More than three years after the homicide of George Floyd centered the nation’s consideration on racism in legislation enforcement, Minneapolis’s Third Precinct police station, which was set ablaze and looted through the tumultuous days after Mr. Floyd’s dying, stays deserted.

Once the town’s most trendy police station, the constructing is now boarded up, tagged with graffiti and ringed with concertina wire — an unintentional monument to the nationwide debate over public security that led Minneapolis officers to think about disbanding the Police Department.

But three years after “defund the police” turned a rallying cry throughout the nation, efforts to dramatically divert sources from police or get rid of standard policing completely have largely been deserted, too, in Minneapolis and past.

The motion faltered in Minneapolis after activists did not construct broad assist for a aim that lacked a transparent definition, and an actionable plan. As crime surged through the early years of the coronavirus pandemic and officers left the police drive in droves, Republicans seized on the controversy to color Democrats as being recklessly gentle on crime.

“The language and the politics prevented folks from delving more deeply into the core conversation some activists were trying to have,” mentioned Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer in Minneapolis who has been a critic of the Police Department.

The motion to abolish standard police departments predates the homicide of Mr. Floyd. In the years earlier than his dying, a Minneapolis group called MPD150 had been constructing grass roots assist for a “police-free future” — a imaginative and prescient that contemplated a phased finish to standard policing by making dramatic investments in housing and social providers.

Its leaders anticipated it will take a few years for that transformation to realize vital political traction. But after Mr. Floyd’s killing, when elements of the town descended into anarchy, a bunch of younger activists known as Black Visions Collective, noticed a possibility.

Its first transfer was to corner Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis outside his home in June 2020, and demand that he decide to abolishing the Police Department. As cameras rolled, one of many motion’s leaders made clear that they had been looking for the outright disbandment of the Police Department, not a reallocation of sources.

“We don’t want no more police,” she mentioned. “We don’t want people with guns toting around in our community.”

Mr. Frey, a civil rights lawyer in his first time period as mayor, mentioned he favored sweeping adjustments however not disbanding the police. As he walked away, demonstrators erupted in chants of “Go home, Jacob!” Mr. Frey described it as a “Game of Thrones-style public shaming.”

The subsequent day, Black Visions Collective held an occasion close to the positioning the place Mr. Floyd was killed. They persuaded 9 of the town’s 13 council members — a veto-proof majority — to decide to defunding the police.

Neither the activists nor the elected officers clearly articulated what disbanding the police would entail. Within days, a number of City Council members pulled their assist, saying they’d misunderstood the unconventional pledge that they’d endorsed.

Black Visions Collective and a number of other different teams that favored sweeping adjustments ultimately set their sights on a extra modest and attainable aim: a poll modification referred to as “Yes 4 Minneapolis.” It known as for the institution of a brand new division of public security that will soak up some police capabilities whereas bolstering interventions that didn’t contain the police. The measure additionally would have scrapped the minimal police staffing degree set by the town constitution.

It was a debate that veteran law enforcement officials in Minneapolis adopted with a mixture of dread and outrage, mentioned Sgt. Andrew Schroeder, who has labored for the division since 2014. Many of his colleagues left for different jobs or retired early.

“Who wants to put their lives on the line and make some split-second decision that may be the right one, and be crucified for it?” he mentioned whereas patrolling the town late on a current Saturday night time. “It’s a heavy thing to think about.”

Black residents had been divided over the calls to defund the police. Charlotte Hall, 62, who was born and raised in south Minneapolis, mentioned she understood the outrage galvanizing younger activists. But the imaginative and prescient struck her as utopian, she mentioned.

“You can’t defund the police; you have to have police,” she mentioned. “There’s bad police officers out here, but all of them aren’t bad.”

When voters had their say in November 2021, the measure to dismantle the Police Department failed by roughly 12 share factors. Mr. Frey won a second term, handily beating opponents who favored defunding the police.

Mr. Frey mentioned his administration had adopted a plethora of measures to extend transparency, scale back abuses and restore belief. They embody constant use of physique cameras whereas on patrol, limiting the factors for site visitors stops, enhancing coaching and updating procedures to self-discipline officers.

“But that’s just reform, that’s on paper,” he mentioned in an interview. “The harder part is having those reforms embedded throughout the department in a way that people actually feel the change in the street.”

And three years after Mr. Floyd’s homicide, public issues of safety stay uncooked and unresolved.

As metropolis leaders debated the destiny of the Police Department, officers left the division, many strolling away with medical incapacity funds after looking for remedy for post-traumatic stress dysfunction. As of early June, the Minneapolis Police Department had 585 officers, down from 912 in 2019.

As police ranks thinned out, violent crime soared. Gang violence, as soon as a modest downside in Minneapolis, turned such a problem that federal prosecutors charged 45 individuals suspected of being gang members in a pair of racketeering indictments in May, a primary within the metropolis.

Many residents have given up on the native public transportation system, the place some stations more and more have develop into gathering factors for individuals who brazenly smoke fentanyl and different medication. The variety of automotive thefts and carjackings skyrocketed. As of early June, greater than 4,100 autos had been stolen within the metropolis this yr, practically twice as many as throughout the identical interval final yr.

Even as its payroll dropped amid the flood of exits, the division’s funds really elevated in recent times. And the hollowed-out drive has been a boon for personal safety corporations, as extra enterprise have employed them. As of June, there have been 181 personal safety corporations in Minnesota licensed by the state, up from 155 in 2020.

Mr. Frey mentioned that formidable challenges stood in the way in which of significant reform. Key amongst them is a patchwork of offers that the town has negotiated with the police union over a long time that makes it troublesome to carry officers accountable after they break guidelines or commit abuses.

In addition to these self-imposed coverage adjustments, the city has agreed to adopt extra far-reaching adjustments as a part of negotiations with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the U.S. Justice Department.

Ricardo Levins Morales, an activist who helps shuttering the Police Department, mentioned these measures wouldn’t result in a significant change within the tradition. He mentioned new abuses inevitably would reignite requires the form of drastic motion that the defund motion sought.

“I liken the emergence of movements to an incoming tide and the first wave comes up the beach and recedes,” he mentioned. “It’s opportunity to look back and say, ‘Well, what were the constraints of the landscape that caused the wave to crash?’”

Last yr, when metropolis officers had been in search of an skilled chief to take the reins of the understaffed and embattled police drive, they zeroed in on Brian O’Hara, who was then a deputy mayor in Newark, N.J. The job was a minefield, however Mr. O’Hara mentioned he was immediately .

“Everyone thought I was nuts,” he mentioned.

Mr. O’Hara had performed a number one position overseeing a interval of transformation that adopted a 2014 Justice Department report that discovered that officers in Newark routinely violated individuals’s civil rights. In a deeply polarized metropolis, he noticed a possibility to rebuild belief by therapeutic wounds that had been festering for generations.

“People think you either unleash the cops and deal with crime or you respect human rights,” Mr. O’Hara mentioned. “I know from what I lived through in Newark that you can do both at the same time.”

But few doubt the issue of that balancing act and the depth of the chasm that is still between minority communities and the police.

Sheriff Dawanna S. Witt of Hennepin County, which incorporates Minneapolis, is essentially the most senior Black legislation enforcement official within the metropolis. But when she’s on the highway in an unmarked automotive, the sight of a patrol automotive behind her fills her with concern, she mentioned. She could be the sheriff, however in these moments she feels the town’s troubled previous viscerally.

“If a squad car gets behind me, to this day, I get nervous,” she mentioned.