Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser blasted the D.C. Council’s proposal to cut funding from the city’s police force. After a approving a $15 million proposed budget cut, Bowser said that “they made the District less safe.”
“This reduction would result in a level of sworn officers that has not been seen in D.C. since the 1990s, with seemingly no analysis on the impact this cut would have on the deployment of officers, officer response times to calls for service, and on community and neighborhood safety,” Bowser wrote in a letter to the council.
“Fewer officers would protect a District population that has increased by more than 17%, and where calls for police service have increased by 21% in the last decade alone. These reductions will be felt across all eight wards,” she continued.
The council’s proposal would also move management of D.C. Public Schools’ Security to the school system instead of the city’s police force.
I have no idea why the council would again go back to a 1990 strategy. Keep in mind that D.C. Public Schools at one time managed the security contract. The D.C. Council, by law, moved it to MPD,” she said Wednesday.
The city council’s decision comes on the heels of Bowser’s plan to increase the city’s police force budget by nearly $50 million.
