Ah, no. It wasn't a protection racket, it was a bunch of ideological dupes who argued for a range of things when they said "defund the police", from zero cops to taking money from cops and putting it into social services.

Yet, to no one's surprise, government taxes went up and likewise so did expenditures, like they always do. And big city police unions that are (mostly) in the pockets of the Dem party kept the money flowing to them. Again, no surprise.

For it to be a "protection racket," you have to show that before hand, this was a deliberate gamble to get more resources for the cops. Like "nice police force you have here, shame if something would happen to it" on the part of police. You can't do that, further, some stupid municipalities actually did defund (to an extent) their police. It didn't work out for them, and now they are funding them again at a higher rate to catch up for a missed fiscal year's worth of expenses.