Members of the Minneapolis City Council expressed their grave regret for defunding the police after their vision of a “transformative new government” collapsed.

Following the death of an African-American man, George Floyd, the city council members vowed to defund and disband the Minneapolis Police Department as a part of the city’s answer to increasing police violence. Unfortunately, their radical new idea blew up as the riots and violence continued to plague local residents. In fact, the city’s elected officials expressed their deep regret for making the promise of putting an end to “policing as we know it.”

A few months ago, City Council President Lisa Bender, who describes herself as a progressive, shared her vision of a “transformative new model of public safety.” The City Council President proposed a model that prioritizes social development over police presence. To promote her radical idea, Bender even accused council members who tried to oppose her as complicit to “white supremacy.”

Unfortunately, instead of presenting a brand new city, Minneapolis only became a “case study” on how structures that are completely based on idealism would not work in the real world. In fact, just a few months later, Bender had publicly admitted that her previous remarks “came from a place of privilege.” In an interview with CNN, Bender was asked whether she knew the repercussions of her decision. The City Council, who had strongly advocated to defund the police acknowledged that she had made a mistake to demand less police presence, as crime rates continue to surge. “I mean, hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors. And I know—and myself, too, and I know that that comes from a place of privilege,” Bender said. In another interview with the New York Times, Bender was unable to respond for a few seconds about the vow that she and her other City Council members had made to defund and dismantle the local police department. Bender admitted, “I think our pledge created confusion in the community and in our wards.”

Other council members were also trying to undo the massive damage that their decision had on the entire city. In fact, Councilor Andrew Johnson retracted his earlier statements. He went on to clarify that he did not mean to defund the police in a literal way, but ‘in spirit.’ In addition, another council member, councilor Phillipe Cunningham, shared the same thought. Cunningham claimed that his promise was only up for interpretation and that, unfortunately, some of the members had made an entirely different interpretation.

According to the Star Tribune, the Minneapolis Police Department had listed 3,674 violent crimes, including incidents of rape, robbery, and aggravated assaults. The number was 17 percent higher as compared to the city’s five-year average. Given the increasing number of violent incidents, especially among low-income communities, the support for the Black Lives Matter movement eventually waned. As a result, city officials had quietly retreated from their support to the BLM as the New York Times wrote that the political momentum of the past summer had finally cooled off.