The deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks have sparked a backlash against police, and that backlash will lead to tragedy if defunding the police becomes policy. While there is some debate about what “defund” really means, there is no question it has already led to cuts in funding to police departments in major cities. Those cuts, along with the push to abolish police altogether in Minneapolis and the death-eligible charges brought against the officers responsible for Brooks’s death, are an invitation to those who prey on the weak and vulnerable.
There was a lot of discussion after Floyd’s death in Minneapolis about police training regarding chokeholds and stress positions, like the one used by the officers when arresting Floyd. The nation watched as Floyd begged for his life and stopped breathing. It was nothing short of horrifying. The officers responsible have been charged, and there is no doubt the full force of the law will be brought to bear in the search for justice for Floyd. Very few, if any, law enforcement experts disagreed with holding those officers criminally responsible for Floyd’s death.
Some weeks later in Atlanta, Brooks’s death in police custody was dramatically different. Brooks was captured on video fighting with officers, fleeing, and firing a stolen taser at them. Like the officers in Floyd’s death, the two officers involved in Brooks’s death have also been charged, and in Georgia, the felony murder charge the district attorney lodged against one officer carries with it a possible death sentence.
Meanwhile, loud voices, including some elected officials, have used these incidents as a rallying cry to justify defunding or even abolishing police departments around the country. Funding cuts have serious, deleterious consequences for public safety and dramatic effects in the fight against those who prey on women and children.
In 2008, a bipartisan coalition, notably including chief sponsor Sen. Joe Biden, passed the Protect Our Children Act. In it, Congress called for increased resources to fight child predators, which included funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces. Those forces are made up largely of state and local police officers.
The $1 billion proposed cut from the New York Police Department budget, the hundreds of millions in proposed cuts from the Los Angeles Police Department budget, and the move to abolish police in Minneapolis will undoubtedly mean painful cuts from the most specialized and highly trained units, which always include crimes against children units. A perfect example was the recent announcement by the Los Angeles County sheriff, who shared that the budget cuts proposed by the mayor’s office would result in the elimination of the Special Victims Bureau.
Crimes against children are extremely complex to investigate and prosecute. Those who specialize in that area receive highly sophisticated training and equipment to ensure they can stay a step ahead of child predators, whose use of the latest tech tools will defeat poorly funded and ill-equipped police departments. Biden and a large bipartisan group in Congress clearly recognized the need to increase police funding so that specialized training and equipment could bring more investigations rather than less, resulting in more cases and more safety for children.
To translate, more funding equals more public safety. For those who doubt that less policing emboldens criminals, take the murder of Secoriea Turner July 4 in Atlanta. Ever since the death of Floyd, and especially following the death of Brooks in Atlanta, that city has been seized by the same anti-police fervor that has led to looting, rioting, and deadly violence in many of America’s cities. Little has been done by city leaders to stop the criminal destruction and violence.
The message from the mayor and district attorney in Atlanta, with firing and charging one officer in the Brooks case with a death-eligible crime, has in turn caused police to draw back and take fewer risks in defense of the city. The example of the multiple cities that have allowed armed camps of “protesters” to occupy government or private property is illustrative. Only after multiple murders was the Seattle camp disbanded. The charge to police is clear: let the rioters riot and looters loot.
Eight-year-old Turner was the latest victim of leaders’ calls for less policing. She was shot and killed in her mother’s car Saturday night while they were driving near the place where Brooks died, and which has now been overtaken by lawless criminals who apparently think nothing of shooting into a car of innocent people. Turner’s death is a direct result of the defund the police movement and the implied permission rioters have gotten from leaders who refuse to hold them accountable for arson and destruction of property, leading them to feel emboldened to commit ever more violent crime.
What is the lesson here? Child predators, like those with murder on their minds, will know there will be less risk to them with fewer police and will feel even more free to target vulnerable children. Less policing will continue to lead, as it already has, to tragedy.
Francey Hakes (@FranceyHakes) is a former state and federal prosecutor who previously worked in the Department of Justice and practiced in front of the FISA court. She co-hosts the crime podcast Best Case Worst Case.
