Elected officials are hearing the voices of millions of people around the world pleading for police departments to be defunded after the recent deaths of black men and women killed by police officers.
In response to civil unrest caused by excessive force and the over-militarization of officers, San Francisco Mayor London Breed is working with District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton to defund the city’s police department.
Money pulled from the department will be used to invest in the city’s black communities.
In a statement released by the San Francisco’s Mayor’s Office, obtained by the Mercury News, Breed said, “Reforms to any single system, such as the criminal justice system or the police department, must go in hand-in-hand with closing the gaps and ending the disparities that we know exist.
Walton, who leads the city’s largest community of black people, added, “In these times of continued systemic and systematic oppression of black people, we have to be innovative and strong with our solutions.”
