LA City Officials Cutting Up To $150 Million From LAPD Budget, Funds Will Be Invested In Black Communities

In a Wednesday press conference on reforming the LAPD, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he is “committed to making this moment not just a moment.”

Garcetti, who has been marching alongside protesters, added he would be making commitments to creating racial equality. “It is time to move our rhetoric towards action to end racism in our city.”

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

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

Here’s a clip of the news conference via LA Times.

The mayor 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-$150 million of those cuts would come from the police department budget.

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.”

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.”