A NYPD detective was hit over the head with a stick in a brazen daytime attack, as a leading police union branded the Big Apple ‘the city of violence’ while attacking Mayor Bill de Blasio over a 257 per cent spike in shootings.
On Monday afternoon, a detective in Queens was hit over the head with a plastic baton by a man, as he investigated a scene.
Akeele Morgan, 25, of the Bronx, was arrested not far from the scene on 39th Avenue, near Prince Street in Flushing, police said.
The Sergeant’s Benevolent Association (SBA) – which represents more than 11,000 current and past NYPD officers, tweeted: ‘Welcome to the city of violence’ while attacking de Blasio for investing $30 million on boosting tourism instead of tackling crime.
They spoke out as an unnamed 20-year-old man was shot and killed in broad daylight near Manhattan’s Park Avenue on Monday.
Jason Rivera, 35, was shot and killed in the Bronx on Friday night after he helped a disorientated man, asking: ‘Are you OK?’ and helping him onto a bench in the Parkchester area
Communist’ BLM founder Patrisse Cullors defends her $3MILLION property portfolio – including private jet hangar in garden – and claims she’s not been paid since 2019 and questions about it are a ‘tactic of terror to silence her’
Critics of a Black Lives Matter co-founder’s recent multi-million dollar property spending spree have been described as promoting ‘a tradition of terror by white supremacists’ for questioning the $3 million portfolio accumulated by the self-professed ‘trained Marxist’. Patrisse Cullors, 37, raised eyebrows last week when it emerged that she had spent $1.4 million on a Los Angeles property – her fourth home, and her third in the city – in an overwhelmingly white neighborhood. The New York Post reported Cullors had also bought two other LA homes in recent years, and paid $415,000 for a 3.2 acre property in Georgia. On Tuesday the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, of which Cullors is a director, issued a statement saying that they had not paid for her house.
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors (pictured) has raised eyebrows with her property portfolio
The $1.4 million home Patrisse Cullors purchased in the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles
In addition to the Topanga Canyon property, The New York Post reports that Cullors and her husband also purchased a ‘custom ranch’ on 3.2 acres in Conyers, Georgia last year
Cullors’ Conyers residence reportedly comes complete with its own pool and airplane hangar
They said Cullors has been paid a total of $120,000 since the organization was founded in 2013, and said she was compensated ‘for duties such as serving as spokesperson and engaging in political education work.’ She has not been paid since 2019, the group said. Cullors has become one of the most high-profile campaigners in the United States since founding BLM in 2013, with a best-selling memoir, a follow-up on the way, and a deal with Warner Bros to produce content. Cullors herself issued a statement on Instagram, confirming that she does not currently receive a salary from BLM Global Network Foundation. She said criticism of her real estate was an ‘effort to discredit and harass me and my family’. Cullors said it was ‘harmful and scary’, noting that she regularly receives death threats. Her organization issued a similar statement, saying that questions about how Marxism meshed with million-dollar homes were racist and dangerous. ‘Patrisse’s work for Black people over the years has made her and others who align with the fight for Black liberation targets of racist violence,’ the group said in a statement posted on Twitter. They described criticism of the anti-capitalism activist’s growing property portfolio as a ‘right-wing offensive’. Questions about her real estate, first reported in celebrity property blog The Dirt, were described as ‘torture’, designed to ‘instill fear’.
‘The narratives being spread about Patrisse have been generated by right-wing forces intent on reducing the support and influence of a movement that is larger than any one organization.
‘This right-wing offensive not only puts Patrisse, her child and her loved ones in harm’s way, it also continues a tradition of terror by white supremacists against Black activists.
