Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) is speaking out against the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) latest contract, which would push many cops to top income brackets as the city is in the process of defunding crucial public goods like education and health care.
This week, Ocasio-Cortez brought the “The Daily Show” to Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx to promote a program that reduces gun violence through public health interventions rather than policing, which has failed to prevent the U.S.’s recent increase in gun violence. She noted that police funding is currently being prioritized over nearly every program serving the needs of the public — a point that right-wing outlets like Fox News and The New York Post have pushed back against in their endless quest to further empower the U.S. police state.
Ocasio-Cortez shot back against the criticism on Twitter on Wednesday. “What they aren’t telling you is that under the new NYC contract, many rank and file officers will now be in the top 10 percent of income earners in the U.S. The catch? It’s being paid for with devastating budget cuts to public schools, libraries, affordable housing, healthcare, and more,” she said.
The lawmaker cited an article by The Indypendent finding that, under the new $5.5 billion contract between the NYPD and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, police with five and a half years in their positions will receive a base salary of $130,000, or a pay raise of about 50 percent. This means that many police will be making upwards of $200,000 with overtime pay — which NYPD officers have bragged about “milking” — placing them firmly in the top 10 percent of earners in the U.S.
These massive raises for police officers come as Adams is slashing millions of dollars from public schools, libraries, and more, bringing layoffs and major austerity measures to public goods in what he claims are measures for “fiscal discipline.”
Ocasio-Cortez went on to say that conservatives frame any funding of public goods as left-wing extremism — and that, despite their fear mongering about crime, they repeatedly push measures, like increased policing, that would leave communities less safe.
“[I]f you question this logic and believe defunding schools, libraries, & housing drives crime, you’re labeled an ‘extremist’ or ‘far-left.’ It shouldn’t be considered ‘extreme’ to prioritize funding schools, healthcare, housing, libraries,” she said. “But perhaps in today’s world, it is.”
Indeed, research has shown that funding schools and increasing state welfare programs decreases crime and increases public safety. The program at Jacobi Hospital, led in part by Ocasio-Cortez, is one example of the efficacy of community alternatives to policing; in a study published earlier this year, researchers found that sending social workers and community members to intervene when gunshot victims are brought into the emergency room decreased gun violence in the community by 59 percent over the past nine years of the program’s implementation.
Meanwhile, police often actively endanger the communities that they are supposed to protect. Research has found that police commit a significant proportion of homicides across the country — and, as lawmakers have funneled money to police in the backlash to the protests against police brutality in 2020, police killings have hit a record high.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy