arrow Defund and Abolish the Police signs, NYC, Summer 2020. Scott Lynch / Gothamist
At the height of the protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last year, local New York City activists took aim at the police department budget, arguing the city would be safer by redirecting NYPD funding into investments in education, mental health services, housing and food support. They noted that the NYPD’s budget ballooned to about $11 billion dollars this past fiscal year, a 30% increase over the last decade, though that hasn’t translated to a steady decrease in violent crime.
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Nearly a year after thousands took to the streets of New York City for weeks-long protests against police brutality in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the issue remains front and center. During the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for Floyd’s death, Minnesota was rocked by yet another police killing of a Black man. During a traffic stop in the Minneapolis suburb Brooklyn Center, a police officer shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright. The officer said she mistook her gun for her taser. Other instances of police brutality keep cropping up across the nation, such as the pepper-spraying of a black and Latino Army officer during a routine stop in Virginia earlier this week.
New York City’s next mayor will inherit a host of complex problems when he or she steps into office Jan. 1, but there’s one pressing issue that’s been given relatively short shrift on the campaign trail so far: crime.
A Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City who has called for slashing the NYPD’s budget in half bragged Tuesday that nearly a third of her campaign’s donors are unemployed.