In a Wednesday appearance on ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) sounded off on her support of defunding police departments in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in Minneapolis police custody.
With many Democrats across the country pushing to defund police departments, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Tuesday that funding for schools is more important than funding for law enforcement, which she explained on “GMA” would “prevent crime.”
“I think in a lot of different places in America, we experience very different realities with the police,” Ocasio-Cortez told host George Stephanopoulos. “Here in New York, and I happen to represent the Bronx, I have Rikers Island here in my own district, and the New York City Police Department has a $6 billion a year budget. That is more than we spend on youth, housing, healthcare and homelessness combined in New York City. And so the problem is not a lack of resources here. In fact, many folks here in our community say that the problem is the opposite. It’s that not enough resources are being put into the very kinds of social programming and investments that prevent crime and social discord in the first place, and so what a lot of folks are talking about, when it comes into this movement, is that they’re asking for the same budget priorities that many affluent suburbs already have.”
“And it may sound strange, but many suburbs have essentially already begun pursuing a defunding of the police in that they fund schools, they fund housing and they fund healthcare more as their number one priorities,” she added.
Stephanopoulos pointed out to the New York representative that research shows more police on the streets means less crime.
“One question that is interesting here is that when it comes to funds, it’s not always just about the number of officers in the street,” she replied. “It’s about these police precincts that have tanks, that have military weaponry and frankly have a degree … of material resources and war-like weaponry that people ask why does a local police precinct have this in the first place? So, when we talk about defunding, it can show up in multiple ways.”
Ocasio-Cortez went on to advise viewers to check if their local city councils and mayors are having conversations about defunding their police departments.
“I think it’s a valid question for people to ask, what should be our number one budget priority at all?” she emphasized. “Does any agency deserve to be funded more than almost all the others for healthcare, housing and youth combined?”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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