NEW YORK -- 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
NEW YORK — 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.
The debate helps explain why the movement in the Council to carry out major cuts to the Police Department has not succeeded. At the heart of the dispute in New York City is the effect 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 Floyd’s death.
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.He and other progressive council members said that even during a pandemic, police enforcement of social-distancing rules showed racial disparities.
There were 793 shootings as of Aug. 2, compared with 450 over the same period last year. The shootings have fueled a 31% increase in homicides: As of Aug. 2, 237 people had been killed, compared with 181 people by the same time in 2019. Corey Johnson, the Council speaker, said he would have preferred to cut more, but wanted to defer to his Black and Latino colleagues who raised concerns about the safety of their neighborhoods.
“I hate to say that’s our everyday reality, but it is,” Gibson said. “Many residents equate public safety with more policing. If I go to them and tell them there would be less police, they would not be happy.” The rift between those who want to slash the police budget versus those who want to take a more cautious approach has grown in cities around the country, but seems pronounced in New York.
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