40th CD hopefuls weigh in on defunding NYPD
BY BEN VERDE
Candidates for central Brooklyn’s
40th Council District seat in weighed
in on reducing the New York Police
Department’s budget during an April
26 candidates forum, and discussed
different approaches to the policy —
which all candidates said they support.
Calls to defund the police and reallocate
parts of its gargantuan $11 billion
budget hit a fever pitch last May
following the murder of George Floyd
in Minneapolis, with protesters pouring
into the streets of New York City
for weeks. The summer also saw a pandemic
wrought budget wreak havoc
on the city’s ability to deliver essential
services like sanitation, drawing further
scrutiny of the department’s massive
pool when compared to other city
agencies.
Six of the candidates on the ballot
to represent Flatbush, Prospect-Lefferts
Gardens, and Kensington in the
City Council voiced support for the
policy, and offered contrasting ways to
go about it.
Josue Pierre, currently a male district
leader for the 42nd Assembly District,
said his past experiences and
negative interactions with offi cers informed
his views on policing and public
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safety. The candidate, whose mother
was shot in the eye by a stray bullet in
2016, called for an elected Civilian Complaint
Review Board, and for the expansion
of community-based policing.
“We know that we have community
policing to a limited level,” Pierre said
during the forum, hosted by the Unifi
ed Political Association. “Our Neighborhood
Coordination Offi cers have
great relationships because they take
the time to get to know the community.
That’s what we should expand.”
Pierre said there is “absolutely”
room to reallocate from the department’s
budget but did not name a specifi
c number he would support cutting.
Candidate Rita Joseph, a public
school teacher, said she hopes to see
the reallocation of $3 billion from the
NYPD budget, and slammed the City
Council’s 2020 attempt to cut the department’s
funding as little more than
theater.
“The last city council, they tucked
money in different places and claimed
it was a cut,” Joseph said. “This time we
really want a cut. We want to reinvest
that funding into social workers, guidance
counselors, nurses, mental health
support.”
Cecilia Cortez, a United Federation
of Teachers chapter leader, said she
would support a budget cut, and that
the role of police offi cers in public safety
needed to be reassessed.
“They should be doing what they
do, policing, protecting us, making
sure they do their job rather than being
called to every event that is happening
in the community,” Cortez said. “They
are not trained to do that, we need to allocate
those services to make sure that
the community has the services that
are needed with the right people.”
Kenya Handy-Hilliard, a former
staffer for Rep. Yvette Clarke, said she
supported removing “at least” $1 billion
from the department’s coffers, and reallocating
it to public safety initiatives
like the crisis management system.
Blake Morris, a contract lawyer, argued
that any cut of $1 billion or less was
effectively useless given the imminent
plans to reorganize the school safety
component of the department. “People
who say they’re going to transfer $1 billion,
it’s not doing anything,” he said.
“It’s giving you ice in the winter.”
Morris said he thinks offi cers
should be stripped of their “collateral
missions,” or secondary duties of the
department, so they can focus on their
“core mission” — policing.
“We don’t need the police to give out
parking tickets or be the ones involved
in actually enforcing the rules for street
vendors,” he said. “There are so many
ways we can move out the collateral
missions of the police department so the
police can focus on their core mission,
and their core mission can be handled
more effi ciently.”
Edwin Raymond, a current NYPD
lieutenant and whistleblower, argued
he was best qualifi ed to implement cuts
to the department’s budget because of
his experience on the inside. Raymond
has said he aims to become chair of
the council’s public safety committee if
elected.
“In terms of reallocating funds, not
only do I support it,” he said, “after 13
years of watching exactly how that
money gets spent, line by line, I can tell
you exactly where to cut it — and we can
decide where it needs to go together.”
“People who say they’re going to transfer $1 billion ...
it’s giving you ice in the winter.”
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