Thread by @stoplapdspying

THREAD: You might have heard LAPD claim that their budget was cut by $150 million this summer. That’s a lie. They’re playing games with numbers. We're here to demystify and defund LAPD's budget, which is billions of dollars spent to stalk and brutalize our people.

LAPD got $1.733 billion in 2019-2020 and $1.721 for 2020-21. That means their funding was reduced by only $12 million. The $150 million number that police keep throwing around is the difference from their budget REQUEST (always a high number), not from any actual city budget.

Let’s use an analogy. Suppose LAPD requested $120 last year and we gave them $100. Then suppose they requested $120 again and we gave them $95. That’s a $5 reduction, but LAPD wants to call it a $25 reduction. That’s what their $150 million number is like.

Side note: LAPD requested $1.827 billion for 2021-2022. So they're quickly trying to reverse any "reduction" with a $106 million budget increase. City Council will vote on that proposal in June.

https://twitter.com/stoplapdspying/status/1331002609327435776

The $12 million cut means LAPD’s budget was reduced by only 0.7% from 2020 to 2021 – basically nothing, less than 1%, and they still take over half the city's unrestricted funds. But let’s see what stories police fed the press about that 0.7% cut.

In November, @kevrector quoted Chief Moore claiming that this 0.7% cut was a “tremendous challenge.” The same story also used the $150 million number and featured @LAPPL fearmongering about a “catastrophe for safety.” latimes.com/california/sto…

A few days later, @LeonardFiles and @anblanx claimed these cuts had “forced” LAPD to close a unit “responsible for the investigations into former USC physician George Tyndall, movie producer Harvey Weinstein, and adult film performer Ron Jeremy.” nbclosangeles.com/investigations…

Over scary footage of celebrities convicted of sexual offenses, @LeonardFiles told TV viewers that “Chief Moore says he has to immediately cut about 350 positions, a result of the $150 million of the defunding decision by City Council.” nbclosangeles.com/news/local/lap…

A few weeks later, @JonRegardie quoted Moore in a story titled “Dramatic Cost-Cutting Measures.” The story echoed police threats that this 0.7% budget cut would cause a spike in crime. This was all a coordinated push to manipulate us. lamag.com/citythinkblog/…

To put the $12 million reduction in perspective, just a few weeks before mustering the 0.7% cut, City Council approved $41 million in “incentive” bonuses for officers with college degrees. Shortly after, every LAPD officer also got a 4.5% salary increase. latimes.com/california/sto…

City Council reduced LAPD’s budget by 0.7% last summer, and police called this a catastrophe in order to hide how much we pay them to stalk, hunt, and kill our people. We pay more than 5100 police officers over $125k a year, more than 1900 over $150k.

Lying is what police do every day. For years, police lied in the Field Interview cards they use for data-mining, gang databases, and other surveillance. latimes.com/california/sto…

LAPD also lied for years about its use of facial recognition, claiming they never used the technology even though they ran it on our faces nearly 30,000 times since 2009, including for images from the George Floyd uprising. latimes.com/california/sto…

LAPD also lies in the Automated Field Data Reports that police fill out when they stop people. According to a recent @OIGLABOPC report, only 61% of these AFDRs were accurate. lapdpolicecom.lacity.org/102720/BPC_20-…

LAPD also lied when they proposed their 2020-21 budget, claiming the $1.83 billion they wanted was a budget reduction. In fact it was a $106 increase from last year and their largest budget ever, at a time of drastic revenue shortfalls! latimes.com/california/sto…

Why is LAPD so confident at pushing lies? For one, police lie every day when criminalizing us. Also, LAPD has over 40 staff working in a unit whose purpose is spreading propaganda: lapdonline.org/inside_the_lap…. We pay them to lie to us.

How much do we pay LAPD to lie to us? Well we don’t actually know because LAPDs keeps its full budget secret. At the same time this propaganda unit pushes lies in the media, they refuse to give a full accounting of their billion dollar budget requests. We believe this is illegal.

The bottom line is never trust what LAPD says, especially when they’re whining about money. Police will always fearmonger, always whine, and always make threats to choke more money from us. They’re pulling numbers out of their ass.

This thread comes from the #DefundSurveillance campaign we've been building with our comrades @freeradsorg, who noticed this LAPD lie about the $150 million "cut." Also thank you @EnaPropaganDa for the inspirational meme.