Whitlock had his account blocked at 4pm on Friday, he told DailyMail.com
‘All Black activists know the fear these malicious and serious actions are meant to instill: the fear of being silenced, the trauma of being targeted, the torture of feeling one’s family is exposed to danger just for speaking out against unjust systems.’ They concluded: ‘We have seen this tactic of terror time and again, but our movement will not be silenced.’ Cullors’ new Los Angeles home was first reported by celebrity property site The Dirt, and raised eyebrows for being in an overwhelmingly white district. Cullors’ critics accused her of turning her back on the people she was supposed to be fighting for. Her new three bedroom, three bathroom house is in Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles – a largely white district. In her new zip code, 88 per cent of residents are white and 1.8 per cent black, according to the census.
Whitlock’s original tweet, on Friday morning, was removed by Twitter for ‘violating rules’
‘I find it hypocritical,’ said Jason Whitlock, a black sports journalist, of her decision to live in a largely white neighborhood. ‘There is so much hypocrisy. She’s acting like a capitalist.’ Whitlock said BLM founders like Cullors were ‘making millions of dollars off the backs of these dead black men who they wouldn’t spit on if they were on fire and alive.’ Whitlock on Friday morning tweeted a link to The Dirt’s story about Cullors’ new home, and had his Twitter account blocked on Friday evening. Twitter told DailyMail.com that his account was locked for having ‘violated the Twitter Rules on private information’. There was no explanation of how linking to the Dirt.com story revealed personal information as neither the story, nor Whitlock’s tweet, listed an address – and the purchase also was discussed widely elsewhere on Twitter and reported throughout the press. After the news broke of her Los Angeles home, The New York Post reported on Saturday that Cullors had also bought three other homes in recent years, at a total cost of around $3 million. Cullors and her partner also purchased a ‘custom ranch’ on 3.2 acres in Conyers, Georgia last year for $415,000.
That residence comes complete with its own pool and airplane hangar. Additionally, the publication claims that property records show Cullors has bought two other Los Angeles homes in recent years. In 2016, she is said to have paid $510,000 for a three-bedroom home in Inglewood. In 2018, Cullors added another home to her property portfolio, by laying down $590,000 for a four-bedroom home in South L.A., the Post says. The Post reports that Cullors was also ‘eyeing property at the ultra-exclusive Albany resort outside Nassau in the Bahamas where Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods have homes.’ The publication didn’t cite sources for its information. Cullors’ new Los Angeles home is described in the real estate listing as having ‘a vast great room with vaulted and beamed ceilings’. The realtors write that the large back yard is ‘ideal for entertaining or quietly contemplating cross-canyon vistas framed by mature trees’. The house is only 20 miles from her childhood home in Van Nuys, but is a world away. In her 2018 memoir, she tells of being raised by a single mother with her three siblings in ‘an impoverished neighborhood’, where she lived ‘in a two-story, tan-colored building where the paint was peeling and where there is a gate that does not close properly and an intercom system that never works.’
Cullors’ new home has high ceilings and a sliding door leading out to the tree-filled yard
The light-filled and airy home is just 20 miles from where she grew up, but a world away in style
The property features its own guest cabin (right) which the realtor says could serve as an office
Cullors’ expansive new home boasts of canyon views and calm amid the trees
Cullors began BLM alongside Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin. Garza and Tometi are no longer involved in BLM. Cullors, who married Janaya Khan, a gender non-conforming leader of BLM in Toronto, in 2016, has been in high demand since her 2018 memoir became a best-seller. In October she published her follow-up, Abolition. She also works as a professor of Social and Environmental Arts at Arizona’s Prescott College, and in October 2020 signed a sweeping deal with Warner Bros. The arrangement is described as a multi-year and wide-ranging agreement to develop and produce original programming across all platforms, including broadcast, cable and streaming. ‘As a long time community organizer and social justice activist, I believe that my work behind the camera will be an extension of the work I’ve been doing for the last twenty years,’ she said, in a statement obtained by Variety.
‘I look forward to amplifying the talent and voices of other black creatives through my work.’
