Nearly 60 progressive groups urged the City Council Thursday to drop its plan for 1,000 new cops.
Communities United for Police Reform and other groups wrote in a letter to Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito that the NYPD has failed to rein in “discriminatory and abusive policing.”
“The addition of 1,000 new police department positions – to be dispersed throughout our communities that already feel over-policed – threatens to exacerbate these long-standing problems,” they wrote.
Many of the signatories are typically key allies of the left-leaning Council, including New York Communities for Change, Make the Road New York, and VOCAL-NY. The NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Legal Aid Society, Center for Constitutional Rights, and Coalition for the Homeless all joined the effort.
Opponents particularly objected to the high cost of increasing the size of the NYPD, about $90 million a year, saying the money would be better spent on social services.
Mark-Viverito said she’s unbothered by the criticism. “It doesn’t concern me at all,” she said.
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