Opinion: It's Past Time to Defund the NYPD

When I was 19, a plainclothes cop pointed his gun at me after I dared to ask why he grabbed my friend and started to handcuff him. I learned later he had threatened my life because my friend resembled a suspected weed dealer. This cop was willing to kill me over someone else’s weed.

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the Minneapolis police, many Americans have finally come to understand what I understood almost all my life: the police do not exist to “protect and serve” all communities. Many of our nation’s police departments were founded as slave patrols, designed to capture runaways and preserve the peculiar institution. Modern police have expanded their suppression of marginalized people. As a queer man growing up in New York, I learned that the police’s harassment and abuse of queer people spurred the Stonewall Riots. As a teacher, I already understood that the police in schools do not value Black and brown students. Over the last few weeks, we have seen countless instances across the country of police aggression against peaceful protestors. Now, as the nation erupts in a fight for justice, it’s clear that America’s police forces are not designed to protect and serve communities of color - they’re here to keep us in our place.

I’m glad that our government has begun taking steps to fundamentally change the way we think about policing. I’m proud that the New York state legislature has finally voted to repeal 50-a, which shields police disciplinary records from the public. I’m happy that, after weeks of inaction, Mayor de Blasio has finally indicated he’s willing to reduce the NYPD’s budget. But as our leaders take this small steps toward change, I have to ask a question: why has it taken so long to do something about the police?

Despite running as a police reformer, de Blasio has increased the NYPD’s funding by a billion dollars and repeatedly proven unwilling to stand up to his own police force. Legislators like my opponent, Assemblymember Tremaine Wright, have done little to stop our state’s police from becoming more brutal and more militarized during their years in government. The police still have access to tear gas, rubber bullets, and armored vehicles. They’re still operating the school-to-prison pipeline. They’re still beating protesters with impunity. This is no time for our legislators to be taking a victory lap. We should not be proud that it required historic protests to enact the most basic accountability measures.

The fact is that our political leaders have ignored the problem of police violence for years. We cannot trust them to do the difficult, necessary work of re-imagining the criminal legal system - they’ve proven they just don’t have it in them.

Bold steps, like slashing budgets and dramatically changing the laws governing cops, are the only ways to protect all New Yorkers. Five billion is still a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a police force that acts more like an occupying army than a public service. Public safety doesn’t require bloated police budgets. In fact, they’re an admission that we’ve given up trying to address the systemic problems rooted in American racism and capitalism. Instead of building public housing, we send the police to evict people and harass the homeless. Instead of fully funding mental health services, we send the police to respond to 200,000 mental health crises per year. Instead of taxing the rich and making public transit free, we hire extra cops to arrest people who jump turnstiles.

Now, police officers march through our streets every night like soldiers on parade. These shows of force, coupled with de Blasio’s curfews, are how the establishment has chosen to deal with its problems. It’s terrifying. I know there’s a better way.

I’m running for State Senate because New Yorkers deserve leaders with the courage to address police violence. It’s time to elect principled, grassroots leaders who will stand up to cops instead of praising them for brutality. We must fully repeal cash bail and break the back of the prison-industrial complex. We must eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing. We must fully decriminalize simple drug possession. We must fight to give New Yorkers the resources they need to avoid crises that require police intervention.

And we MUST defund the police departments that act as occupying forces in our cities. We will all be safer if the police cannot afford tear gas, rubber bullets, and tanks.

We must demand these concrete steps, and more, from our leaders. We can’t trust politicians who give us trite gestures of solidarity but refuse to commit to real reform. If we’re going to stop the police from parading through our neighborhoods in battle gear, we need to elect people with the courage to stand up to them. Watching, night after night, as police brutalize us and politicians force us off our streets has been exhausting, but I’m inspired by the resolve and the solidarity I feel with my fellow activists. These streets truly are our streets. It may not feel like it right now, but we have the power to stop the violence and rein in the police - let’s demand leaders who are brave enough to do it.