Who Opposes Defunding the N.Y.P.D.? These Black Lawmakers

By artappraiser on Mon, 08/10/2020 - 4:28pm |

Several Black City Council members have lashed out at progressives, comparing calls to defund the police to “colonization” and “political gentrification.”

A good read from @JeffCMays on the politics of defunding the police, and the Black lawmakers in New York City who helped derail that push here. https://t.co/gBnDugjHou
— Harry Siegel (@harrysiegel) August 10, 2020

URL:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/nyregion/defund-police-nyc-council.html

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Beginning excerpt:

With New York City on the cusp of cutting $1 billion from the Police Department, a city councilwoman, Vanessa L. Gibson, told her colleagues that enough was enough.

She acknowledged that some Council members, spurred by the movement to defund the police, were seeking to slash even more from the department’s budget. But she pointed out that her constituents did not agree.

They “want to see cops in the community,” Ms. Gibson said.

“They don’t want to see excessive force. They don’t want to see cops putting their knees in our necks,” she said. “But they want to be safe as they go to the store.”

Ms. Gibson is not a conservative politician speaking on behalf of an affluent district. She is a liberal Black Democrat who represents the West Bronx, and her stance reflects a growing ideological rift over policing in one of the country’s liberal bastions.

It is a clash across racial, ideological and generational lines that is dividing Black and Latino council members in New York City. The discord illustrates how complicated the nation’s struggle with its legacy of racial oppression and discriminatory policing has become after the killing of George Floyd and the coronavirus crisis magnified longstanding and widespread racial disparities.

The debate helps explain why the movement in the Council to carry out major cuts to the Police Department has not succeeded [....]

by artappraiser on Mon, 08/10/2020 - 4:31pm

more, it's a very important divide, with the added info. from me that Williamsburg and Bushwick are arguably the most young-white-single-lefty-hipster neighborhoods in Brooklyn:

Laurie Cumbo, a Black councilwoman from Brooklyn who is majority leader, compared calls to defund the police to “colonization” pushed by white progressives. Robert Cornegy Jr., a Black councilman also from Brooklyn, called the movement “political gentrification.”

[....]

At the heart of the dispute in New York City is the impact of police officers in neighborhoods that have higher rates of discriminatory policing. The issue came into focus in the weeks leading to the July 1 deadline to pass the city’s budget, as Council leaders pledged to cut police funding by $1 billion in response to the wave of protests after Mr. Floyd’s death.

But a fissure opened when it became clear during negotiations that passing a budget with the $1 billion in cuts meant reducing police presence on the streets and eliminating school safety agents.

During the debate, Black and Latino council members representing both poor and middle-class communities of color, including Brownsville, Brooklyn, and Jamaica, Queens, wanted to take a measured approach to cutting the police budget. White progressives, allied with some Latino council members from gentrifying and racially mixed neighborhoods and two Black council members, called for more aggressive reductions and reforms.

Ms. Gibson was among a handful of Black and Latino council members who said cutting the size of the police force would exacerbate conditions in neighborhoods already struggling with a rise in shootings and homicides, and with the health and economic disparities that were intensified by the coronavirus crisis.

Yet several progressive Black and Latino council members, like Antonio Reynoso of Brooklyn, who represents Williamsburg and Bushwick, were willing to reduce the number of law enforcement personnel and funnel the savings into other programs, such as mental health services.

“We have wrongly been told our whole lives that police keep us safe,” Mr. Reynoso said.

He and other progressive council members said [....]

by artappraiser on Mon, 08/10/2020 - 5:03pm

From the NYT article

The Center for Policing Equity, a think tank at Yale University, released a road map last month to rethink how to allocate money for public safety. It suggested that law enforcement agencies focus on chronic offenders, and that a deluge of non-police resources be sent to areas with high crime rates and high police interactions.

“You have to care about the violence of poverty and the violence of policing, which usually coincide,” said Phillip Atiba Goff, a founder and chief executive of the center.

The number of shootings has risen in New York City and includes an incident in Brooklyn last month when two people were shot near a playground.Credit...John Taggart for The New York Times

By a 32-to-17 vote, the Council, with Mr. de Blasio’s support, eventually passed an $88.2 billion budget that included the reduction in police funding. But the $1 billion cut was mostly cosmetic, moving responsibilities from the Police Department to other agencies. The size of the police force will barely change. Nearly all the no votes were cast by white conservatives opposed to any reductions or white and Latino council members who wanted deeper cuts.

by rmrd0000 on Mon, 08/10/2020 - 5:08pm

Defunding follow-the-$$ thread

Why? Well, because processing an arrest takes time, but it's also really easy. So you can make time-and-a-half for sitting in the precinct typing up some papers and waiting to talk to a DA.

This REALLY adds up.
— Emily Galvin-Almanza (@GalvinAlmanza) June 14, 2020

So you can't get sued, you won't lose your $ no matter what you do, and, what's more, you're living in a culture where morality is upside down, bullies rule, and everyone is trained to be both extremely violent and extremely terrified all the time.https://t.co/oFwky447u6
— Emily Galvin-Almanza (@GalvinAlmanza) June 14, 2020

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 08/11/2020 - 7:29am

I knew this growing up. My father's job was in Personnel for the city, his work involved studying how much everyone that worked for cities was paid, he'd be involved all the labor union negotiations. He always felt that police, fireman (and teachers as well, by the way) were way overpaid and had too cushy pension and retirement and general working situations, compared to like, garbagemen. And that all three were lazy asses to boot, not knowing what it meant to work really hard.

When I moved to NYC, I found the NYPD are particularly arrogant and tribal SOB's. Union can't take criticism. Many are lazy asses. I have never met a one who affects helpful demeanor, i.e., you are a lost tourist and need help? Get the fuck outta here, quit bothering me. Firemen are at least nice to citizens, know who is paying their salary.

That's the past. The problem is from this point on: who is gonna want the job of policeman now? Until you have a new paradigm where police are not considered evil incarnate. If the pay and resources are cut drastically? Only the worst to whom the job of bully invested with authoritarian power is extremely appealing?

As you can see here, many people in "bad" neighborhoods still want them around, as bad as they are.

by artappraiser on Tue, 08/11/2020 - 1:30pm

Who Opposes Defunding the N.Y.P.D.? These Black Lawmakers

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