Defunding the police without addressing the issues that drive the cycle of poverty/crime is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's like starting at the finish line. Without equal access to education, healthcare and opportunity for upward social mobility (the most important) all these fully funded social programs are just ladders to nowhere.
The whole idea that "defund the police" is something that is going to produce results in the short term, at least short enough term for these ridiculous protests to produce tangible enough results to claim some sort of "victory" and dissipate, is just retarded. In order to even start defunding anything, the whole purpose of the justice system has to be reformed to accommodate that type of change.
Two extremes clashing in the streets under the cover of darkness, after the real protests are long over is a problem, period, and it deserves to be addressed in a meaningful way. Dismissing, justifying or blaming the violence on others doesn't pass the sniff test, and if these after hours "protests" are acting as the vehicle for radicals on both sides of the equation to cause violent, criminal, civil unrest, that vehicle must be removed. It's how reality works.