Chicago’s current mayor, Brandon Johnson, was a fan of defunding the police before he ran for office.
Less than a month after Floyd’s death, the county commissioner from the West Side introduced a nonbinding resolution calling for the county to “redirect funds from policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement.” The “Justice for Black Lives” resolution was symbolic, but it overwhelmingly passed that July.
“A hundred years from now … the question will be, did we do everything in our power to stand up to systemic racism? Or did we flinch?” Johnson said as he addressed fellow commissioners before the vote. “This will give the county commissioners a road map for taking millions of waste spent on incarceration and policing and reinvesting it.”
The city did in fact cut police staffing by several hundred positions in 2021 (before…
