De Blasio Plans To Shift Funds From NYPD To “Youth & Social Services” As UK Demonstrators Destroy ‘Racist’ Statues
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Sun, 06/07/2020
Update (1400ET): After years of clashing with the NYPD and the powerful police unions who hold sway over America’s largest police force, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has just announced a new policy that we imagine he has been secretly wanting to do for a long time: The mayor is planning to shift some funding way from police and toward youth and social services.
Critics immediately criticized the mayor for taking another step to return NYC to the bad old days.
This morning we committed to move resources from the NYPD to youth and social services as part of our City’s budget.
Our young people need to be reached, not policed.
We can do this AND keep our city safe.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 7, 2020
De Blasio won his original dark horse campaign by promising to reform the NYPD. Instead, he has mostly stoked acrimony with the cops, while failing to convince progressives that he is doing enough to implement the reforms they demanded. The latest crisis is giving de Blasio a chance to rectify that, but despite this, the mood inside city hall is said to be “one of despondence” as the city scrambles to prepare for Monday’s reopening as many departments see their relationships with the mayor’s office coming under unprecedented strain, per WSJ.
Meanwhile, Gov Cuomo expressed “concern” that the protests on Saturday, some of the largest yet, while few arrests were made and gatherings continued long into the night, might worsen the spread of the coronavirus as the city prepares to start its process of reopening on Monday, per BBG.
Meanwhile, in the UK…
The man who defeated the Nazis…is now a Nazi?
* * *
Update (1225ET): As the battle against systemic racism goes global, demonstrators in Bristol have toppled a statute of Edward Colston, a British philanthropist who derived most of his wealth from the slave trade.
STATUE OF EDWARD COLSTON TOPPLED AND THROWN IN WATER AT BRISTOLpic.twitter.com/Kc5Gt0KxUL
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 7, 2020
People in England just tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the river. The world has simply had it with racism.
— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) June 7, 2020
And just like that…racism has been destroyed.
* * *
Following another night of demonstrations across the US, and increasingly around the world, the NYT reported that “tens of thousands gathered in big cities like New York and Seattle and small towns like Vidor, Texas, and Marion, Ohio — in swelling crowds that have been multiethnic, spanning generations and overwhelmingly peaceful.”
Though we’re not 100% certain about that last bit, it’s definitely notable that the protest movement has spread from Europe, Australia and New Zealand on to Asia, Africa and elsewhere, as thousands around the world support American protesters with shows of “solidarity”.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus death toll in the US quietly surpassed 110,000 last night.
Though the outbreak has slowed to a crawl in many former hot spots like New York, elsewhere, signs of incipient outbreaks have begun to emerge.
Across New York City, peaceful demonstrators defied an 8 pm curfew as the NYPD mostly stepped aside, following a week of optically-terrible videos showing cops beating on kneeling protesters, badly injuring elderly protesters, and shooting journalists with “non-lethal” rounds. The police allowed the marches to continue long into the night, and in the morning, Mayor de Blasio tweeted that he would be lifting the curfew after seeing “the very best of our city”.
New York City: We are lifting the curfew, effective immediately. Yesterday and last night we saw the very best of our city.
Tomorrow we take the first big step to restart. Keep staying safe. Keep looking out for each other.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 7, 2020
Meanwhile, readers of the Wall Street Journal were greeting Sunday morning with a push alert heralding the results of the latest public opinion poll showing that Americans – by a 2-1 margin – are more troubled by the actions of the police in the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing protests,
Among Democrats, an overwhelming majority (more than 80%) support police reform, while, possibly for the first time, a majority of Republicans (52%) said they are also more troubled by the actions of the police. Though the partisan divide remains stark, it shows that the demonstrators have been largely successful in their goal of swaying public opinion.
What’s more: 80% of respondents said that – between the virus and the protests – their country is spinning out of control.
Americans by a 2-to-1 margin are more troubled by the actions of police in the killing of George Floyd than by violence at some protests, and an overwhelming majority, 80%, feel that the country is spiraling out of control, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
The poll also reveals striking partisan divides in how Americans view a pair of unfolding national crises, including the unrest sparked by the killing of Mr. Floyd, the black Minneapolis man who was in police custody, and the coronavirus pandemic, responsible for more than 109,000 fatalities in the U.S.
Already, crowds have gathered in central Rome on Sunday morning for another day of demonstrations in London and other cities, as crowds chanted “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace,” thousands of people swelled Rome’s Piazza del Popolo, and in London, thousands gathered in several places. On Sunday morning, London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the protesters, and denounced a “tiny minority” who resorted to violence.
The vast majority of protestors in London were peaceful. But this vital cause was badly let down by a tiny minority who turned violent. This is simply not acceptable, will not be tolerated and will not win the lasting and necessary change we desperately need to see. 2/3
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) June 7, 2020
The Rest…HERE
