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.
RELATED: Bill de Blasio Lambasted For Tweets Attacking Jewish Community
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says a $1 billion cut from the NYPD budget is not enough.
First she cost NYC 25,000 jobs.
Now @AOC will cost NYC innocent lives.
— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) June 30, 2020
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.”
Inbox: @AOC weighs in quite critically on developing de Blasio-City Council NYPD budget deal > pic.twitter.com/QRZ3hvmBU6
— Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) June 30, 2020
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.”
AOC wants further cuts in NYPD, the crime rate is soaring, police are told to stand down! Your leaders have security! Just one more gift from the radical left!
— Sylvia Buskey (@SylviaBuskey) June 30, 2020
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.
RELATED: NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio Giving Free Mets Tickets to Convicts
Get out of NY before you get hurt, or God forbid, worse. It’s going to get worse there very soon. https://t.co/Q45t3LhCGt
— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) June 29, 2020
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.”