![Even Democrats at the moment are admitting ‘Defund the Police’ was a large mistake Even Democrats at the moment are admitting ‘Defund the Police’ was a large mistake](https://clpnewsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210525171938-06-defund-refund-police-new-york-super-tease.jpg)
That’s a remarkable turnaround from how politicians — in and out of Minnesota — acted in the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s death and the summer of nationwide protests that followed.
Nine members of the Minneapolis City Council appeared at an event in June 2020 in which they pledged that they would work to dismantle the police force in the city. They did so on a stage that featured large cutout letters spelling out “Defund Police.”
Even as liberal members (and the activist community) were pushing for the party to embrace the “defund the police” movement, others within the party were warning of the political dangers inherent in the slogan.
Clyburn’s warning proved prophetic. Then-President Donald Trump seized on the issue during the 2020 campaign, casting it as evidence that Democrats were out of touch with the average person. “LAW & ORDER, NOT DEFUND AND ABOLISH THE POLICE.,” Trump tweeted in June 2020. “The Radical Left Democrats have gone Crazy!” And then this the following month: “Corrupt Joe Biden wants to defund our police. He may use different words, but when you look at his pact with Crazy Bernie, and other things, that’s what he wants to do. It would destroy America!”
Even as Trump and Republicans were working to make “defund the police” a national issue (Joe Biden had made clear he did not favor defunding), the Minnesota politicians who were at the forefront of the “defund” movement were beginning to back off in the face of rising crime in the city. As Minnesota Public Radio reported in September 2020:
“Just months after leading an effort that would have defunded the police department, City Council members at Tuesday’s work session pushed chief Medaria Arradondo to tell them how the department is responding to the violence.
“The number of reported violent crimes, like assaults, robberies and homicides are up compared to 2019, according to MPD crime data. More people have been killed in the city in the first nine months of 2020 than were slain in all of last year. Property crimes, like burglaries and auto thefts, are also up. Incidents of arson have increased 55 percent over the total at this point in 2019.”
(The City Council had, months before, moved $1.1 million from the police department to the health department.)
While the vote was expected to be quite close, it was, in fact, not.
“The status quo-affirming result is a setback to both citywide and national efforts to fundamentally reduce or eliminate the role of police in America. Opponents of calls to “defund the police” will point to the vote as fresh evidence that the backlash to police abuse that fueled last year’s protests, which followed the killing of Floyd by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Talk of curbing police departments by cutting or limiting their resources has run into a countervailing wall of concern over public safety and waning support from early allies — including leading Democrats who largely view it as political poison.”