Activists' billion-dollar blunder: The aftermath of the NYPD cut brokered by Mayor de Blasio

[brooklynite]

New York Daily News

The biggest mystery of the battle to cut $1 billion from the NYPD is why Mayor de Blasio and the City Council wasted so much time chasing an arbitrary number in the first place, with a level of haste that threatens to cause real peril in the working-class neighborhoods where shootings and violent crime are always lurking.

It would have been infinitely wiser to tell activists that New York’s liberal government is prepared to meet legitimate demands for police reform — but will not, and cannot, override the equally pressing need to make sure neighborhoods remain safe.

This would not be popular with the protesters. But guess what? Council members, acting in good faith, wound up getting subjected to name-calling and harassment anyway, as anyone could have predicted.

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America made a show of picketing the homes of Council leaders who had already committed to cutting $1 billion from the NYPD, demanding that they triple the number to $3 billion (approximately 50% of the agency’s budget), something no sane legislator would consider.

[The Magistrate]

1. Several Things Need To Be Got Straight, Sir

The cut in the police budget is about one dollar out of seven, if recollection serves. Few large urban governmental bureaucracies cannot absorb a cut of that dimension, there is always a great deal of bloat and logrolling. The upper management will whimper, and try and arrange it so the fat is preserved and muscle cut, because money is power and how score is kept of who is on top and who is not. But these are things that can be dealt with by an alert administration, with popular backing.

The behavior of the NYPD during demonstrations is such that at least one seventh of the force assigned to such duties, if not more, ought to be summarily fired and hauled up in irons on charges of felonious assault. Rather than complaining, the department ought to police itself, mend its ways, and show some damn contrition for its outrageous and brutal suppression of lawful protest, and its record of unwarranted violence which has gone unpunished over the years. Complaints from police about how they are treated, how they are viewed, are simply the squeals of bullies confronted, and deserve no more than the back of the public's hand, twice, across every jowl.

The pie in the sky twits of the DSA need to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. They do as much harm to the prospects for advancing left and progressive goals as any gaggle of christo-fascists.

[revmclaren]

2. Exactly.

Interesting that there are some who seem to miss this point whether through ignorance or aforethought.

Hmmmmm...