Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, City Officials Cutting $100 Million-$150 Million From LAPD Budget, Funds To Be Reinvested In Communities Of Color

As he began to speak about reforming the LAPD during his Wednesday evening press conference, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called this an “urgent moment” for the city, “an inflection point.”

He said he is “committed to making this moment not just a moment.”

Garcetti said he would be making commitments to creating racial equality. “It is time to move our rhetoric towards action to end racism in our city.”

He said the city must move beyond police reforms of the past. “Prejudice can never be part of police work…It takes bravery to save lives, too.”

“We will not be increasing out police budget,” said the mayor. That allocation is pegged at $1.8 billion in the mayor’s previously proposed budget.

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Garcetti spoke of “reinvesting in black communities and communities of color.”

The mayor proceeded to announce $250 million in cuts to the proposed budget and to reallocate those dollars to communities of color, “so we can invest in jobs, in education and healing.” L.A. Police Commission President Eileen Decker then announced that $100 million to $150 million of those cuts would come from the police department budget.

L.A. City Council President Nury Martinez made it official on Wednesday by introducing a motion to cut LAPD funding, “as we reset our priorities in the wake of the murder of #GeorgeFloyd. This is just one small step. We cannot talk about change, we have to be about change,” Martinez tweeted.

Today we intrdcd a motion to cut funding to the LAPD, as we reset our priorities in the wake of the murder of #GeorgeFloyd & the #BlackLivesMatter call that we all support to end racism. This is just one small step. We cannot talk about change, we have to be about change. pic.twitter.com/hR1tBAqwHP — Nury Martinez (@CD6Nury) June 3, 2020

The mayor said he would be more specific about where those monies will go in his Thursday night press conference, and that the funding would be distributed “now, not years from now.”

Garcetti also declared a moratorium on putting people in the gang data base, requiring police officers to always report bad actors and increasing discipline against those officers who break the rules.

“We need to move toward a guardian-based system,” said the mayor, “by developing long term relationships between our youth and police officers.”

This comes after Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore on Monday compared looters to those officers involved in George Floyd’s death.

Garcetti announced a Civil and Human Rights Commission that will have its first meeting next week, with a promise to have the department up and running by July 1. In that department will reside an Office of Racial Equity to help the city “apply and equity lens to everything we do.”

“We can’t walk to the promised land in a single day,’ said Garcetti, “but this is a start.”