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(LifeSiteNews) – The U.S. experienced the highest murder rate increase “in modern history” last year amid widespread police defunding, Black Lives Matter riots, and crippling lockdown orders, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Data released Wednesday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) indicated a 30 percent rise in homicides in 2020, the largest since at least 1905.
“It is the largest increase in 100 years,” Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at NCHS, told CNN.
“The only larger increase since we’ve been recording these data occurred between 1904 and 1905, and that increase was most likely – at least partly – the result of better reporting,” he added. “We had states being added to what we refer to as the death registration areas, so we were counting deaths in more areas over time. We didn’t have all states reporting until 1933.”
The increase in homicides between 2020 and 2019 even exceeded the 20 percent spike after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Last year’s murder rate, which topped 7.8 per 100,000 people, was also the highest since the mid-1990s, according to the preliminary NCHS data.
America’s record surge of violence came as Democrat-led cities and states across the country cut billions of dollars of funding from police budgets after the death of George Floyd in May 2020.
Last summer, New York City approved a budget shifting $1 billion from the city police department before partially backtracking as murders soared 17 percent this year. Atlanta similarly slashed corrections funding by 60 percent, and Los Angeles moved to cut $100 million-$150 million from the Los Angeles Police Department, according to pro-police group Secure America Now.
“In police-free zones, we could have a summer of love,” Democrat Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan infamously said before left-wing anarchists annexed six city blocks and murdered multiple people last June.
“After the city of Portland slashed its police budget by $12 million and eliminated three police units, the police withdrew while shootings climbed 173% and murders rose 255% in nine months,” the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF) noted in a study earlier this year that pointed to an additional 4,000 homicides in 2020.
Those numbers reflect recent data from the FBI, which reported 21,500 total homicides last year, up from around 16,600 in 2019.
“Since June 2020, local leaders and activists’ increasing attacks, demoralized, debilitated, and in some cases, defunded law enforcement,” the LELDF said. “As police stepped back, violence surged.”
Nationwide police defunding also memorably occurred alongside mass rioting linked to the Marxist, pro-LGBT Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a nonprofit that tracks political violence, registered more than 500 riots associated with BLM between May and September 2020. The Black Lives Matter riots accounted for over 95 percent of violent “protests” in the United States last year and left an astounding 2,000+ police officers injured.
Just the first few weeks of rioting dealt between $1 billion-$2 billion in damages, in what was the most destructive wave of political violence in decades, based on insurance claims data.
The BLM riots nevertheless won the backing of virtually the entire liberal media and top Democrats, including then-Senator Kamala Harris.
Bail fund backed by Kamala Harris freed same rioter twice – now he's been charged again https://t.co/SEy6XAbi9Q #FoxNews
Hypocrisy of the Left! This is condoning political violence and insurrection. He was charged with assaults on a police station.
— JW (@BigCityRight) February 2, 2021
The historic 2020 murder surge also came amid months-long lockdowns and other COVID measures that sent unemployment skyrocketing in much of the United States and corresponded with record-level drug abuse rates. Various studies have shown that stay-at-home orders did not have a significant impact on the spread of COVID-19.