Occupy City Hall

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. 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. 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.

New York City - More than 170 local & national organizations, brought together by Communities United for Police Reform (CPR), released a follow-up to their April letter calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to cut at least $1 billion directly from the NYPD expense budget by the June 30th deadline and redirect resources for FY21 to core social programs that are essential for Black, Latinx and other communities hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.  In the letter released today, CPR and the #NYCBudgetJustice coalition make it clear that the call “to cut at least $1 billion directly from the NYPD FY21 expense budget is the floor, not the ceiling.” The demands of the group echo those laid out in the policy report on #NYCBudgetJustice released by CPR last week.