Calls to shift funds from policing to programs that improve quality of life for people of color aren’t new. But this time, more people are listening. “Defund the police” is seen painted across a block of North Water Street in Milwaukee on July 2, 2020. The Milwaukee Department of Public Works removed the paint a week later, saying it presented “serious traffic safety concerns” because it covered traffic markings and was slick when wet. “The message painted on Water Street has been heard loud and clear by policy makers in city government, and the Department of Public Works has no intention to diminish the voices calling for change,” Commissioner of Public Works Jeff Polenske said in a July 9 statement. “Our concern for unauthorized street art including the current mural on Water Street is solely about safety.” (Photo by Will Cioci, Wisconsin Watch) Milwaukee activist Annia Leonard wants a safe community without police, and she draws from her own experience when thinking about what that could be: like the time a conflict at her grandmother’s house ended peacefully in a garden — without anyone in handcuffs. When an argument escalated earlier this summer, one person in the house called Milwaukee police, Leonard said, and someone else called 414LIFE — a team of community “violence interrupters” who are trained to intervene. Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing! Annia Leonard is seen outside of her grandmother’s house in the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee, on July 2, 2020. That was where 414LIFE, a local group of violence interrupters, deescalated a family dispute earlier in the summer. Leonard says 414LIFE more effectively resolved the situation than police officers who also responded to the home. (Photo by Will Cioci, Wisconsin Watch) With her adrenaline pumping, Leonard said she was already in “fight mode” when the officers arrived, and their response only antagonized those involved in the dispute, adding to the stress. “We didn’t need someone to come say that we could all be arrested,” she said. The violence interrupters, on the other hand, quickly dissolved that tension once they arrived, Leonard said. “They talked to everyone individually. They were just making sure that everyone in the space was good,” Leonard said, and it helped that some people in the house knew one team member. “It was just a completely different approach to domestic violence that a lot of people aren’t usually privileged to see,” said Leonard, who aims to uplift Milwaukee’s Black residents in her own organizing work — holding healing events and calling for the abolition of police. “It just made it clear, this is why we don’t need police officers in our communities.” Calls to “defund the police” have grown louder in Milwaukee and other cities after the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis fueled nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism. Floyd’s death came as Milwaukee grieved the loss of Joel Acevedo, who died days after Michael Mattioli, an off-duty Milwaukee police officer, acknowledged putting him in a 10-minute chokehold during an April fight, according to media reports. Mattioli was charged with first-degree reckless homicide, and the department suspended him with pay. Some say the goal of “defunding the police” is to shift funds away from police and towards public health, housing and other programs to alleviate conditions that lead to crime. But many local and national advocates eye a more ambitious goal: to abolish police over time. Abolitionists see reallocation as the first step toward dismantling policing and prison institutions, replacing them with neighborhood-based public safety models. Milwaukee’s defunding movement comes as city officials set next year’s budget, and the police department wants to grow its slice of the pie. Meanwhile, a coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on the economy, promising to slash city revenue and leave less money for a host of government services. “Even if the tragic death of George Floyd and nationwide protests had not occurred, there was very good reason for citizens and policymakers to take a look at the Milwaukee Police Department budget, and that has nothing to do with any kind of opinion or bias with putting municipal budgets into police departments,” said Rob Henken, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, who noted that Milwaukee faced “tremendous economic stress” even before the pandemic. The conditions and debate transcend Milwaukee. During calls to divest from police, the Madison School Board in June voted to terminate its Madison Police Department contract for resource officers at high schools.