Report: LA Councilman Who Voted to Cut Police Funding Called Cops to Home 8 Times Since April

A Los Angeles councilman who voted to cut the city’s police budget by $150 million allegedly called police to his home several times since April.

Fox 11 reporter Bill Melugin tweeted a link Friday to a public information records request that reportedly showed Councilman Mike Bonin “called LAPD to his home 8 times since 4/4/20, including to provide extra patrols and protection from peaceful protesters at his house”:

In a subsequent tweet, Melugin said it was not him who filed the request, but someone else:

Bonin, whose website described him as a “Progressive Problem-Solver,” later denied the accusations and said he had never asked officers to patrol his home:

Following Bonin’s denial, Melugin tweeted that “Multiple LAPD sources say they would not generate their own calls for a simple patrol”:

In a Twitter thread, Bonin claimed when protesters showed up to his house, “I specifically asked LAPD NOT to send anyone.”

“This is a cute tactic to try to silence or intimidate a public official who is standing up to the police union. It ain’t working,” Bonin concluded.

The Los Angeles City Council voted in June to study ways to cut the LAPD’s budget by $100 million to $150 million, according to ABC 7.

The report continued:

The council voted 11-3 with Councilmen Paul Koretz, Joe Buscaino and John Lee dissenting. Although community activists presented their idea for more dramatic reductions in law enforcement spending, the city’s Budget and Finance Committee sent the proposal to the full council.

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The People’s Budget LA proposal was developed by a coalition of organizations led by Black Lives Matter’s Los Angeles chapter, and it seeks to have the LAPD’s proposed budget cut by 90%, with the funds allocated to social services, such as mental health and housing. LAPD’s proposed operating budget for the next fiscal year is about $1.86 billion.

“I think we owe it to Los Angeles to come up with a better and a smarter way of doing public safety and emergency response, and I think this motion is the first step in doing that,” Bonin said at the time.

“It’s not about random slashing and cuts. It’s about re-prioritizing and … to invest in neighborhood safety, and there’s ways to do that,” he concluded.