Above photo: A “City Hall Autonomous Zone” sign hangs outside New York City Hall, June 27. Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.
New York City – Early this morning, New York Police officers swarmed the hundreds of people who have been peacefully occupying the park in front of City Hall for the past week and calling for a $1 billion cut to the NYPD budget. The city council is expected to vote on the budget today.
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Police pushed people onto the sidewalk, beat people with batons and made arrests. People report a person with a broken arm from being beaten with a baton and another with a broken ankle from being pushed between barricades.
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BuzzFeed News reports:
On Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged the protesters’ demands by committing to cut $1 billion from the police department and to shift those resources “to communities in a way that would help address a lot of the underlying issues that we know are the cause of so many problems in our society.”
Pix11 writes that the $1 billion cut to the police’s $6 billion budget is part of an effort to reduce the $87 billion city budget by $10 billion.
“The latest budget draft would cancel the incoming class of police recruits and move school safety officers from the NYPD to the Department of Education, sources told PIX11. The budget is not expected to include layoffs…”
People are still in the park despite the attack by police as they wait for the city council to vote. They are calling for a “No” vote because it does not meet their demands.
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