Massive increase in Black Americans murdered was result of defund police movement: experts

Support of Black Lives Matter and calls to defund the police reverberated across America in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, igniting social justice protests and riots at a time when the coronavirus and lockdowns upended society in unprecedented ways. What was left in 2020's wake was a massive increase in the number of murders, dealing a disproportionate blow to Black Americans. 

"Certainly, the protests and riots mid-2020 after the death of George Floyd followed a pattern of spiking violence that we've seen following past viral police incidents, such as the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. This pattern has been termed the ‘Ferguson Effect’: police pull back while violent crime spikes precipitously," Hannah Meyers, director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital. 

Murders across the board spiked by nearly 30% in 2020 compared to the year prior, according to FBI data, marking the largest single-year increase in killings since the agency began tracking the crimes. Among Black Americans, the number of deaths spiked by more than 32% compared to 2019.