‘Defund the police’ has become a familiar rallying call at protests across the country. It’s a push to reduce the size of police department budgets, in order to reallocate resources to other parts of the community. And a few cities leaders are listening.
Last week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced his commitment to reallocating $150 million of the LAPD budget to communities of color in the upcoming fiscal year. This comes after years of attempted reform and decades of tension between the LAPD and the city’s Black population.
Trymaine Lee speaks with LA City Councilman Curren Price, Black Lives Matter leader Melina Abdullah, and historian Max Felker-Kantor, author of Policing Los Angeles, to find out how LA’s history of policing informs the Mayor’s current move and whether this step towards reform goes far enough.
Further Reading and Viewing:
- Calls to reform, defund, dismantle and abolish the police, explained.
- The damage done by Jeff Sessions’ last act as AG
- A final farewell to George Floyd, whose death touched off national protests
Find the transcript here.
Listen here: