Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday pledged for the first time to cut the city’s police funding, following 10 nights of mass protests against police violence and mounting demands that he overhaul a department whose tactics have caused widespread consternation.
The mayor on Sunday declined to say precisely how much funding he planned to divert to social services from the New York Police Department, which has an annual budget of $6 billion, representing more than 6 percent of Mr. de Blasio’s proposed $90 billion budget.
Mr. de Blasio said the details would be worked out with the City Council in advance of the July 1 budget deadline.
“We’re committed to seeing a shift of funding to youth services, to social services, that will happen literally in the course of the next three weeks, but I’m not going to go into detail because it is subject to negotiation and we want to figure out what makes sense,” Mr. de Blasio said.
Well first, cops cause more crime than they “solve”, so that’s a bad premise. But moving right along…
Second, cities are not sovereign powers in the US. Getting rid of the police full stop is not in their portfolio. Disbanding just means dissolving the current organization.
Jurisdictions in the US disband, contract out, split, merge, or create new police departments all the time. When I said “this is what will happen”, that’s because that’s what has happened in the past.
Lived in Hillcrest for years. Great area. And great job!
Not really. The news may make it look that way though.
Joe, your car was stolen and the police weren’t there to prevent it? Is that right? You heard it folks, police are gone and Joe got his car stolen. What’s next? Are your wives and daughters safe?
My father got a college deferment for WWII. he was 21 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
He was close to 60 when he I was born.
He’s better on Healthcare than what, 25% of democrats? More?
You got a cite on this that isn’t from like FuckThePolice.IHatePigs.org?
If Minneapolis disbands their current police without creating a new police department or contracting out another police department, they’re pretty much not going to have police unless they contract the county to come in, which IMO might be even worse than before.
One of the reforms almost anyone serious seems to support is that police forces should be compromised mostly, if not entirely, of residents of the community.
It’s naive to think that crime wouldn’t shoot up with no police force. Look at all the looting when the police make it known to the world they’re staying put at the protests and not doing much actual policing. You think there won’t be a team of people carrying out home invasion robberies if there are no police? 425,000 people in Minneapolis, 5-10 of them aren’t going to try that?
Keep in mind too that if one group of people do it and hit 2-3 homes, that’s it, people are going to freak the fuck out.
Here’s a tenable model for “defund/abolish.”
- Fire 'em all
- Cut funding a lot, go with the experts on this, but maybe 50%?
- Everyone you hire has to clear extensive psych exams
- Rehire in a few groups:
- Foot patrols: no guns, maybe they get a baton, maybe just a whistle. Their job is mainly to just chat people up, be a positive presence, etc.
- Detectives: no guns, their job is to investigate crimes and we’re going to hire way more of them
- Responders: They get guns and respond to violent crime in progress. In between they do lots of training on how to de-escalate and push paperwork. No action junkies here.
- Extreme Responders: These guys respond to mass shootings and stuff like that, major violent incidents. They can get the militarized gear and body armor and all that shit.
- Make it really easy to fire them if they get excessive force complaints.
Oh and fired cops currently on the force can re-apply if:
a) they have zero complaints on their record
or
b) they have zero confirmed use of force complaints and less than three complaints overall
Seems reasonable.
Come on. I’m not saying one can’t make an argument that eliminating the police results in an increase in crime, but this is a HORRIBLE argument. That’s not why there was looting.
5-10 who? There certainly are more than 5-10 home invasion robbers in Minneapolis at all times. Do you mean 5-10 laid off cops will become home invasion robbers? Ok, that’s a fair point. Unemployed cops may be a big problem.
I feel weird trying to speak for Malcolm X, but would you say that eg Justin Trudeau is better than eg Boris Johnson on the environment? I feel like a lot of people would almost reflexively say “Yes, of course” but Trudeau is really not great on the environment. He does like marching, though. Loves a good photo-op.
So I imagine that Malcolm X would say that of course there’s a range of views within the centrist/reformist framework and of course some of them are less repugnant than others. But a guy approving pipelines who joins in environmental marches is still a guy who approves pipelines. Let him march all he wants - who’s he marching at?
Admittedly, I don’t know enough about George Romney to really cash out the analogy. I can’t point to policies that contrast with his statements and his march-joining like I can with Trudeau. But I will say I think Malcolm X knew his shit on black civil rights and absent stronger evidence than words and marches, I’m going to assume he had a good reason to say that.
Cuse, if there wasn’t police the world/community wouldn’t turn into The Purge.
Yeah, that was my point about the media. They ignore almost all crime forever, but if the police budget is cut there will be a bunch of scare stories.
Who’s to say this woman wasn’t trying to put the fire out? You unappreciative bastards.
Why do you think there was looting? Like where I live people were looting stores miles away from the protests, because there were no cops to be found and virtually no effort to stop them. They knew they could get away with it, so they did it.
I’m talking about people who don’t give a fuck if you’re home who break in with guns and hit one house after another because there’s nobody to call to stop them. And yeah, put laid off cops at the top of the list, you can bet your ass some of them will start doing it.
There was looting because people were mad and dgaf and big protests and cops rioting.
How come there wasn’t a huge increase in home invasion robberies?
How come people didn’t go wild raping and murdering?
Like when there’s a huge police funeral or something and every cop in town is in the procession - there’s not a big spike in crime. We’re not a thin blue line away from complete chaos. Maybe crime goes up a little. Maybe people need to organize a bit to watch and help each other.
This isn’t even on the table.
They will 100% either create a new PD or contract out in some manner. In the interim the old PD with new bosses, the sheriff, or a state police agency will be in charge. At no time will there ever not be a modern urban police force on the beat.
Like I said, the disbanding police departments happens all the time. Of the top of my head…
- Imperial Beach CA got rid of their cops c1980s. They contracted out with the sheriff.
- Camden NJ got rid of their cops c2010s. The NJ State Police took over in the interim. They also ended up contracting with the sheriff.
Then they need to say that, or they’re going to screw the whole party for the elections.
Unless I’m missing something obvious, why isn’t there a push to decertify police unions?
Once the unions are gone it gets much easier to do a remodel while keeping the foundation and structural supports.