I do not understand why this is regarded as so radical, once I actual sat down and thought it through.

They never do anything about property crime, even for middle class white people out in middle class 'burbs.

The one time we had a shooting anywhere nearby it was really weird and looked a whole lot like a (small-time—the dude was clearly not a seasoned pro, as he wandered into the wrong house first, telling the occupants they weren't who he was after before leaving) organized crime hit, and AFAIK they never solved it even with several witnesses, it happening in broad daylight, and both victims surviving, plus the guy apparently traveling a good long way on foot to and from the scene, and that was years ago, so they're 0/1 on scary violent crime in my area. I can't imagine they'd do better in a more typical case, unless it's one of those incredibly obvious "the boyfriend did it" situations that any idiot could solve in two minute flat. Traffic enforcement should probably be someone else's job anyway, not the police. Imagine how many fewer police officers we could have if they didn't spend 75% of their time sitting on the side of the road with a radar gun, and how much cheaper people who only did that would be—I think we only maintain the status quo because police benefit from fines & seizures, so they don't want to lose that, and as an excuse to fish for other (mostly victimless) crimes or "crimes" (like having too much money in the passenger seat).

I don't really care one way or the other, but if folks in less-nice parts of town want to try getting rid of them, seems OK to me. If it goes very wrong, I expect they'll get experience practically all the downside, so if they think it's a good idea, cool, let's try it. They're mostly dead weight from my perspective anyway—I don't get why actually defunding them, at least to try it out and see what happens, is such a big deal. They're incredibly ineffective and unhelpful, at best. Starting from scratch and seeing what we actually need to pay for doesn't seem like a crazy idea.

Right, it's about defunding the police, but it doesn't mean "defund the police and change absolutely nothing else," just like most other movements. You can't put a movement's entire mission into its name.