‘People are asking us to address quality of life issues. People are asking us to stop the violence that’s happening out here but the police need the support of the people as well.’
‘Those in power are willing to be extremely broad in their use of COVID-19 as a justification for bending certain legal protections.’
‘To understand this, we have to think about the history of this relationship between African Americans and Latinos. Both communities have faced the same economic problems and have lived in the same neighborhoods.’
The final fiscal 2021 spending plan staved off cuts to smaller housing programs, but retained a shift of roughly a billion dollars in capital spending on the mayor’s affordability plan.
‘The City of New York has constructed an elaborate procedure, from investigations to Board votes to trials, to obscure the disturbing fact that only the NYPD itself holds any disciplinary authority over the NYPD.’
‘COVID-19 took the mask off this truth: The only essential workers this country cares about are cops.’
Not everyone agrees on what defunding would mean, or what it would look like.
As the crowd surged east, filling the block, one of the lead organizers beckoned his fellow marchers to stay close together. ‘We’re going to take the highway,’ he said.
‘This is not a zero-violence city. This is not a zero-crime city. But I think they overstate the problem so they can have an overstated reaction to the problem.’
The de Blasio administration is hedging on reform to 50-a, the state statute that cloaks police discipline in secrecy. But an experiment 20 years ago that threw NYPD hearings into public view did not lead to any of the problems the city says it is concerned about.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
