[Activists say the way to stop police brutality and killings is to
cut law enforcement budgets and reinvest in services. Some lawmakers
now agree.] [[link removed]]

MOVEMENT TO DEFUND POLICE GAINS 'UNPRECEDENTED' SUPPORT ACROSS US  
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Sam Levin
June 4, 2020
The Guardian
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_ Activists say the way to stop police brutality and killings is to
cut law enforcement budgets and reinvest in services. Some lawmakers
now agree. _

Protesters rally in Phoenix, demanding the city council defund the
Phoenix police department on 3 June 2020, Matt York/AP

 

The movement to defund the police is gaining significant support
across America, including from elected leaders, as protests
[[link removed]] over
the killing of George Floyd
[[link removed]] sweep
the nation.

For years, activists have pushed US cities and states to cut law
enforcement budgets amid a dramatic rise in spending on police and
prisons while funding for vital social services has shrunk or
disappeared altogether.

George Floyd protests: more than 3,000 arrested in Los Angeles county
[[link removed]]

Government officials have long dismissed the idea as a leftist
fantasy, but the recent unrest and massive budget shortfalls from the
Covid-19 crisis appear to have inspired more mainstream recognition of
the central arguments behind defunding.

“To see legislators who aren’t even necessarily on the left
supporting at least a significant decrease in New York police
department [NYPD] funding is really very encouraging,” Julia
Salazar, a New York state senator and Democratic socialist
[[link removed]],
told the Guardian on Tuesday. “It feels a little bit surreal.” 

Floyd’s death on camera in Minneapolis, advocates say, was a
powerful demonstration that police reform efforts of the last
half-decade have failed to stop racist policing and killings.
Meanwhile, the striking visuals
[[link removed]] of
enormous, militarized
[[link removed]] and
at times violent police forces
[[link removed]] responding
to peaceful protests have led some politicians to question whether
police really need this much money and firepower.

[Riot police points weapons as they move through a cloud of teargas at
a Black Lives Matter protest in Denver.]
[[link removed]]

Riot police points weapons as they move through a cloud of teargas at
a Black Lives Matter protest in Denver. Photograph: Paul
Winner/Rex/Shutterstock

Meanwhile, unemployment is surging amid the economic fallout of the
coronavirus pandemic, with housing and healthcare crises worsening.
Many governments have been making painful cuts to services and expect
to see tax revenue fall even further in the coming year. But police
budgets have not been affected, and some mayors are even seeking to
expand law enforcement funding.

A snapshot of some of city budget debates that have escalated this
week: 

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LOS ANGELES: the police budget is $1.8bn
[[link removed]],
and the mayor has for weeks been pushing for raises and bonuses for
officers
[[link removed]] and
an overall 7% increase that would make the budget more than half
[[link removed]] of
the general fund. But on Wednesday, he said he was now looking
to make cuts
[[link removed]] to
the police budget.

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NEW YORK: The mayor is pushing to leave the NYPD’s nearly $6bn
budget intact
[[link removed].] while
slashing education and youth programs
[[link removed]] and cutting other
agencies by as much as 80%
[[link removed].].

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PHILADELPHIA: The mayor has proposed spending $977
[[link removed]]m
[[link removed]] on
police and prisons, which is 20% of the general fund. A $14m increase
for police comes as the city is cutting funding
[[link removed]] for
youth violence prevention, arts and culture, workforce development,
and laying off staff at recreation centers and libraries. 

Defunding, said activist Jeralynn Blueford, is the logical response
from leaders in this moment of unprecedented unrest. “If police had
been serious about reform and policy change, then guess what? People
would not be this angry.” 

Blueford’s son was killed by Oakland police in 2012 and she’s been
fighting for reforms since. “We allowed you to kill our children,
and you said this was going to change, and you reneged on it. If we
keep funding them, it gives them the green light to continue ”.

If police had been serious about reform and policy change, then guess
what? People would not be this angry | Jeralynn Blueford

Community groups advocating for defunding have put forward differing
strategies, some merely opposing police budget increases, others
advocating mass reductions, and some fighting for full defunding as a
step toward abolishing police forces. Some initiatives are tied to the
fight to close prisons. All are pushing for a reinvestment of those
dollars in services. 

