evening, he was again arrested for allegedly stealing a car. He was again released, only to be rearrested two days later.
Put simply, the BLM strategy is not working. Police violence against communities of color is statistically low. Crime against people of color from actual criminals? It’s through the roof—but ignored.
The “defund” movement and de-policing policies it supports have had a disproportionate impact on people of color. So why are BLM activists ignoring the reality? Because the movement is built on fringe political beliefs espoused by activists blinded by cult-like views.
Some of the activists legitimately think they’re helping, which is terrifying. Thankfully, though, some people are waking up.
The founder of a BLM group in St. Paul, Minnesota, just released a video calling out the “ugly truth” of the group’s positions. He rightly noted that the movement actually hurts black people.
“I believed the organization stood for exactly what the name implies—black lives do matter. However, after a year on the inside, I learned they had little concern for rebuilding black families,” he declared.
And it is Republican governors who are stepping in to fight back against BLM’s plan.
In Texas, Republican Governor Gregg Abbott declared that he’d defund the cities or counties that defund the police. Under the new law, some tax dollars would be diverted to the departments that have been defunded. And counties of over one million residents must secure voter approval before gutting police budgets. A small group of loud and threatening activists often convince cowardly city councils to ignore the people’s will and listen exclusively to a fringe few, and the Texas law addresses that.
Republican Governor Brian Kemp signed a similar law in Georgia. It prohibits cities and counties from cutting police budgets by more than 5 percent in one year or cumulatively across five years.
“Radical movements like the ‘defund the police’ movement seek to vilify the men and women who leave their families every day and put their lives on the line to protect all Georgians,” Kemp said. “This far-left movement will endanger our communities and our law enforcement officers and leave our most vulnerable at risk.”
Instead of defunding the police in Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis did the precise opposite. He gave law enforcement a $1,000 bonus for the courageous work they do.
This is welcome news to the communities that care about their police departments, as well as all those who value public safety.
But the anti-police rhetoric and radical policies sweeping the nation have already taken an enormous toll. The tragic reality is that even as more people come to realize the dangers of BLM policies and governors step up in defense of law enforcement, the damage that’s already been done cannot be fixed overnight. Not enough people realize yet the actual consequences of the “defund” movement.