On Tuesday, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez blasted an agreement to slash $1 billion from the New York City Police Department’s budget, claiming it was “not a victory” and that “the fight to defund policing continues.”

According to the Gotham Gazette, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council agreed to cut $1 billion from the NYPD’s budget by moving school safety services to the city’s Department of Education.

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AOC: ‘Defunding the police means defunding the police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math’

On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez criticized the agreement by saying in statement, “Defunding the police means defunding the police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education budget so that the exact same police remain in schools.”

Self-described socialist AOC added, “It does not mean counting overtime cuts as cuts, even as NYPD ignores every attempt by City Council to curb overtime spending and overspends on overtime anyways. It does not mean hiring more police officers while cutting more than $800M from NYC schools.”

“If these reports are accurate,” she continued, “then these proposed ‘cuts’ to NYPD’s budget are a disingenuous illusion. This is not a victory. The fight to defund policies continues.”

 

Anthonine Pierre, a press representative for Communities United for Police Reform, took De Blasio to task for wanting to cut funding for New York City law enforcement.

“Mayor de Blasio and Speaker [Corey] Johnson are using funny math and budget tricks to try to mislead New Yorkers into thinking that they plan to meet the movement’s demands for at least $1B in direct cuts,” Pierre said.

“This is a lie,” he added.

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Mayor De Blasio says these cuts represent ‘real reform’

De Blasio confirmed plans to cut police funding on Monday, telling the media, “I am excited to say that we have a plan that can achieve real reform.”

“Everything was with an eye to safety, so we will be able to ensure the patrol strength we need,” the mayor said. “We will be able to ensure that school safety can do its job. The school safety issue would be addressed over several years.”

“I was skeptical at first, and wanted to see how it could all come together,” de Blasio added. “A lot of painstaking work occurred to figure out the right way to do things.”

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