Some critics argued that living in a million-dollar home was at odds with her social justice mission. Vallejo for Social Justice, a movement that describes itself as ‘Abolition + Socialist collective in the struggle for liberation, self-determination, & poor, working class solidarity,’ said it was an ill-judged flaunting of wealth. ‘We’re talking generational wealth off of the deaths & struggle of Black folks here,’ they tweeted. ‘Justice Teams Network & BLM founder paid $1.4 million dollars for a home. ‘This past week we bought a cot for our unhoused Black elder friend to keep him off the ground.’ One LGBTQ activist described BLM as ‘a racket’. Author and activist Andy Ngo tweeted: ‘Cullors identifies as a communist & advocates for the abolishment of capitalism.’ Paul Joseph Watson, a British YouTube host, said she chose to live in ‘one of the whitest areas of California’. Another Twitter user called Cullors a ‘fraud’ an said her brand of ‘Marxism’ apparently included buying a $1.4 million house.
BLM is currently cleft by deep divisions over leadership and funding. The organization raised $90 million last year, the AP has reported, but the organization’s finances are opaque – a fact that has sparked criticism, even among local BLM chapters. Cullors’ co-founders have left, and last summer Cullors assumed leadership of the Black Lives Matter Global Network – the national group that oversees the local chapters of the loosely-arranged movement. Cullors’ move has not been universally welcomed, Politico reported in October. Local organizers told Politico they saw little or no money and were forced to crowdfund to stay afloat. Some organizers say they were barely able to afford gas or housing. BLM’s Global Network filters its donations through a group called Thousand Currents, Insider reported in June – which made it even more complicated to trace the cash. Solome Lemma, executive director of Thousand Currents, told the site: ‘Donations to BLM are restricted donations to support the activities of BLM.’ Last month AP reported that BLM brought in $90 million in donations last year, leading to Michael Brown Sr. to join other Black Lives Matter activists demanding $20 million from the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. Brown, whose son Michael Brown Jr., was killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 says he and his advocacy group have been short-changed by the larger BLM organization. ‘Why hasn’t my family’s foundation received any assistance from the movement?’ Brown asked in a statement.
Minneapolis cops arrest at least 60 as they clash with protesters for a third night after the boarded-up home of cop Kimberly Potter who shot Daunte Wright dead was targeted
The third night of Daunte Wright protests turned violent as demonstrators clashed with police in Minneapolis while Portland’s police union building was set on fire during the riot. At least 60 people were arrested at protests in Portland, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago overnight on Tuesday. Curfews had been in place for Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Crystal, Columbia Heights, New Hope and Maple Grove from 10pm local time, but had done little to stem the demonstrators. In Portland, at least 100 people descended on the Portland police union headquarters in North Portland where they set the building ablaze, shot fireworks and locked traffic – prompting police to declare a riot for the second night running. Footage shows the Portland Police Association engulfed in flames before fire crews arrived to try and extinguish the blaze.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, about 90 minutes before the 10pm local time curfew deadline, police declared protests outside the Brooklyn Center police station to be an unlawful assembly; pepper spray and flash bombs were used by officers in an attempt to disperse the crowd while demonstrators used umbrellas as shields. Demonstrators began gathering again Tuesday at the city’s heavily guarded police headquarters, now ringed by concrete barriers and a tall metal fence, and where police in riot gear and National Guard soldiers stood watch. More than a 1,000 protestors had arrived by early evening. The protests turned violent over the death of Daunte Wright, a black man killed by veteran cop Kimberly Potter. Her home was barricaded Tuesday, with officers posted inside, as a group of protesters gathered at fences surrounding it. Wright’s killing, just 10 miles from the scene of George Floyd’s death last May in Minneapolis, led to unrest in Minnesota and nationwide. The trial of Derek Chauvin, the first of four police officers charged in Floyd’s death, is ongoing in the city.
Published: 23:32 EDT, 11 April 2021 | Updated: 09:11 EDT, 12 April 2021
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets as looting and violent protests raged in a Minneapolis suburb overnight after officers shot dead a 20-year-old black man during a traffic stop less than 10 miles from where George Floyd was killed.
