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Over the past week, among the countless variations of protest signs carried by demonstrators across the country, one message has gained new traction: “Defund the police.”
On Sunday, it was a common theme in Los Angeles, where Mayor Eric Garcetti unveiled a proposal to divert $100 million to $150 million from the Police Department’s budget to programs that would benefit communities of color — a response that many said didn’t go nearly far enough, while others said such a move would have been unimaginable just weeks ago.
San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, made a similar announcement, though without a specific dollar number attached.
And San Jose’s mayor, Sam Liccardo, rejected calls to defund the city’s Police Department, instead saying he wanted to reform it.
But what does it actually mean to defund a police department?
My colleague Dionne Searcey tackled this question in more detail here, but on a very broad level, what it means is to stop spending so much public money on police departments — where gear and pay are expensive — and instead use that money on other things that activists say would better serve the community.
That could include mental health resources, housing and education. With more funding for those services, activists say, more people would be cared for, and crime and violence would decrease.
When I spoke with Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a Los Angeles City Council member, he mentioned the example of police officers escorting people experiencing homelessness onto buses to go to shelters, only because they were the only public workers able to do the job.
“If all you’ve got in your toolbox is a hammer, you tend to think everything is a nail,” he said. “And that disables society as a whole and ends up with death and injury, for particularly African-American young men, but also people of color in general.”
[Read the full interview.]
How is this different from reforming police departments?
It is, in some ways, a matter of degree. Activists in Los Angeles have noted that the $150 million cut Mr. Garcetti proposed is just a fraction of the department’s more than $1.8 billion budget.
In many places, however, activists aren’t just pushing to divert money away from police departments, they are calling to dismantle them entirely.
That was the case in Minneapolis, where, over the weekend, a veto-proof majority of the City Council pledged to dismantle its Police Department and instead create a new system of public safety from the ground up.
The new system could follow various models that have been established in cities around the country. In Eugene, Ore., a team called CAHOOTS — Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets — deploys a medic and a crisis worker with mental health training to emergency calls.
[Read more about how officials are exploring changes to policing around the country.]
What are arguments against defunding or dismantling police departments?
Those who don’t support defunding or dismantling police departments have mostly said they’d like to see reforms of existing systems instead.
Democrats in Congress unveiled legislation that would make it easier to identify, track and prosecute police misconduct.
Mayor Liccardo said in a statement that defunding San Jose’s Police Department would “hurt the very people who have suffered the most from systemic racism.”
He suggested that shrinking the department would lead to “rich, white communities and businesses in suburban malls” hiring private security guards.
In Los Angeles, LAist reported that the director of the L.A. Police Protective League, which represents L.A.P.D. officers, blasted Mr. Garcetti as “unstable,” over his proposal to cut funding. Jamie McBride, the director, said cuts could lead to slower responses to 911 calls and would cause “crime to go out of control.”
Is this a partisan issue?
No — not neatly, in any case.
That’s especially true in California, where one of the State Legislature’s highest profile battles last year was over legislation that enacted one of the nation’s toughest standards for the police use of force.
The law that eventually passed represented a compromise between two bills — one backed by the A.C.L.U. and families of police-shooting victims, and the other backed by police unions, Laurel Rosenhall of CalMatters reported.
The debate highlighted divides even among Democrats over how to police the police, and underscored the power of police unions, which, as my colleagues reported, have continued to be outspoken defenders of officers accused of misconduct, even as rates of union membership have declined more broadly.
[Read Dionne’s full piece here.]
An update on reopening
Amid everything going on, you may have lost track of the state’s reopening process.
Although case counts continue to rise, particularly in Los Angeles County, dine-in restaurants, hair salons and casinos have already been allowed to reopen in much of the state, with precautions.
And starting on Friday, most counties in the state will be allowed to reopen movie theaters, bars, zoos, gyms, hotels and campgrounds — all with modifications you can read about here.
And officials are urging anyone who’s been to a protest to get tested.
[See when 511 epidemiologists say they’ll start doing everyday things again.]
Here’s what else to read
We often link to sites that limit access for nonsubscribers. We appreciate your reading Times coverage, but we also encourage you to support local news if you can.
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“We worked hard to flatten the curve in California,” said Carmela Coyle, president of the California Hospital Association. “Now we have a surge in the Imperial Valley because the situation is so severe in Mexicali.” [The New York Times]
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“It’s heartbreaking to see that we are still nowhere.” More than a decade later, Oscar Grant III’s mother feels as if she’s reliving her son’s death. [BuzzFeed News]
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A man who helped train the San Jose police about bias was seriously injured when police officers shot him with rubber bullets as he tried to get them to stop shooting at protesters at close range. [ABC7]
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Pacific Gas & Electric will move its headquarters to Oakland after more than a century in San Francisco. The troubled utility said it’s a cost-saving measure. [The San Francisco Chronicle]
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How is Vegas, now that it’s reopened? Well, experts say, casinos are like cruise ships on land. [The New York Times]
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Neighbors say living next door to a TikTok house in Bel Air is a lot like you’d imagine: kind of terrible. [The New York Times]
And Finally …
Last month, I wrote about students at the University of California, Berkeley, who — facing a canceled in-person commencement — built the campus on Minecraft and had their graduation celebration there.
It was one of the ways thousands of soon-to-be graduates across California are adapting to a reality fundamentally changed from when they entered school. (Some 57,000 students are set to earn a degree from the University of California system alone.)
Graduates are facing a bleak job market, and massive social changes are underway.
My colleague Marie Tae McDermott wants to hear from college seniors about how they feel about leaving school right now, and what their future may hold. Email her at marie.mcdermott@nytimes.com.
California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here and read every edition online here.
Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, went to school at U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
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What Does It Mean to Defund a Police Department? - The New York Times
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