The Metropolitan Transit Authority, New York City’s transit agency, unveiled a plan to hire 500 additional police officers in 2019. At the time, Gov. Andrew Cuomo praised the plan at a press conference, citing fare evasion and violence against M.T.A. employees.
However, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wasn’t happy. She joined her “defund the police” allies in signing a letter urging Cuomo to scrap the plan.
Now that letter has come back to haunt her.
“My New York colleagues and I wrote a letter to @NYGovCuomo asking him to help put an end to MTA’s dangerous policing policy,” she tweeted in December 2019, along with photos of the letter.
“Punishing the poor does not create a safer environment. Instead it threatens the very foundation of our community,” she said. Of course, she failed to address plans for deterrence, rather than punishment.
Take a look —
Punishing the poor does not create a safer environment. Instead it threatens the very foundation of our community. That is why my New York colleagues and I wrote a letter to @NYGovCuomo asking him to help put an end to MTA's dangerous policing policy. Check it out here: pic.twitter.com/g1AOWHA7Lh
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) December 17, 2019
A few years later and New York City is still reeling from a violent subway shooting, when 10 innocent commuters suffered gunshot wounds.
Still, some Ocasio-Cortez allies have defended the letter.
“Police budgets have never been higher, and Mayor Adams increased numbers of police in the weeks before the shooting,” one signatory, state Sen. Jessica Ramos, said according to the New York Post.
“If we’re going to look back years into the past, let’s look at the austerity that allowed so many people to fall through the cracks.”
Never mind that the letter was about a very specific plan for staffing, not about overall budgets for police departments.
State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, another signatory, claims to have taken issue with the police plan for devoting too many resources too petty crimes, like fare evasion.
“I stand with MTA workers and want to focus police on violent crime against workers and riders, rather than on petty crime. That was the goal of the letter and I stand by it,” she said, according to the paper.
In June 2020, she tweeted, “We must defund the police.” Apparently, she’s changed her tune.
Since the shooting, Ocasio-Cortez has publicly remained silent on the letter.
The M.T.A. appears unmoved by the letter. M.T.A. representative Abbey Collins told the NY Post in February that the agency had already started taking applications for new officers.
However, the agency still has yet to hire the 500 officers, due to pandemic-era delays and budget problems.
Defund? Yes, the City Council must take steps to do this. Check in with your Councilperson!
— Jessica Ramos (@jessicaramosqns) June 9, 2020
The Horn editorial team