The National Guard was called in and a curfew was imposed to quell angry demonstrations over the shooting death of Daunte Wright on Sunday in the Brooklyn Center neighborhood.
The unrest came just hours before the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering George Floyd, was set to resume in a courtroom on Monday.
Police have released few details about the fatal shooting. They said officers tried to arrest Wright after pulling him and his girlfriend over for a traffic violation at about 2pm on Sunday before realizing he had an outstanding warrant.
Officers say that as they tried to arrest him, Wright got back in his car and drove off. An officer fired at the vehicle, striking Wright, but he continued driving for several blocks before hitting another car.
Police have not said if Wright was armed or explained yet why they opened fire.
Wright’s mother says he called her in the moments before to say police had pulled him over for having air fresheners dangling from his rear-view mirror. It is illegal in Minnesota to have anything hanging from a rear-view mirror.
He was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash and his girlfriend, who was a passenger in the car, sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
Перевод первого абзаца из моего ЖЖ. Заголовок мой.
Умеют в Америце отдыхать, что ни говори. Соблюдать дистанцию тоже наловчились.
Полиция применила слезоточивый газ и резиновые пули, когда грабежи и насильственные протесты бушевали в пригороде Миннеаполиса этой ночью. Полицейские застрелили 20-летнего чернокожего мужчину, остановив его машину для проверки. Это произошло менее чем в 10 милях от того места, где был убит Джордж Флойд.Была вызвана Национальная гвардия, и был введен комендантский час, чтобы подавить демонстрации толпы. Убитого полицией, в данном случае нет никаких сомнений, в отличие от случая с Флойдом, звали Даунт Райт. Он был застрелен в воскресенье в районе Бруклин-Центра.Беспорядки начались всего за несколько часов до того, как в понедельник в зале суда должен был возобновиться суд над Дереком Шовеном, бывшим полицейским Миннеаполиса, обвиняемым в убийстве Джорджа Флойда. Полиция обнародовала несколько подробностей о смертельной стрельбе.
Они сказали, что офицеры попытались арестовать Райта после того, как остановили машину с ним и его подругой за нарушение правил дорожного движения около 2 часов дня в воскресенье, а потом увидели, что он находится под ордером на арест.Полицейские говорят, что, когда они пытались арестовать его, Райт вернулся в свою машину и уехал. Офицер выстрелил в машину, ранив Райта, но тот проехал еще несколько кварталов, прежде чем врезался в другую машину.Полиция пока не сказала, был ли Райт вооружен, и не объяснила, почему они открыли огонь.Мать Райта говорит, что он позвонил ей за несколько минут до этого, чтобы сказать, что полиция задержала его за то, что у него были освежители воздуха, свисающие с зеркала заднего вида. В Миннесоте запрещено вешать что-либо на зеркало заднего вида.Он был объявлен мертвым на месте аварии, а его подруга, которая была пассажиром в машине, получила травмы, не угрожающие жизни.
Head of NYC BLM chapter calls for probe into organization’s co-founder as it’s revealed ‘she has spent $3MILLION on FOUR luxury homes’
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, 37, recently bought a plush property in Topanga Canyon in a tony area of Los Angeles for $1.4 million
She also bought three other homes in the past five years, the NY Post reports
The head of New York City’s BLM chapter is now calling for an investigation into the organization’s finances, asking how much Cullors has contributed to charity
BLM brought in $90 million in donations last year, it emerged in March
The head of New York City’s Black Lives Matter chapter is calling for an independent investigation into the organization’s finances after it was revealed a co-founder snapped up a $1.4 million home in a ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood.
Patrisse Cullors, 37, who is a co-founder of BLM and self-professed ‘trained Marxist’, recently purchased a plush property in Topanga Canyon complete with a separate guest house and an expansive back yard.
