Bill de Blasio vows to defund to New York Police

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio knuckled under to protesters Sunday and promised to cut funding to “New York’s Finest.”

Just two days after speaking skeptically of demands by Black Lives Matter and other protesters to defund the police, Mr. de Blasio agreed to start doing so, though he gave few specifics.

“We’re committed to seeing a shift of funding to youth services, to social services, that will happen literally in the course of the next three weeks, but I’m not going to go into detail because it is subject to negotiation and we want to figure out what makes sense,” the mayor said, the New York Times reported Sunday.

He said, according to the Times, that the details of the funding cuts would be worked out before the city’s July 1 budget deadline.

New York City spends about $6 billion of its $90 billion budget on policing.

Hundred of former and current de Blasio staffers had signed a letter demanding $1 billion in police cuts.

Mr. de Blasio was booed off the stage at an anti-police rally Thursday and many protesters turned their backs on him.

Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, was doubtful Sunday that Mr. de Blasio would stick to his current stance.

“I know he just recently said that he wasn’t going to that,” Mr. Mullins said, the Times reported. “I guess, let’s see what he says on Monday and what his next decision is going to be.”