'Defunding police means defunding police': AOC says plan to cut $1B from NYPD does not go far enough

Far-left New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) slammed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's (D) proposal to cut nearly $1 billion from the New York City Police Department on Tuesday, calling the plan a "disingenuous illusion" and insisting that "defunding the police means defunding the police."

What are the details?

CBS News reported that de Blasio announced a plan on Monday for cutting $1 billion from the NYPD, amid a citywide budget crunch and after weeks of progressive activists calling for "defunding police" across the nation following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The next day, the Gotham Gazette reported that the mayor and city council reached an agreement on the cuts to the department, "though nearly half will be through shifting school safety from the police to the Department of Education" by "shifting school safety and school crossing guards out of the NYPD's purview."

In response, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez issued a statement, saying:

Defunding police means defunding police. It does not mean tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education's budget so that the exact same police remain in schools. It does not mean counting overtime cuts as cuts, even as NYPD ignores every attempt by City Council to curb overtime spending and overspends on overtime anyways. It does not mean hiring more police officers while cutting more than $800M from NYC schools. If these reports are accurate, then these proposed 'cuts' to NYPD's budget are a disingenuous illusion. This is not a victory. The fight to defund policing continues.

What else?

Fox News noted that "establishment Democrats and progressives have debated over what 'defund the police' actually means," as "some argue the phrase shouldn't be taken literally and just stands to represent police reforms."

The city of Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed in police custody, has already voted to disband its police department and replace it with a "community safety" model to be determined over the next year.

According to The Hill, "mayors in San Francisco and Los Angeles have pledged to cut police budgets, while city councils in places such as Washington, D.C., have passed a slate of reform measures to enhance law enforcement oversight."