Chicago suburb to be first in US to pay reparations to black residents who will be offered $25,000 towards home ownership so long as they or their relatives lived there between 1919 and 1969 – and they’ll use tax on legal marijuana to pay for it
Chicago suburb Evanston could become first to offer black residents reparations
The City Council committed to utilize tax revenue collected from sales of recreational cannabis to support reparations with pledge of $10M over 10 years
Evanston officials are expected to vote on March 22 about whether the first $400,000 will be dedicated to addressing housing needs
Under this portion of the program, residents would get $25,000 to use toward homeownership, home improvement and mortgage assistance
In order to qualify, residents must have lived in Evanston between 1919 to 1969
Residents can also qualify if they are direct descendant of a black person who lived in Evanston between 1919 to 1969 and suffered discrimination in housing
Some feel reparations will only go so far and systemic racism in policy needs to be addressed
A Chicago suburb is on its way to becoming the first in the country to fund reparations for its black residents with a pledge of $10million over 10 years, but some say it isn’t enough.
Evanston’s reparations fund, established in 2019, is focused on housing inequities, using a 3 per cent tax on recreational marijuana sales to help black residents with homeownership, including mortgage assistance and funding for home improvements.
In November, a Reparations Fund was created and adopted as part of the city’s 2020 budget. The City Council committed to utilize tax revenue collected from sales of recreational cannabis to support reparations in Evanston with a pledge of $10million over 10 years.
However, some residents believe that more work still needs to be done.
‘Reparations is the most appropriate legislative response to the historic practices and the contemporary conditions of the Black community. And although many of the anti-Black policies have been outlawed, many remain embedded in policy, including zoning and other government practices,’ Robin Rue Simmons, an alderman in Evanston, who introduced the legislation, told NBC News.
Chicago’s suburb, Evanston, could become the first in the country to fund reparations for its black residents with a pledge of $10million over 10 years after Robin Simmons (pictured) proposed the legislation
In November, a Reparations Fund was created as part of the city’s 2020 budget. The City Council committed to utilize tax revenue collected from sales of recreational cannabis to support reparations in Evanston (aerial view)
Evanston officials are expected to vote on March 22 about whether the first $400,000 will be dedicated to addressing housing needs
‘We are in a time in history where this nation more broadly has not only the will and awareness of why reparations is due, but the heart to advance it,’ Simmons said. Evanston officials are expected to vote on March 22 about whether the first $400,000 will be dedicated to addressing housing needs. Under this portion of the program, residents would get $25,000 to use toward homeownership, home improvement and mortgage assistance. In order to qualify, residents must have lived in Evanston between 1919 to 1969. Residents can also qualify if they are the direct descendant of a black person who lived in Evanston between 1919 to 1969 and suffered discrimination in housing. During that time period, many Evanston banks refused to lend money to black people to buy homes on certain blocks and real estate brokers practiced informal racial zoning that only allowed black residents to live in a section of west Evanston.
In other parts of the US, Evanston is being used as a model for other cities to move forward with reparations. Professor Edwin Driver, 96, shared his story about arriving in Amherst in 1948 as one of the first black teachers hired at a flagship state university in the country. But the 23-year-old sociology instructor at what would become the University of Massachusetts Amherst says he was denied pay raises for decades, despite being one of its most published professors. Driver and his wife, who was from India, also encountered roadblocks trying to buy a house in the mostly white college town. Their three children faced racism from neighbors and school officials alike. ‘There’s a lot of people in Amherst that have not gotten a proper share of things,’ the now professor emeritus said at his home in nearby South Hadley on Wednesday.
In other parts of the US, Evanston is being used as a model for cities to move forward with reparations. Professor Edwin Driver (pictured), 96, shared his story about arriving in Amherst in 1948 and being denied pay raises for decades
Driver, who was a 23-year-old sociology instructor at what would become the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said: ‘I ended up being the lowest paid professor in the department, but also its most productive’
‘I ended up being the lowest paid professor in the department, but also its most productive.’ Driver and other current and former black residents may one day be compensated for their hardships. Amherst, some 90 miles from Boston, is among hundreds of communities and organizations across the country seeking to provide reparations to black people. They range from the state of California to cities like Providence, Rhode Island, religious denominations like the Episcopal Church and prominent colleges like Georgetown University in Washington. The efforts, some of which have been underway for years, have gained momentum in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd last May. President Joe Biden has even expressed support for creating a federal commission to study black reparations, a proposal that’s languished for decades in Congress.
