COURIER L 16 IFE, JUNE 12-18, 2020
OPINION
Take police precincts away from districts
that want to defund the NYPD
What New York City can learn from
Minneapolis’s successes and failures
Several times in this column,
I have expressed
skepticism that most
protests have much effect, because
on the major issues for
the last fi fty years, they have
not appeared to make much
difference. I think that might
be changing, though.
At least on the issue of police
violence and racism, public
opinion appears to have
shifted radically in the last
two weeks. A poll by Civiqs
shows Americans support
Black Lives Matter by a 28
percent margin, up from 17
before. Six years ago, when
Black Lives Matter began, a
majority disapproved of the
movement.
Some of this change comes
from the continued toll of aggressions
and abuses, the
ever-mounting list of names
of Black people killed by the
criminal justice system. Probably
some of this change is in
response to the pandemic, or
just the scarcely-masked racism
of the Trump administration.
But presumably most of
the shift in public opinion has
the same driver as increased
support for the Civil Rights
Movement in the sixties —
people become more sympathetic
to the protesters after
repeatedly seeing peaceful
marchers beaten and sprayed
by the police.
The next few years of policing
in New York and Minneapolis
appear to be diverging.
I suspect that in the next
city budget agreed to at the
end of this month, the NYPD
will have to endure a modest
cut. The city faces a large budget
shortfall, and the NYPD
might even be cut less than the
average municipal agency or
department, but until very recently,
cuts to that department
were almost unimaginable.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, a
veto-proof majority of the City
Council pledged last Sunday
to dismantle its police department
and replace it with a new
and as yet undetermined system
of public safety.
I’d like to make two broad
observations. First, Minneapolis
is an example of how
local governments often deserve
increased autonomy. A
potential policy solution that
is probably too radical for
most of the country — abolish
the police and replace
them with something else —
can be piloted in the center of
the country’s sixteenth-largest
metropolitan area in a
state with a better history of
clean government than most
others. We will all be able
to learn from Minneapolis’s
successes and failures.
Second, this was a decision
made by the Minneapolis
City Council, not anybody
higher-up than that. Thirtyeight
year-old mayor Jacob
Frey seems committed to reforming
rather than ending
his city’s police department.
New York’s city council members
and state legislators
have been appreciably more
radical and responsive to
grassroots pressure than the
executives like Bill de Blasio
and Andrew Cuomo or their
appointees. For this policing
shift to take hold, mayors
will need to embrace it — a
council decree can eliminate
funding for a program, but it
can’t control how it is administered.
Make no mistake: change
is afoot. Mayors can change
their minds, and cities can
change their mayors.
Nick Rizzo is a Democratic
District Leader representing
the 50th Assembly District and
a political consultant who lives
in Greenpoint. Follow him on
Twitter @NickRizzo.
WORDS OF
RIZZDOM
Nick Rizzo
There are serious efforts
underway to eliminate
and defund police departments
across the country, including
here in New York City.
It feels as if we have entered
the Twilight Zone.
Leading the way is Minneapolis,
where a veto-proof majority
of the City Council has
agreed to eliminate their police
force. Instead, social workers
will respond to incidents that
were usually handled by the
cops. Does anyone doubt that
this is where many of our current
crop of city elected offi cials
would also like to lead us?
Surprisingly, it was Mayor
Bill de Blasio that was initially
holding the line and refusing
calls from a large number of
council members to defund or
drastically cut the NYPD budget
saying, “I do not believe it’s
a good idea to reduce the budget
of the agency that’s here to
keep us safe.” This was a rare
moment of common sense expressed
by de Blasio.
It did not last long. Last Sunday,
48 hours after his defense
of the NYPD budget, Hizzoner
folded like a cheap suit to his
progressive brethren and announced
that the city would
be moving funding “from the
NYPD to youth initiatives and
social services.”
This effort to slash the
NYPD budget is not a response
to the necessary cuts that need
to be made due to the economic
crisis from the pandemic.
Rather, it is because of an animosity
toward police. As head
of the Police Benevolent Association
Pat Lynch stated, “The
council members pushing
NYPD cuts should be honest:
This is about their cop-hating
agenda, not the city’s bottom
line.”
On top of the looting we saw
recently, many crimes are up
this year compared to 2019. Specifi
cally, murders are up 25.4
percent citywide year-to-date,
according to NYPD statistics.
Burglaries are up an estimated
47 percent citywide year-todate
and auto theft is up 64 percent
by the same metrics. Last
week alone there was a 160 percent
spike in murders citywide
compared to the same week last
year. One would think that this
would strengthen the resolve to
support our cops.
Can it really be that a plurality
of New Yorkers support
these NYPD cuts and prefer social
workers to address crime?
Or do they just champ at the bit
to attack cops at every opportunity?
This is the logical conclusion
based on the actions of so
many of our elected offi cials.
Here is a proposal to implement
these NYPD cuts: The police
precincts within the districts
of council members that
vote for the cuts and support
defunding the police should be
immediately shut down. Social
workers and other community
leaders can respond to the calls
that would normally be made
to police.
After about a year of having
no police in these districts, voters
who are pleased with the results
can stick with voting for
representatives that oppose the
police in the citywide elections
next year. Conversely, if these
residents are not satisfi ed with
the way things are going, they
will have the opportunity to
vote for others.
Elections matter.
Bob Capano has worked
for Brooklyn Republican and
Democrat elected offi cials, and
has been an adjunct political
science professor for over 15
years. Follow him on twitter
@bobcapano
THE RIGHT
VIEW
Bob Capano