A little over a year after the far-left began pushing the “Defund the Police” initiative nationwide, crime rates have skyrocketed, claiming the lives of many Americans and placing even more in peril. Several major American cities heeded the call to reduce police budgets, resulting in fewer officers on the streets.

Predictably, it is the black community that has been hit the hardest showing that once again, so-called progressive solutions are killing the African Americans these people claim to be helping.

The Daily Caller reported:

Black people have represented a massive share of murder victims in six major cities through the first six months of 2021 compared to last year, which itself saw a large crime surge, according to data analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The DCNF analyzed both police department data and homicide reports compiled by local news outlets to determine how black people have been victimized in the wake of the 2020 crime spike.

The Daily Caller collected and analyzed data from Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and other cities. According to the report:

The percentage of murder victims in Chicago that were black increased from 70% in 2020 to 81% in 2021 while that figure increased from 60% to 90% year-over-year in Milwaukee, the data showed. In one of the cities analyzed, the percentage of black victims decreased, but the raw number of black victims still increased.

These cities, which are governed by Democratic politicians, voted to slash police funding after the George Floyd protests began last year. After footage of Floyd’s murder went viral, the left exploited the incident to push for decreasing the number of police officers by cutting the law enforcement budget. The overall number of homicides nationwide jumped 18 percent over 2020.

In Chicago, “[a]t least 317 total homicides were committed in Chicago between Jan. 1, 2021 and June 22, 2021, according to a Chicago Sun-Times database. In that same period last year, 295 murders were committed,” according to the Daily Caller. Black Americans represented 207 of the homicide victims in the Windy City during the same period last year. In 2021, blacks represented 257 of homicide victims, which is an 11 percent increase over last year.

Despite the increasing murder rate, Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed an $80 million cut to the Chicago Police Department in October. “While we will slow the rate of growth, with a resulting $80 million in corporate fund savings, on my watch we will never make cuts or policy changes that inhibit the core mission of the police department, which is to serve and protect,” Lightfoot said.

Black residents living in the city of Baltimore made up about 45% of total homicide victims between Jan. 1, 2021 and June 14, 2021. Statistics between this same time period in 2020 were not available, but African Americans made up 39 percent of murder victims for the whole year. The city council voted to cut $22 million from the police budget in June last year, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Mayor Brandon Scott, who was previously the City Council president, said “I am proud to lead a City Council that took the first step to responsibly reduce Baltimore’s budget dependence on policing.”

He added: “This is just the beginning, and I intend to continue leading this process to redirect our public dollars and reimagine public safety in Baltimore,” the Sun reported.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, homicide rates spiked from 75, between Jan. 1, 2020 and June 17, 2020, to 87 committed during the same time period this year. According to the Caller piece, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that black Americans represented 90% of total homicides so far this year. They represented 74% of all murder victims in the entirety of 2020. The City Council approved a cut to the police budget that reduced the police force to 120 officers.

African Americans living in Pittsburgh made up 90 percent of murder victims between January and April. During the same time period last year, blacks made up 60 percent of victims. The city’s government imposed a police department hiring freeze in July last year, according to WPXI-TV. The city council required the police department to reallocate 10% of its budget to social service programs each year.

In Los Angeles, 92 of the 272 homicides committed between Jan. 1 and June 21, 2020, were black victims. During the same time period in 2021, they made up 103 of the 315 total murders. The percentage has remained the same at 33 percent, but the increase caused about 11 additional murders compared to last year. The Los Angeles City Council voted for a $150 million cut to the police department in July last year.

As time goes on and more data becomes available, it is increasingly apparent that Democrats and other rocket scientists pushing for decreasing police ostensibly to safeguard black lives are not as concerned about the black community as they pretend. Anyone with a room temperature-level IQ could predict that reducing the number of police officers would result in the deaths of more black Americans.

Minneapolis has also seen a serious spike in crime that has claimed the lives of black children due to gun violence. A black couple is suing the city for allowing criminals to victimize the communities. (See: Minneapolis Couple Sues the City for Allowing Violent Criminals to Murder Residents)

As stated previously, it is difficult to believe the people calling for the defunding of police could not have foreseen this trend. The fact is, the majority of the people supporting this deadly initiative will never have to deal with the consequences.

Black men, women, and children are being killed in senseless acts of murder because these individuals, most of whom are white progressives, decided to virtue signal. The criminals who commit these crimes bear the responsibility for the lives lost, of course. However, those advocating for defunding the police from the safety of their homes also have blood on their hands. Unfortunately, they will not be held accountable.