A so-called "youth protest leader" in Chicago suggested on MSNBC yesterday that the Chicago police department should be defunded and the money spent on "black futures."

Some neighborhoods in Chicago already resemble Beirut in the 1980s or Iraq in this century.  Gang warfare is giving Chicago the highest murder rate in the country.  So it is certainly an interesting concept to remove police from the city streets to fund "black futures."

What kind of "future" would blacks, whites, Hispanics, or anyone else have in a city where no one is there to enforce the law?

Details, details, details.

Washington Free Beacon:

A youth leader of the protest movement in Chicago that was triggered by the police shooting of a black teenager in 2014 wants to address what she views as systemic discrimination within local law enforcement by defunding the city’s police department and allocating that money “to fund black futures.”

Appearing on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports with guest host Peter Alexander, Breanna Champion of the Black Youth Project called it “unacceptable” that police receive 40 percent of the city’s budget.

“One of our major demands is that police be defunded and that that money used to fund police be used to fund black futures, and be used to fund our communities and things that we need,” Champion said.

[...]

Champion said on MSNBC that removing the mayor from office is “not the main goal of the movement,” but protestors will continue to demand his resignation. She also said it was necessary for Anita Alvarez, the Cook County State’s Attorney, to resign as well.

The protest leader welcomed the Obama administration’s move to launch a Department of Justice investigation into the Chicago police department because it will bring more publicity to her movement, and she promised “you can expect to see more protests.”

Talk about a dystopian nightmare: the idea that you can pull 12,000 armed police officers from the streets of Chicago and enjoy any semblance of security for citizens is idiotic and dangerous.  Of course, it will never come to pass, but it speaks to the state of mind – and mindlessness – of the people leading the protest movement.

What happened to young Laquan McDonald was an abomination, and the officer who pumped 16 bullets into the 17-year-old, most of them when he was already lying on the ground, should never have even gotten into the police academy.  Protesting the Chicago Police Department, whose checkered history cries out for massive reforms, is necessary and good.  But making half-assed statements about defunding the police department should disqualify Ms. Champion from any leadership position in any responsible protest organization.