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A series of Tweets from Emily Galvin-Almanza
1: As a public defender, whenever I got a case that was especially, stupidly made up (think someone arrested for dealing drugs who was at home with no drugs, money, scales, paraphernalia, or baggies on them) the first thing I checked was the cop’s schedule.
2: Inevitably - seriously ask, like, any defense attorney about this - when you got a really stupid arrest, it would be within an hour or so of the cop’s scheduled shift. Shift ends at 6 PM? This really bad arrest would be at, like, 5:30.
3: Why? Well, because processing an arrest takes time, but it’s also really easy. So you can make time-and-a-half for sitting in the precinct typing up some papers and waiting to talk to a DA. This REALLY adds up.
4: Let’s not forget that the end-of-shift arrest isn’t just an inconvenience - arrests cost people jobs, homes, family unity, sometimes unraveling entire lives. Some of these cops are making close to half a million dollars a year on the backs of the poor and innocent.
5: So when we look at police budgets that are bloated like this… it’s not just military equipment and chemical weapons. It’s public officials lining their pockets with taxpayer money by doing terrible things to the people they’re supposed to protect.
6: And uhh it’s a lot - A LOT - of the taxpayers’ money. [Image of a graph showing exponential police spending compared to social programs.]
7: So when you hear “defund the police” and you get worried about a world where there’s no one protecting the public, please remember that EVERY MODEL for doing this envisions a world where someone is on the other end of the phone when you call 911.
