De Blasio the Critic Turns NYPD Defender to Fight Budget Cut (1)

For a self-styled police reformer running New York City amid the most sweeping civil-rights protests in half a century, Mayor Bill de Blasio finds himself in the odd position of defending the very department he pilloried to get himself elected.

De Blasio largely spared the NYPD from cuts in the $89.3 billion Covid-wracked budget he suggested in April, trimming the department’s spending by $16 million while slashing summer youth programs by $175 million. But that was before tens of thousands of people poured into the city’s streets to protest police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s killing on May ...