In the Media

“We do not support ‘defund the police.’ No one in my administration does.”

Carl Stubbs put it simply: “I wonder what my life would be like if the money used to arrest me and lock me up was instead used to support my education and help me get a job?”

Stubbs, who has been affected by and fighting mass incarceration “my whole life,” posed the rhetorical question over the weekend to a crowd gathered for the unveiling of five community murals demanding a defunding of the NYPD.

First arrested at age 12, Stubbs said he spent the next 20 years “going in and out of jail, mostly committing crimes because I couldn’t find a job.”

Tuesday marked one year since the May 25, 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Several events across the country and the city took place to remember the incident that ignited a nationwide racial reckoning and calls for police reforms.

The infamous cellphone video of former police officer Derek Chauvin putting his knee on Floyd’s neck during an arrest for more than nine minutes was forever cemented as a dark moment in American history. Last month, justice was served as Chauvin was convicted on two counts of murder and is facing up to 40 years in prison.

On April 26, Mayor de Blasio presented his executive budget plan for the city’s next fiscal year, FY22, which begins July 1. In it, he included slight increases to the NYPD’s budget. This comes on the heels of the largest civil rights movement in a generation demanding reinvestments and the heartbreaking murders of Adam Toledo and Daunte Wright. If I were in the City Council now, I would fight for a right-sized police budget and deep investments into community care when the adopted budget is agreed upon in June.