Cities May Have No Choice But to Defund the Police

Budget crises alone may not have led to lower police funding, and protests alone may not have, either. But they form a potent combination.

In Los Angeles, for example, a sharp decline in revenue from occupancy, sales, and business taxes prompted Garcetti to declare a state of fiscal emergency. Even as he announced furloughs that could cost some state workers 10 percent of their salary, along with budget cuts to housing and jobs programs of roughly 9 percent, the police budget was still slated to rise.

The massive protests surrounding Floyd s killing made that proposal untenable. It s absolutely a zero-sum game, Melina Abdullah, a professor of pan-African studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, told Los Angeles Magazine. Every dollar [Garcetti] is spending on police, he s choosing not to spend those dollars on things that make communities safe. A city councilman, David Ryu, declared it unacceptable that the first thing we cut in this budget was social services.

via www.msn.com