Defund the police encounters resistance as violent crime spikes
By Peter Nickeas, Julia Jones, Josh Campbell and Priya Krishnakumar One year since a nationwide movement sparked calls for slashing police funding in favor of other nontraditional forms of public safety, it’s not clear whether any city achieved anything resembling what protesters demanded: massively defunded or abolished police departments. The calls to cut funding and overhaul policing came after a police officer in Minnesota killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck, and video of the encounter set off one of, if not the, largest protest movements in American history. Some departments defunded, at the insistence of protesters, cutting some