NYPD Commissioner ‘1,000 Percent’ Behind Shifting Police Funds to Other Programs

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea on Monday expressed support for diverting funds away from the police department and to other areas, like youth programs.

“To help the kids of our city, I’m 1,000% behind shifting some funding from the police to youth programs. It’s incumbent upon all of us to dig down and do what’s needed,” Shea said on Monday:

Shea’s statement follows Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) Sunday news conference, in which he announced the city would be “moving funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services.”

“The details will be worked out in the budget process in the weeks ahead,” the mayor explained, following widespread calls to defund police departments. “But I want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people.”

Violent protests have wreaked havoc on the city over the past two weeks, as rioters looted businesses, vandalized buildings and police vehicles and, in some cases, attacked police officers.

Meanwhile, violent crime in the Big Apple is continuing to climb.

As Breitbart News detailed:

Over the last month, for example, murder has jumped more than 94 percent compared to the same time last year. Burglaries — now that suspects can be freed with0ut paying bail — have increased almost 34 percent in the last month compared to 2019.

Grand larceny auto, whereby suspects likewise are freed now without having to pay bail, has also become the fastest growing crime in New York City.

In the last week, grand larceny auto has jumped nearly 90 percent, and over the last month, there have been nearly 70 percent more cases of grand larceny auto this year than there were at the same time last year.

Over 300 NYPD officers have been injured during the weeks of protests breaking out in the city.

“Well, you’ve had over 300 — I think about 320 — that have been injured, I think some in the hospital,” former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik said during an appearance on Fox News’s Justice with Judge Jeanine. “But there were over 300 injuries.”

“And the thing that scares me … I’m hearing close to 600 cops have either put in their papers or they’re talking to the [NYPD] about resigning or retiring,” he added.

Shea last week praised NYPD cops as they continue to face what he described as “danger, disrespect, and denigration” and blasted rioters as “a mob bent solely on taking advantage of a moment in American history, to co-opt the cause of equality that we all must uphold, to intentionally inflict chaos, mayhem, and injury just for the sake of doing so.”