WaPo editorial board shifts view on 'Defund the Police' since George Floyd riots: DC 'needs more officers'

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Recent editorials from the Washington Post changed the publication’s "Defund the Police" perspective with calls for increased police presence in the D.C. area.

On Friday, the paper’s Editorial Board published a piece arguing "Why police officers need to be in D.C. schools."

"Many cities yanked officers out of schools while reassessing policing after George Floyd’s 2020 murder. However well-intentioned, the experiment has left kids more vulnerable and classrooms less safe amid surging youth violence. That’s why a notable number have already reversed course — including, in this region, Alexandria and Montgomery County. Other jurisdictions, from Boston to Phoenix, are actively debating whether to follow," The Post wrote. "D.C. should join them."

However, the Washington Post was one of many media outlets that entertained the idea of defunding the police after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

Demonstrators hold a sign reading "Defund the police" during a protest over the death of a Black man, Daniel Prude, after police put a spit hood over his head during an arrest on March 23, in Rochester, New York, U.S. September 6, 2020.  (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

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"Weeks of sustained anger and grief after the police killing of George Floyd have reignited a public debate over police brutality in the United States. Alongside demands for police reform, another demand has surfaced: Defund the police. This provocative slogan at its most constructive represents a welcome call to reimagine public safety in the United States," a June 2020 editorial stated. 

The board added, "Ultimately, the call to defund the police should be understood as a call to reinvest in communities and explore new solutions. It asks us to draw on our resources and creativity and to be clear-eyed about the most problematic and painful parts of our policing history. At its core, it is an expression of relentless optimism — in response to the suggestion that things could be a little less bad, it says: We can do so much better."

In July of that same year, the editorial board also supported efforts to "reimage public safety" in the wake of the "defund the police" movement.

"Rethinking which institutions truly serve public safety and imagining new ones should be part of that conversation. This work is arduous and demanding — as many community organizers who have been doing it for decades can testify. But no one ever said reimagining public safety would be easy," The Post wrote.

Protesters continue taking to the streets across America and around the world after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer Derek Chauvin that was kneeling on his neck during for eight minutes, was caught on video and went viral.  (Getty Images)

As part of a "Reimagine Safety" series in 2021, the Editorial Board also penned a six-part piece that tackled efforts to "reform" public safety beyond an" over-reliance on police."

"A city that can find billions of dollars to police and incarcerate residents can invest a fraction of that money in making its neighborhoods safer in the first place," the series remarked.

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In April 2022, the Editorial Board also claimed that the argument for police officers in schools was "complicated." The Washington Post criticized the "unwieldy arrangement" of pulling police officers out of school without alternatives but claimed that officers cannot make places "as safe as they should be."

"Montgomery officials have also taken steps to increase the number of social workers and counselors — a recognition of the larger fact, which is that police alone cannot make our schools, or our streets, as safe as they should be," the Post wrote. 

Despite the radical concept of defunding the police, multiple media outlets recognized and even supported the idea following the racial justice protests in 2020. Both CNN and PBS offered articles providing answers and greater context to defunding the police at the time. The New York Times also published and op-ed from an activist titled "Yes, we mean literally abolish the police."

The Washington Post's editorial board has recently supported efforts to increase policing. (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

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More recently, politicians and media outlets have shifted away from the "defund the police" narrative. In addition to Friday’s piece, the Washington Post also published a March article acknowledging "D.C. needs hundreds more police officers" after rising crime issues.

"The Metropolitan Police Department has 411 fewer officers than three years ago because of attrition and struggles in attracting recruits. The force is the smallest it has been in decades, with fewer than 3,400 sworn officers, and D.C. is more dangerous as a result. With 90 percent of D.C. residents now describing the crime problem as serious, it will take years of concerted effort to rebuild the department," the editorial board wrote.