Activists in New York didn’t get the billion-dollar budget cut they were calling for, but experts say across the U.S., shifts in policing policy show that protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death have led to some gains and given a sense of urgency to the movement to reform how police operate.
For the thousands of protesters who marched through the streets of New York for more than 30 consecutive days demanding changes in policing, the headlines emerging from the city’s budget debate should have signalled victory.
“New York Police Department’s budget has been slashed by $1 billion,” wrote CNN.
“De Blasio Agrees to Cut NYPD Funding by $1 Billion,” said the Wall Street Journal.
“NY City Council approves slashing $1B from NYPD budget,” said Fox News.
It seemed that groups like Communities United for Police Reform had achieved their goal when city council voted last week: a $1 billion US cut from the New York Police Department’s almost $6 billion operating budget, with money reinvested in community programs.
But a closer look found that the actual number was nowhere close to the billion-dollar mark, and some of the “cuts” were just cosmetic changes, where expenses were shifted from one city department to another.
“It was a lot of funny math and budget tricks to try to make it seem like it was a billion-dollar cut, but it really wasn’t,” said Andrea Colon, lead organizer with the Rockaway Youth Task Force and a member of Communities United for Police Reform.
The city budget was the latest battle in the fight to reform policing spurred on by the death of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man who was killed after a police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest on May 25. The officer is facing a second-degree murder charge in Floyd’s death.
Overall, activists and supporters of police reform found that while the conversation has shifted in their favour, there are still numerous challenges to defunding the police, even in one of the most liberal cities in the U.S.
Devil in the details
Among the biggest cuts promised was more than $300 million by shifting school safety officers from the NYPD to the Department of Education.
But ultimately that shift didn’t happen, and the budget for that unit, still under the auspices of the police, will go up next year.
“The mayor, the speaker, the city council failed us,” Colon said.
The waves of protests sparked by Floyd’s death led to a number of reforms in New York and across the country. The NYPD disbanded its anti-crime unit, a group of about 600 officers tied to some of the city’s most notorious shootings.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday, the day after the budget passed, that while he respects everyone who is protesting, the vast majority of New Yorkers want a safe city.
“They appreciate that our police are there to kee