Politics

LA City Council Leader Criticized For Having LAPD Security Detail While Advocating For Department Budget Cuts

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The Los Angeles City Council president is facing criticism for using police officers as personal security while calling for the department to be defunded.

Democratic Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez used LAPD officers as security for the past two months until journalists began asking her questions, Spectrum News 1 initially reported.

“It’s kind of ironic. Here she is demanding $150 million be reallocated from the police budget, but yet she has security at her house by the Los Angeles Police Department,” said Det. Jamie McBride, director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, Spectrum reported.

McBride estimated more than $100,000 in taxpayer funding was spent providing security to Martinez.

“Clearly, it’s an abuse of power and abuse of position,” McBride told Fox Business. “When you take a car away from patrolling the streets, that car could have been on patrol preventing a violent crime from occurring, could have responded to somebody’s call for help, a whole slew of things could have happened with that one car.”

Today we intrdcd a motion to cut funding to the LAPD, as we reset our priorities in the wake of the murder of #GeorgeFloyd & the #BlackLivesMatter call that we all support to end racism. This is just one small step. We cannot talk about change, we have to be about change. pic.twitter.com/hR1tBAqwHP

— Nury Martinez (@CD6Nury) June 3, 2020

She authorized police presence at her home after receiving death threats toward herself and her daughter, said Martinez’s spokesman Rick Coca, according to Spectrum. The police detail started on April 4 as a 24/7 assignment, but was changed on May 9 to 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. shifts with late-night patrol check-ins. By the time Spectrum contacted her office, the detail had been canceled.

“After death threats to the Council President and her daughter and safety concerns that began over a month ago, LAPD recommended that placing a detail at her home was the best course of action to ensure the safety of the Council President and her family,” he said.

Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti plans to cut up to $150 million that was part of a planned increase in the police department’s budget, Spectrum reported.

The Police Protective League said budget cuts would be the “quickest way to make our neighborhoods more dangerous,” Fox Business reported. “Cutting the LAPD budget means longer responses to 911 emergency calls, officers calling for back-up won’t get it, and rape, murder and assault investigations won’t occur or will take forever to initiate, let alone complete.”

The Los Angeles City Council and Martinez’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.