Last night after midnight the New York City Council passed a new budget for the city despite calls from activists that the defunding of the NYPD didn’t go far enough. I am not going to pretend to know anything about the intricacies of doing the budget for one of the biggest cities in the world, but I do know that protesters wanted to see the NYPD budget defunded by at least 1 billion dollars, and the budget theoretically does that, but half that amount was just a result of moving the NYPD’s Department School Safety Division to the Department of Education. The entire point of defunding the police is to move those resources to other areas and this budget doesn’t do that.

Occupy City Hall started as a response to this budget so last night was a big night for the protest. It ultimately failed to get the results demanded, but a significant chunk of the NYPD’s budget was removed compared to de Blasio’s original budget and last night as hundreds of people gathered around a projector screen to watch the City Council vote, the vast majority of Council members, even the ones that voted yes on the budget, mentioned the protesters. They mentioned wanting to do more to improve the way NYC is policed and how this was just the beginning. So ultimately these protests are working and hopefully won’t stop any time soon. And Occupy City Hall is still there today.

I probably could have more to say about specific stuff that happened yesterday but I think I will just let the photos speak for themselves and there are a lot of them…

Click here to see my photos from the NYC budget deadline protest at Occupy City Hall. 

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