On June 30, 2020, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that New York City’s budget cuts to the police department were not sufficiently adequate, declaring that “defunding police means defunding police.”

“Defunding police means defunding police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education’s budget so the exact same police remain in schools,” the congresswoman remarked in a statement.

The defund the police meme has caused some debate in Democrat circles. Some Democrats believe that the phrase shouldn’t be taken literally and is only a slogan for police reforms.

“It does not mean counting overtime cuts as cuts, even as NYPD ignores every attempt by City Council to curb overtime spending and overspends on overtime anyways,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “If these reports are accurate, then these proposed ‘cuts’ to the NYPD budget are a disingenuous illusion. This is not a victory. The fight to defund policing continues.”

On June 30, the New York City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio came to a deal to slash $1 billion from the NYPD’s $6 billion budget.

“We’re acting on that call for justice. I believe it is our mission to redistribute resources to those who need them the most,” de Blasio stated, “This is real redistribution.”

Activists that agree with AOC’s radical anti-cop reforms said they won’t put up with any plan that merely reallocates money and does nothing to substantially gut police departments.

“No funny math. No budget musical chairs,” radical anti-law enforcement activists said in a letter on June 30 to the mayor and council. “We’ll know if you fought for our communities or whether you will let the NYPD continue to be treated as if they’re above the law, even in the budget.”

New York City is currently suffering from a $9 billion shortfall in revenue due to the Wuhan virus shutdowns.

New York is already an anti-gun state, with a ranking of 51^st place according to Guns & Ammo magazine.

Defunding the police will only make New York City less secure and leave New Yorkers with virtually no options left for security.