It’s only a second thought for America’s progressive mayors and city councils. After spending the past year finding ways to reduce or abolish policing in their communities, they’re now scrambling to hire and re-fund law enforcement. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti added $500 million to the police budget after cutting it by $150 million last year to pander to radical activists:

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is proposing a 3% increase in funding for the city’s Police Department for the upcoming budget year, disappointing advocates who have called for the agency’s defunding.

Garcetti’s proposed $11.2-billion budget allocates $1.76 billion for the LAPD, up from the $1.71 billion the council approved in July. The mayor’s plan, which covers the fiscal year starting July 1, would continue to provide a force of about 9,750 sworn police officers.

The number of officers at the department now is lower, however, because of retirements and resignations. The LAPD is expected to have 9,489 officers on June 30.

That’s quite a reversal from last year, or even earlier this week. Essentially, it makes the net response to #DefundthePolice a $350 million addition to the LAPD’s budget. That money would also undo an attrition of almost 300 officers over the past year, meaning the LAPD would have the same number of officers and more money in the end.

It’s amazing what a spiraling violent-crime rate and citizen anger over it can accomplish, eh?

Statistics show murders in Los Angeles County have risen nearly 200% this year, which one official blames on the “defund the police” movement.

“It’s very easy to say, ‘Oh yeah, all cops are bad,’ and ‘Let’s reform and defund the police,'” Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said. “Yet, they’re the very first ones to pick up the 911 when someone’s crawling over their back gate trying to get into their house.”

There were 60 murders in Los Angeles County by Feb. 28, a 186% rise over the 21 recorded during the same period of 2020. …

Murders and other crimes have seen a surge this year in many of the country’s largest cities, with the national murder rate jumping up 25%, the highest it has been since 1995.

A report from the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund revealed that the greatest spikes are happening in the 10 cities that have been the most hostile to police departments, rising 56% in those locations.

Another measure of the Defund movement’s failure is in Garcetti’s new TURN (Therapeutic Unarmed Response for Neighborhoods) program. This initiative springs from a Defund demand that mental health professionals respond to “non-violent” mental health emergencies, which sounds good in theory but might end up ending badly in practice. Most violent domestic incidents start out as non-violent incidents but go bad whether or not police show up.

Nevertheless, Garcetti remains committed to investing in TURN … $19 million worth, anyway. That’s less than 4% of the increase Garcetti wants to add to the LAPD’s budget, however:

That’s barely 1% of the entire LAPD budget. Even for a pilot program, $19 million pretty insignificant in a city of LA’s size — hardly a vote of confidence in a no-police approach to those calls.

If money talks, then #DefundthePolice walks, and Garcetti knows it. The explosion of crime across America will likely have more of the progressives sounding retreat, lest their citizens give them the heave-ho and try more responsible leadership in the near future.