Amid calls to ‘defund,’ study finds residents want to keep Baltimore police budget, invest more in schools

While protests erupted across America following the death of George Floyd and “Defund the police” became a familiar rallying cry of the racial justice movement, Baltimore activist Ray Kelly noticed a key perspective missing from the national debate. He wanted to hear from the people whose lives were at stake: those living in communities most impacted by violent crime, police misconduct, growing poverty and persistent disinvestment — communities like Sandtown-Winchester, the West Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray died from injuries suffered in police custody five years before the wave of protests that gripped the nation in summer 2020.