Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pleads with AG Merrick Garland to send ATF agents to city after more than 760 murders this year - a 25-year high: Just one year after she proposed CUTTING $80M from police budget

All throughout the United States, Democratic mayors have reversed their policies defunding their police departments following huge spikes in crime.

The cities are now refunding their police departments include New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco.

New York

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio reversed course and promised $92 million for a new precinct after scrapping the project last summer as he vowed to slash the NYPD budget by $1 billion. 

In April, de Blasio admitted that the initial funding cuts were his response to the 'environment at that moment,' saying the city now had more funds available due to federal stimulus.

As of December murder rates are up 2.7 percent from last year as of December 19, according to city-wide crime statistics, with robberies up 4.7 percent and felony assaults up 9.7 percent over last year.

In May, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo admitted at a news conference: 'We have a major crime problem in New York City.'

'New Yorkers don't feel safe and they don't feel safe because the crime rate is up. It's not that they are being neurotic or overly sensitive - they are right,' he said. 

In a swipe at his political nemesis de Blasio, the then-governor said that defunding the police was not the correct solution. 

'Until you restore the trust and make the reforms necessary, we're going to have this problem -- defund the police is not the answer. It basically means abolish the police,' he said. 

'That's going to help? Gun violence is going up, all crimes going up and that's going to help? No. It's reform so that the community says - I now trust the relationship. 

'I am a lifelong New Yorker. I've seen this cycle over and over and over again I remember getting on a subway train and making sure there was no jewelry, making sure you weren't wearing a chain,' he said. 'That was real.'  

Baltimore

In Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott, who last year led efforts to cut police funding by $22 million as a city councilman, pleaded over the spring for $27 million more for the police department. 

Then in October, Gov. Larry Hogan announced that Maryland would invest an additional $150 million in law enforcement as part of his 'refund the police' initiative.

He said that public officials need to steer more funding to law enforcement to maintain public safety, CBS Baltimore reported.

'Thinking you can improve law enforcement by defunding the police is like saying that you want to improve education by defunding the schools,' Hogan said. 'It's absurd and ridiculous.'

As of December 11, domestic homicides in the city are up 36 percent from last year, with carjackings up 140 percent and commercial robberies up a whopping 450 percent.   

Los Angeles

In Los Angeles, city officials voted in March to boost police funding by $36 million, after voting last year to slash $150 million from the budget.

The money will go toward the agency’s law-enforcement contracts with the Los Angeles Police Department, Long Beach Police Department and Los Angeles Sherriff’s Department. 

Homicides in the city are up 14.7 percent as of December 11, with robberies up 5 percent from last year, aggravated assaults up 7.7 percent and motor vehicle thefts up 12.4 percent from last year.

Oakland, California

 In Oakland, California, city lawmakers restored $3.3 million of the $29 million in police cuts in May.

Mayor Libby Schaaf also said in November that she would push to reverse planned spending cuts to the police department and seek to hire more officers.

As she told reporters at the time: 'There is nothing progressive about unbridled gun violence.'

Homicides in the city are up 43 percent over last year, as of December 19, with aggravated assault up 8 percent and robberies up 13 percent.

San Francisco

 In nearby San Francisco, Mayor London Breed announced earlier this month she was asking the city's Board of Supervisors for more money to be given to police to stamp out drug dealing, car break-ins and theft.  

She argued that San Francisco officers should get aggressive and 'less tolerant of all the bulls*** that has destroyed our city', as she went back on her plans to defund the police.

'It's time the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an end,' she said. 'And it comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement, more aggressive with the changes in our policies.' 

Breed called for progressive policies that have allowed criminal behavior to make a mockery of the city's famed tolerance and compassion to be replaced with 'more aggressive policing'.  

 'All of our residents, our workers and everyone who visits our city should feel safe no matter what part of town they are in. I know San Francisco is a compassionate city. We are a city that prides ourselves on second chances and rehabilitation,' the mayor said.

'But we're not a city where anything goes. Our compassion should not be mistaken for weakness or indifference.'

Mayor London Breed launched an emergency police intervention earlier this month aimed at curbing open drug use, brazen home break-ins and other criminal behaviors taking place across San Francisco

The emergency police intervention was aimed at curbing open drug use, brazen home break-ins and other criminal behaviors taking place in San Francisco's crime-ridden Tenderloin neighborhood and across the city. 

In Tenderloin alone last month, there were six shootings, 20 drug arrests and 16 assault and batteries, according to CBSLocal.

Across the entire city last month, there were 3,375 reports of larceny theft, the majority being car break-ins, with SFPD's Central District seeing the most car smash-and-grabs, recording 876 last month. 

Meanwhile, there was a terrifying 15 per cent increase in homicide across the city compared to last year, with 53 cases recorded so far this year alone, compared with 46 the year before.

Assault in the city also increased by more than 9 percent from 2,075 last year to 2,2271 cases this year, while overall crimes shot up by 10.2 percent.

Larceny theft also saw a massive 18.3 per cent increase from 24,474 to 28,947, according to crime statistics released by the San Francisco Police Department.

But robbery and rape across San Francisco decreased when compared with the year before, with robbery cases falling by 5 percent and rape dropping by more than 13 percent.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

In Minneapolis, where the defund the police movement started following the police-involved killing of George Floyd, city officials voted unanimously to approve $6.4 million for the police department in February after cutting $8 million from the department last year.

The unanimous vote came to restore the police fleet after many quit or went on leave following Floyd's death and the chaos that ensued.

In the first six months of 2021, Minneapolis surpassed shots fired citywide in all of 2019, according to ShotSpotter activations, shooting reports and other data tracked by local law enforcement agencies, PBS reports. 

And as of September, 2021 was on track to surpass 2020s record-high 9,600 gunfire reports, with the prior 20 months accounting for almost a quarter of the 70,000 gunshot incidents reported in Minneapolis since 2008.

Portland, Oregon

Portland is refunding the police after last years's attempt to divert funds from the department led to undesirable results. Above, officers confront protesters at a Portland ICE facility in May

The Portland City Council, meanwhile,  unanimously passed a fall budget bump in November that added back $5.2 million of the $15 million it cut from police last year. 

It came as the city deals with murder rates not seen since the 1980s and a staffing shortage that has led city leaders to consider hiring back retired cops. 

'Many Portlanders no longer feel safe,' Mayor Ted Wheeler said. 'And it is our duty, as leaders of this city, to take action and deliver better results within our crisis response system.' 

In October, the city surpassed 66 homicides - breaking the record set in 1987 with three months left in the year.

And with a population of 650,000, the liberal bastion has had twice as many murders as neighboring Seattle, which has about 100,000 more people.