LA mayor cuts $150m from cops’ budget and gives it to communities of color instead – declaring he is committed to ‘making this moment not just a moment’

Story by Daily Mail
By Ryan Fahey for mailonline

The mayor of Los Angeles has vowed to cut $150million from the city's police budget and give it to communities of color.

Thousands took to the streets in both Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles yesterday, where Mayor Eric Garcetti vowed to redirect $150million toward black community health and education from the Los Angeles Police Department's budget.

Garcetti took a knee while praying with faith leaders at one protest outside police headquarters early yesterday. However, later in the day, hundreds gathered outside the mayor's house to demonstrate.

During a press conference, Garcetti said he was 'committed to making this moment not just a moment. It is time to move our rhetoric towards action to end racism in our city.'

In addition to the sizable redirection of funds, Garcetti told reporter officers will be required to report misconduct going forward and to intervene when witnessing displays of excessive force.

By July, he said, a LA Department of Civil and Human Rights and an Office of Racial Equality will be up and running.

LA City Council President Nury Martinez tweeted a full copy of the planned motion last night.

'Today we intrduced a motion to cut funding to the LAPD, as we reset our priorities in the wake of the murder of #GeorgeFloyd & the #BlackLivesMatter call that we all support to end racism [sic],' the tweet reads.

'This is just one small step. We cannot talk about change, we have to be about change.'

Thousands took to the streets of Los Angeles in peaceful protests yesterday, and smaller demonstrations dotted other California cities.

Authorities renewed overnight curfews in the city and other areas that have seen clashes with police and groups of thieves wreck hundreds of businesses.

Elsewhere in the city, police cordons backed by National Guard troops kept a tight watch on marchers in Hollywood, where hundreds were arrested a day earlier, and at a crowd of thousands at City Hall.

More than 10,000 people have been arrested in protests decrying racism and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death, according to an Associated Press tally of known arrests across the US.

Los Angeles has had more than a quarter of the national arrests, followed by New York, Dallas and Philadelphia.

Many of the arrests have been for low-level offenses such as curfew violations and failure to disperse. Hundreds were arrested on burglary and looting charges.