When our communities rose up to protest the police last summer, LAPD cracked down violently and arrested over 4,000 people. Almost immediately after, the city requested three reports to use LAPD’s violence to propose “reforms” that will increase police resources and powers. Throughout history, politicians have responded to LAPD’s crackdowns against critics with expansions of police resources rather than addressing the roots of the criticism. This same cycle of police crackdowns followed by police expansion followed the Ferguson uprising, the 1992 uprising, and the Watts Rebellion.
All three reports are written from LAPD’s perspective. The first is LAPD self-assessing itself. The second is the National Police Foundation bolstering LAPD’s reform proposals, paid for with $350,000 from a secret donor. The third was written by Gerald Chaleff, an LAPD insider with a three-decade history of being hired to propose the same pro-police reforms over and over again. LAPD puts the price tag of Chaleff’s reform proposals alone at $59 million.
LAPD currently takes over half the city’s yearly discretionary budget for its violence, and it spent $50 million just on overtime pay suppressing the protests. Now they’re trying to win more permanent resources. On April 23, LAPD released an Implementation Plan for these reforms released estimating they will require $67 MILLION IN NEW SPENDING:
- $53.1 million for new trainings, including $663,000 just on bullets to shoot at these protest trainings
- $4.1 million for a new bureau that will be charged with policing protests
- $2.4 million to hire officers who will engage “community members and leaders likely to organize and participate in First Amendment assemblies”
- $800,000 for surveillance technology including “software to analyze open-source internet and social media content to provide field operations with vetted and useable intelligence/information”
- $492,850 for a new record keeping system to track what they do at protests
- $492,000 for new policies on Field Jails for mass arrests of protestors
- $300,000 for “encrypted radios or another form of private communication”
- $300,000 for special glasses for police to wear at protests
- $230,000 (plus $30,000 recurring annual costs) for “counter drone technology”
- $125,000 for upgraded technology for the “shadow teams” that infiltrate protests as well as to “study potential new technology for use in public order policing operations”
- $120,000 to upgrade video recording and live video feed equipment for 17 helicopters
- $100,000 annually for “food that personnel can grab quickly and take with them”
- $99,428 to train drivers for buses and vans for mass arrests of protestors
None of this is what our communities braved LAPD violence last summer to demand. But police reform is a powerful industry, and they keep pushing this same scam! Moments like this are how LAPD keeps deflecting criticism and expanding their violence against the community. Going down that path again is the exact opposite of what our communities braved LAPD’s street violence last summer to demand: defunding the police.
WE NEED TO FIGHT BACK!
- Submit verbal comment at the Police Commission meeting on May 11 at 9:30 AM! Call 877-853-5257, ID # 289 225 944 or join https://lapd.zoom.us/s/289225944.
- Share this information with others! Use either this page or SHARE THIS PDF.
- Help organize against these reforms! Attend the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition’s weekly Tuesday 6pm meetings, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @stoplapdspying, or email stoplapdspying@gmail.com.