The president of the City Council of Los Angeles revealed herself as a major hypocrite this week after her call to significantly defund the L.A. Police Department. Nury Martinez (D), who's been leading the Council since January of this year, pledged to remove a staggering $150 million from the city's police budget, a move supported Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) and other Democratic city leaders.
The notion to abolish police or gut their budgets has spread like wildfire in recent days as elected leaders in local and federal government have literally been bowing to protesters and pledging to gut police budgets. Progressive officials in several blue cities like L.A., New York City, and Minneapolis have taken serious steps toward cutting back police forces or even eliminating them altogether. Agreeing to "Defund Police" has become the litmus test to determine whether liberal leaders are true allies of the Black Lives Matter moment. And as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey can attest, anything short of calling for the total dissolution of policing means you're not welcome.
Martinez pandered hard to the protesters' unhinged demands to end law enforcement, however, offering up huge amounts of the already stretched LAPD budget to the guillotine of social righteousness. What she did not mention, was that since April, she and her daughter had been under 24/7 security detail provided by the very same police department she vowed to defund. The Los Angeles Police Protective League estimated that the security detail may have cost the city taxpayers upwards of $100,000.
While one LA Councilmember was introducing a motion to cut $150 million in #LAPD funding, that official also had round-the-clock private security provided by the department at their home. @LAPPL calls it hypocrisy, adding it may have cost taxpayers around $100k. @SpecNews1SoCal pic.twitter.com/lrrRC65oj1
— Natalie Brunell (@natbrunell) June 8, 2020
Like many politicians, Martinez had received credible death threats and felt she needed the extra layer of protection a surveillance car and two police officers could provide. Seems logical enough, considering the terrifying notion of being threatened in a time where almost anyone can track down your vital information and whereabouts via the internet. Neighbors of Martinez confirmed that an LAPD police vehicle and officers had been on the street since May.
But now, as the lefty social justice demand du jour is to defund the police department and portray all cops as the bad guy, Martinez has had to cut her protective detail just to save face. That's right, rather than swallow the hypocrisy and continue the security measures she adopted to keep her and her family safe, she took a proverbial knee and ended the security watch. A spokesperson for Martinez said that the detail was cut because the security it was meant to provide became compromised by the reports of the Council president's hypocrisy.
During a discussion with the Valley Bureau of the LAPD, Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who backed Martinez's push to cut the police budget, told officers that the cut of $150 million from law enforcement was due to difficult circumstances facing the city.
"We have to look at every expenditure in the city," Rodriguez said, mentioning the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns as well as protests and riots in the city. But officers were not convinced by her explanation and questioned what other cuts the city council would consider.
"How many council members currently have a protection detail at their residence?" one officer asked. Rodriguez didn't know.
"Ok, if, maybe you find that out we can probably start by cutting those details, that’ll probably trim some of the budget," the officer continued.
In fact, there are many progressive leaders eager to satisfy the anti-cop crowd that have personal details coming out of the police budgets they've vowed the gut. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who suggested cutting $1 billion from the NYPD, enjoyed his security detail so much he directed them to courier his son back and forth to college during his freshman year. That expense came right out of the budget he now wants to cut.
Although employing a taxpayer funded chauffeur service for your teenage son is obviously an egregious abuse of resources, the fact is that public leaders need to be protected. There is a reason that details are provided for elected officials and their families as they navigate the choppy water of politics and governing. Cutting security details for politicians makes no more sense than cutting protection for citizens who need the police department.
Democratic politicians are scrambling to find the answers that will make the rabid, goal post shifting, liberal base love them again but cutting out the police and gutting their budgets puts the safety of every American at risk, including themselves.