This California city defunded its police force. Killings by officers soared. [View all]

[Zorro]

Twelve years ago, officials in Vallejo, Calif., reluctantly took a step that activists are now urging in cities across the country: They defunded their police department.

Unable to pay its bills after the 2008 financial crisis, Vallejo filed for bankruptcy and cut its police force nearly in half — to fewer than 80 officers, from a pre-recession high of more than 150. At the time, the working-class city of 122,000 north of San Francisco struggled with high rates of violent crime and simmering mistrust of its police department. It didn’t seem like things could get much worse.

And then they did. Far from ushering in a new era of harmony between police and the people they are sworn to protect, the budget cuts worsened tensions between the department and the community and were followed by a dramatic surge in officers’ use of deadly force. Since 2009 the police have killed 20 people, an extraordinarily high number for such a small city. In 2012 alone, officers fatally shot six suspects. Nearly a third of the city’s homicides that year were committed by law enforcement.

Vallejo’s experience offers a glimpse of what a reduced police presence on America’s streets could mean as defunding continues to gain traction. In the wake of national protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, city officials from New York to Los Angeles are talking seriously about far-reaching cuts to their police forces.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/this-california-city-defunded-its-police-force-killings-by-officers-soared/2020/06/22/253eeddc-b198-11ea-856d-5054296735e5_story.html