Black Lives Matter Wants to Abolish the Police During a Homicide Surge in Los Angeles

During an alarming surge in the number of homicides committed in Los Angeles, with the majority of victims people of color, Black Lives Matter-LA has begun a campaign to deplatform and abolish unions protecting law enforcement officers. At a news conference held during a protest outside the Los Angeles Police Protective League office, BLM-LA made it clear this is just the first step in their determination to completely eliminate law enforcement. The LAPPL is the union representing approximately 9,800 police officers in Los Angeles.

BLM-LA adherents have vowed to hold a protest outside LAPPL's offices every Wednesday. Their goal is to have the police union and the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, another law enforcement officer union, ousted from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Reportedly, they are seeking to pass legislation to decertify police unions throughout the state. Their present goal in Los Angeles is to have city leaders defund the police entirely. "Defunding is just shorthand for abolition," the LA Times quotes Melina Abdullah as saying at the Wednesday rally. Abdullah is a co-founder of BLM-LA. Another BLM organizer, Akili, is quoted as saying, "We will not be bullied anymore. We will not give up our budgets anymore."

The 'our budgets' refers to BLM's belief that they should be the ones handling taxpayer money. At a Town Hall event with LA City Councilmember Mike Bonin in August, Melina Abdullah suggested that money now given to the police should be distributed instead to various nonprofits in the community who do good works regarding housing, education, and related matters. She had no answer as to who would administer or oversee the expenditures made in this way and seemed offended the question was even asked. She completely dismissed the idea the police ever needed to be called for any situation whatsoever, mocking who she called the "a-holes" of the Westside.

BLM and Abdullah's true motivation looks to be something very different from protecting and promoting the lives of people of color when one looks at the data. According to the Washington Post database regarding police shootings, NATIONWIDE SINCE 2015, 134 unarmed black people have been shot by the police. 71 Hispanics were shot and 18 of some ethnicity/race other than Caucasian. That's a total of 223 unarmed people of color NATIONWIDE for SIX YEARS or an average of 37 unarmed people of color per year shot by the police. Although the victims were unarmed, it is unknown if they were actually harmless at the time of the shooting.

By contrast, just this year - A LITTLE OVER TWO MONTHS - IN LOS ANGELES ALONE, there have been 136 homicides. 129 of the victims were people of color. In two months, Los Angeles has seen more untimely violent death in the community of color than in two-and-a-half years of police shootings nationwide. Just this past weekend, 18 people were killed by homicide - every single victim a person of color and two of them known to be homeless.

It is unlikely, and would be immoral, for BLM-LA to be unaware of these statistics.

The carnage follows the Los Angeles City Council defunding the police by $150 million and reducing the force by 250 officers. This downsizing was done in large part due to advocacy by BLM-LA during the protests following George Floyd's death in police custody in Minneapolis. Recent statistics in Los Angeles and other cities where police have been reduced and/or demoralized bear out the thesis that law enforcement prevents death, particularly among people of color.

But BLM-LA wants to get rid of the city's police department, starting by attacking the union that protects the officers. For avowed Marxists, this is a strange move. Apparently, there are bigger fish to fry for BLM than the collectivization of workers. Obvious, there are much bigger fish to fry than the lives of Black people, or those of any other skin color.