NYCLU Statement on the $200 Million Increase to the NYPD Expense Budget

NEW YORK CITY – After years of demands to reduce NYPD funding, today, Mayor de Blasio and New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson added an additional $200 million to the NYPD expense budget. The total NYPD expense budget will exceed $5 billion, the largest police budget in the country, which includes funding for two of the most dangerous NYPD units, the Vice Squad and the Strategic Response Group.

In response, New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman issued the following statement:

“Last year, we saw a NYPD budget full of accounting tricks. This year, the Mayor and City Council have unabashedly emboldened the NYPD with new resources and power when New Yorkers have taken to the streets and the polls to fight for exactly the opposite outcome. Instead of defunding an unaccountable and lawless institution that has rained violence on Black and Brown New Yorkers, our elected officials gave them a raise.

“New York City’s next Mayor and City Council must provide the leadership our city needs to reduce the size and scope of the NYPD and reinvest in our communities. This must include dismantling the abhorrently corrupt Vice Squad, scaling back the outsized and militarized Strategic Response Group that has been responsible for brutally suppressing protest, putting school safety back in the hands of educators, and replacing unsuitable law enforcement with trained public health workers as the first responders to mental health emergencies. It’s time to stop bloating the NYPD’s coffers and reimagine what keeps communities safe and secure.”