DEFUNDING THE POLICE AT THE EXPENSE OF DISENFRANCHISED COMMUNITIES

L.A. Vowed To Cut Police And Help Disenfranchised Areas. Now That Plan Is Under Fire

 

LAPPL News Warch

December 10, 2020

 

Six months ago, following massive protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez announced a dramatic step at City Hall: She and her colleagues would cut police spending by $150 million. The plan, Martinez said at the time, would be to reinvest funding for vital services, including those that “uplift disenfranchised communities.” 

On Wednesday, the council took its first stab at deciding where a chunk of that money — nearly $88.8 million — should go. So far, council members are looking to put much of the money toward nuts-and-bolts city services: street resurfacing, graffiti removal, alley cleanups and many other core city programs. 

The union that represents rank-and-file police officers went even further, accusing council members of cutting LAPD staffing so they can have a slush fund for their districts. “Laying off hundreds of police officers to fund curb cuts, landscaping, and tree stump removals in the name of public safety is absurd,” said Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing roughly 9,800 LAPD officers. “Murders and shootings have surged to a 10-year high, and no one suffers the bloodshed more than our most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.” 

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Oakland Formed A Task Force To Help Defund The Police. Now Some Members Want The City To Reconsider

 

When Black Lives Matter protests shook the ground beneath Oakland City Hall this summer, the City Council laid out an ambitious goal: cut the $300 million police budget in half, and invest the savings in social services. Now, some of the people picked to devise an action plan want the city to change course. 

In a joint letter, five Black members of Oakland’s Reimagining Public Safety Task Force say they don’t want to see the number of police reduced until the task force comes up with a comparable or better solution. If that means keeping the force intact while test-running another type of response, the group says, so be it. 

“Black lives are being lost (and) harmed at an alarming rate in our city,” said the letter, written just as Oakland logged 100 homicides for the year so far — the highest number since 2012. “Even more lives will be lost if police are removed without an alternative response being put in place that is guaranteed to work as good as or better than the current system,” it continued. 

The letter raises a series of philosophical questions about the movement to defund police. Will slashing a budget be enough to curb police violence against Black people? And what are the consequences of having fewer officers on the street?