New polling shows that the majority of New Yorkers oppose the recent push to strip funds from local police departments.
A poll conducted by the Siena College Research Institute found that 57% of New Yorkers oppose cutting police funding and that 60% opposed defunding the police in a separate question, with the majority of the opposition coming from residents who lived upstate, according to Fox Business.
Fifty-one percent of New York City respondents opposed defunding the police.
The poll, conducted by phone from June 23 to 25, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
The findings come as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently caved to protesters camped outside of City Hall demanding that the city slash $1 billion from the New York Police Department and reallocate the funds to programs that assist “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.”
NYPD officials have become increasingly vocal about their displeasure with city leadership and the media for perceived demonization of the department in the wake of George Floyd’s death on May 25.
“Stop treating us like animals and thugs, and start treating us with some respect!” Mike O’Meara, a police union boss, said earlier this month. “That’s what we’re here today to say. We’ve been left out of the conversation. We’ve been vilified. It’s disgusting.”
“We all read in the paper all week that in the black community, mothers are worried about their children getting home from school without being killed by a cop. What world are we living in? That does not happen!” he continued. “It does not happen. I am not Derek Chauvin. They are not him. He killed someone. We didn’t.”
It was reported earlier this week that 272 NYPD officers have filed for retirement since Floyd’s death, which represents a 49% increase from the same time period last year.
Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, referred to the retirements as an “exodus” and added that “there is no leadership, no direction, no training for new policies. Department brass is paralyzed [and] too afraid to uphold their sworn oath for fear of losing their jobs. Sadly, the people of this city will soon experience what New York City was like in the 1980s.”