“People have been fighting for years to get cops out of schools, and
now it’s happening overnight,” said Tony Williams, a member of
MPD150, an abolition group
[[link removed]] whose
literature on building a “police-free future” has spread
[[link removed]] on social media in recent days. One
elected Minneapolis ward member said
[[link removed]] this week
that the city’s police department was “irredeemably beyond
reform”, the kind of remark that would until recently have been
unthinkable to organizers.

“This is unprecedented in our movement, but it is a natural
consequence of where we’ve been over the last five years,”
Williams said, rattling off high-profile killings by police that have
failed to lead to substantive reforms. 

Eric Garcetti, the Los Angeles mayor, addressed the broader protests
[[link removed]] in
a speech late Wednesday night and said he was now working to make cuts
of up to $150m to the police budget and reinvest funds in black
communities, though specifics of his plans
[[link removed]] were
unclear.

His move comes after a coalition convened by Black Lives Matter LA
pushed for what it called a “people’s budget
[[link removed]]”,
which encouraged the city to spend only 5.7% of its general fund on
law enforcement, and 44% on universal aid and crisis management.

“In moments of crisis, people want services and resources that go
directly to help people rather than police that surveil, brutalize and
kill us,” said Melina Abdullah, the BLM LA co-founder, adding that
Garcetti’s proposed cut was “minimal” and that officials “need
to go much further”.

[Protesters demonstrate on 2 June 2020, during a Black Lives Matter
protest at Washington Square in New York City.]
[[link removed]]

Protesters demonstrate on 2 June 2020, during a Black Lives Matter
protest at Washington Square in New York City. Photograph: Johannes
Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

Even though many US police departments’ duties are responding to
non-violent, non-emergency calls, departments have expanded their
military-style arsenal in recent years. US police kill more people in
days
[[link removed]] than
many other countries do in years.

Senator Salazar in New York said the Covid-19 devastation is
motivating lawmakers normally sympathetic to the NYPD to rethink the
budget: “Every senate office … has been fielding an unfathomable
number of unemployment claims. We’ve been thinking every day about
how social services and the public safety net are failing people.
Having come out of a bleak state budget process, it’s very
frustrating to hear that $6bn figure for the NYPD.” 

We’ve been thinking every day about how social services and the
public safety net are failing people |Julia Salazar

The city councilmember who chairs the committee that oversees the
budget called
[[link removed]] for
significant NYPD cuts this week. Although she doesn’t control NYPD
financing as a state lawmaker, Salazar said she could envision police
immediately losing $1bn from its budget just for current police
functions that have nothing to do with law enforcement and crime, such
as responding to mental health calls and other social services.

Kamau Walton, a Philadelphia-based member of Critical Resistance, a
long-running US abolition
[[link removed]] group,
said the absurdity of increased police spending in this moment was
visible to many. Walton lives across from a recreation center and
library that has been closed due to Covid, and said houseless people
now gather outside, because they have nowhere else to go. 

The city, however, is further cutting housing and homelessness
services and seems to lack a summer plan for these communities who
have lost programs, resources and jobs, they said. “At a drop of a
dime, they can find money for uber-militarized tanks and fly
helicopters all over the city and shoot rubber bullets, but we can’t
put people in houses?”

Kelly Lytle Hernández, a UCLA historian and recent MacArthur
recipient, said this could be a pivotal moment for the US: “We’ve
created over the last 30 to 40 years a sense that our safety and
wellbeing always comes from investing more and more in police.” 

This week, it seems there is increasing recognition of this failure,
she said, adding, “Defunding the police is the first step in a much
broader historical transformation that I’m hoping you’re seeing
broad-based support for on the streets today.” 

_Sam Levin is a correspondent for Guardian US, based in Los
Angeles. Click here
[[link removed]] for
Sam's public key. Twitter @SamTLevin
[[link removed]?]_

_Get a 14 day free trial of The Guardian
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