Kamm Howard, co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, said the wide-ranging approaches could provide models for a national reparations program. He’s also not surprised Amherst, long a liberal bastion, is tackling the issue. ‘It validates that every community in America, no matter the size, is a microcosm of the broader problem,’ Howard said. ‘You’re going to find these things, if you dig.’ Amherst’s effort started with a petition launched last summer by two white yoga instructors, which led to a town council-approved resolution in December committing Amherst to a ‘path of remedy’ for black residents ‘injured or harmed by discrimination and racial injustice’. Michele Miller and Matthew Andrews, who led the petition effort as co-founders of the group Reparations for Amherst, said they wanted to provide something ‘tangible and healing’ for local black families amid nationwide protests and turmoil. They argue that Amherst, a college town of nearly 38,000 residents, didn’t become more than 75 per cent white and just 5 per cent black by accident.
For decades, restrictive housing policies prevented Black families from purchasing homes in desirable parts of town, according to Miller and Andrews’ research. Black people were also shut out of jobs and educational opportunities at UMass Amherst, one of the state’s largest and most prominent institutions. As a result, the median income for Amherst’s white families is more than two times that of Black families, and more than half its black population lives below the poverty line. ‘Amherst likes to think of itself as progressive, but that idealism isn’t always borne out,’ Andrews said. ‘The economic and social disparities are clear.’ Kathleen Anderson, a former president of the Amherst NAACP chapter, said she’s encouraged that white residents initiated the reparations effort. But the next step needs to come from the black community, she said. Anderson and other black residents are taking part in virtual conversations this spring to talk about what reparations should look like.
Kathleen Anderson (pictured), a former president of the Amherst NAACP chapter, said she’s encouraged that white residents initiated the reparations effort. Anderson and other black residents are taking part in virtual conversations about what reparations should look like
A former school committee member, Anderson would like to see the process address a broader, systemic need, such as racial disparities in the public schools. Black teachers, she said, have complained of racist harassment and hostile work environments for years
A former school committee member, Anderson would like to see the process address a broader, systemic need, such as racial disparities in the public schools. Black teachers, she said, have complained of racist harassment and hostile work environments for years. ‘Reparations can be more than a check,’ Anderson said. Amilcar Shabazz, a professor of Africana studies at UMass, said he’d like to see better recognition of the local black community in town landmarks and monuments. Celebrated authors Chinua Achebe and James Baldwin both taught at UMass but aren’t recognized anywhere in town, he noted. ‘We have a lot to talk about,’ he said. ‘I wonder if the town is ready for this. Can these scars be healed? Can you put a price tag on trauma?’ Driver believes the town’s higher education institutions – UMass Amherst, Amherst College and Hampshire College – should be part of the solution because of the role they’ve played in the town’s racial divide. By the late 1960s, some 20 years after Driver was hired, UMass Amherst had just six black faculty members and 36 Black students in a student body of nearly 17,000, according to university historical records.
Black students were also excluded from living on campus at nearby Amherst College during his early years in town, Driver recalled. The three institutions expressed support for the town’s effort in separate statements to The Associated Press, but stopped short of committing any resources. Driver said he’d also personally like to be compensated for years of being underpaid. He earned tenure in 1954, but remained the lowest paid professor in his department until the 1970s, when a new department head sought to rectify the imbalance. ‘We are in a position of having to admit that Driver is an extremely impressive professional with an outstanding scholarly record whom we have not sufficiently recognized locally,’ wrote Thomas Wilkinson to other school officials in 1970. Driver continued to lead a distinguished career. The graduate of Temple and the University of Pennsylvania has written numerous books and is currently at work on another. He served as a visiting professor at UCLA and other top colleges.
