What “Defund the Police” Means

Here’s a conversation on the meme here:

Steve:  It’s sad that republicans actually think that defund the police means this.

Ed: Let me make it simple for you so in LA they took the budget and slashed it by 20% and that’s called defunding they cut out the gang unit and a whole bunch of other stuff is that a little bit easier for you to comprehend?

Me: I believe what Steve is saying is that calls for help in nonviolent cases (naked lunatics in the street, school disciplinary actions, etc.) are routed to people best equipped to deal with them. These people are specially trained, and, importantly, unarmed. In the cases where the situation escalates and force is required, the police are called.

This has been tested in many places around the country and has proven extremely effective; fewer than 5% of cases require police intervention.  This means that, in the 95% of cases that are de-escalated, no one gets shot.  

The word “defund” is unfortunate, I’ll be the first to admit. If they had chosen “narrow the responsibilities of,” there would have been near-uniform agreement.