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Taxpayers pay $11 billion per year for the NYPD to inflict mass violence on us. Then turn around, fearmonger & lie to us that any alternative to policing will only lead us to mass violence. We believe them. And keep paying them more. We are in a profoundly abusive relationship. https://twitter.com/andyj0seph/status/1310039203212701697
Let me make this clear. Police do not prevent violence. They cause violence. Either directly by beating, abusing, & killing civilians. Or by inflicting shame, isolation, & economic deprivation through overpolicing of Black & brown communities.
The $300 million to settle NYPD lawsuits over the last five years could instead fund proven non-police violence interruption programs and summer youth employment in every neighborhood in NYC for the next 5 years. Billboard in Times Square:
The $327 million per year that NYC residents pay for police in schools with no impact on public safety, could instead fund full four-year scholarships for over 4000 students to attend NY state colleges. This is an intervention: http://need-to-talk.org
The $635 million NYC residents pay in just overtime for NYPD officers could instead house every single one of the 14,000 homeless families now living in NYC. And then pay a year’s worth of rent for 7,000 families out of work and at risk of eviction because of the pandemic.
The NYPD & other police departments take billions & billions in taxpayer money, fail spectacularly to produce any of the results they claim they're supposed to--"safety" chief among them--inflict violent felony crimes in the open, on film, & reward those crimes w/ promotions.
What you see in the video from last night is exactly what was happening all over NYC back in June at the height of protests. Police officers riot. Police officers assaulting. Police officers stealing & destroying property. Police causing mayhem. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/14/nyregion/nypd-george-floyd-protests.html
The NYPD & other forces are *unreformable.* Despite decades of reform, they're still using banned chokeholds. Cars, chemicals, bicycles & batons as weapons. Conduct that, if committed by people defenders represented, would be prosecuted as violent felonies. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/video-police-abuses-nypd-trampling-constitution-reveal-inefficacy-reform-ncna1235333
