Under pressure from the anti-racist movement, New York reviews its police budget

NEW YORK | The city of New York adopted on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday a budget for 2021 reducing the funds allocated to its police services, illustration of the impact of anti-racist demonstrations even if many considered this decrease insufficient.

The budget of the first American metropolis for the fiscal year which opens on July 1 cuts police spending by more than a billion dollars, compared to an operational budget of the New York police (the largest of the United with some 36,000 agents) of some 6 billion, according to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

According to him, the cuts meet the demands of reform of the anti-racist protests that followed the death of George Floyd, a black man suffocated by a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25.

In New York as elsewhere, requests to transfer funds allocated to the municipal police for the benefit of underprivileged minorities were a flagship demand of the demonstrators.

Mr. de Blasio said he had given up on hiring 1,100 police officers who were to start their training in July. And ensures that its budget responds to demands for more social justice as the “deep desire” for security of 8.5 million New Yorkers, against the backdrop of an upsurge in shootings in the American metropolis for two weeks.

But several elected officials, such as the young star of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and many among the hundreds of demonstrators who have camped for a week in front of New York City Hall, have denounced essentially cosmetic changes, citing the example of police officers in schools : their budget has been transferred to the school services, which will now be responsible for security personnel in the establishments.

The 2021 New York budget comes against a backdrop of budget cuts imposed by the pandemic, with the economic crisis and the fiscal shortfall it has generated.

It reached $ 88.1 billion, seven billion less than a preliminary version adopted in February, a month before the pandemic brought the American economic capital to a halt.

The mayor has been explaining for several weeks that if the federal government does not provide substantial assistance to the city or if the State of New York does not allow it to resort to the loan, some 22,000 municipal positions will have to be eliminated. October 1, affecting all basic services.

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