My personal experiences with BLM have been fine. Were huge protests in Knoxville around the time of Floyd, totally peaceful. Police were fine too, no tear gas or rubber bullets. Vast amount of protests went this way. They made their points and things died down. Is that worthy of respect in regard to them or any other organization?

They are back active in my area, recently student was shot by the police at a mostly black school here. Different interpretations coming out from different people based on the video and circumstances. Still peaceful protests, I'm not worried about safety or anything from them.

As far as political influence goes, are there particular policies you are concerned about? "Defund the police" as a slogan seemed to scare a lot of moderates. But on the other side they are a significant portion of a lot of city budgets, in many cases they advocated spending on other programs or other approaches rather than the current approach, not advocating for no police.

Police reform or the validity of race based advocacy groups are in a way their own discussions which could get into a lot of their own details.