He even had stints as a United Nations advisor in Iran and consulted and taught in France, India and elsewhere. Throughout, Driver remained firmly rooted at UMass, where he retired in 1987. ‘If reparations could make up the lost salary, I would appreciate it,’ Driver said. ‘I would enjoy it. I would celebrate it, but I don´t think that´s going to ever happen.’ He hopes UMass can at least acknowledge the contributions pioneering Black professors made.
Driver already has a building in mind: the historic Old Chapel where his first office was located, down in the basement by the furnace, in a place where the janitor didn’t even bother to empty the trash bins. ‘If they would rename that after me,’ Driver said. ‘That would be the ideal reparation.’
Seattle mayor set to approve 18 per cent cut in police budget after more than 100 cops left, the city was overrun by rioters and BLM demanded a slash in spending in the wake of George Floyd’s death
Seattle’s mayor is set to approve an 18 per cent cut to the police department’s budget after the city was overrun by Black Lives Matter protesters, a precinct was occupied by demonstrators and there was a surge in violent crime.
The proposed cuts, which fall short of the 50 per cent reduction that was demanded by activists, prompted police union chiefs to warn that 911 response times would be longer.
The anti-police backlash stirred up by the George Floyd protests and the formation of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHOP) has led to a rash of resignations and retirements by officers – the largest exodus in almost a decade.
A report last month said that at least 110 police officers have either quit or retired from the force of around 1,300 cops this year, according to KIRO-TV.
The Seattle City Council voted on Monday to shrink the budget of the Seattle Police Department by almost one-fifth, which includes cuts to overtime and training, KING-TV reported.
Mayor Jenny Durkan is set to sign the budget into law next week, just months after she said Seattle had seen a 525 per cent rise in violent crime because of the CHOP zone.
Dozens of vacant jobs in the department will not be filled and 911 dispatchers and parking enforcement will be moved out of police jurisdiction.
The SPD’s operating budget in 2020 was slightly more than $409million, but next year’s will shrink to $360million.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (seen above on August 11) is expected to approve a new citywide budget that includes an 18 per cent cut to appropriations for the Seattle Police Department
Six people are gunned down in Brooklyn, man is shot dead point-blank in Harlem and ANOTHER commuter is shoved onto subway tracks as city violence spirals out of control
At least five people were shot in Brooklyn on Sunday night at the end of a violent weekend that saw a man robbed and shot dead in Harlem on Saturday afternoon, and yet another subway traveler pushed onto the subway tracks.
The subway passenger, 29, was on the train with his girlfriend at around 11:30am on Saturday when a man who had been sleeping woke up and started shouting at them.
The couple got off the train at Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, but the man followed them.PUBLICITÉ
He then shoved the man onto the tracks, leaving him to scramble to safety. The victim was unharmed.
Police are searching for the black man (left) who attacked the man in a blue jacket on Saturday
Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, smiles with Silver Spoons star Ricky Schroder after his release from jail and thanks him for helping raise $2M bond in campaign with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell
Kenoshagunman Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, who is charged with killing two people during a Black Lives Matter protest, posted $2million bail today and was released from custody.
Rittenhouse is accused of fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz during a demonstration August 25 that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha. He posted bond through his attorney at about 2pm, Kenosha County Sheriff’s Sgt. David Wright said.
Former NYPD Blue actor Ricky Schroeder and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell helped stump up the cash to free him along with other supporters.
Attorney Lin Wood shared a photo of Rittenhouse alongside Schroeder just hours after he was free and captioned it ‘FREE AT LAST!!!’
She also tweeted: ‘Just off phone with Kyle. With tears in my eyes, I listened as he expressed thanks to The People for your prayers, donations & support. He prayed every day & night & said God lifted him up every time he fell. Kyle is a hero. So are his supporters. Keep him in your prayers.’
Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, told police he was attacked while he was guarding a business and that he fired in self-defense.
Rittenhouse, center, smiles alongside attorney John Pierce (left) and actor Ricky Schroeder (right)
