SJ Otto
Members of Project Justice ICT and Black Lives Matter confronted the Wichita City Council this Tuesday. They pushed to have the police budget reduced. The City Council paid no attention to them and they raised the police budget.
According to KWCH:
Several members of Project Justice ICT and Black Lives Matter spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, including Melissa Tovar Ohlson, who called for defunding the police.
Dale, another defunding spokesperson, advocated for arts. He said he is a homeless person.
“They criminalize homelessness,” he said.
He added that the system is Broken and the police are corrupt.
Alex Rickard said the city should put more money into social services.
“The police protect the bourgeoisie so the rich can maintain their power,” Rickard added. They keep classes in their place. They need to protect the public.”
He also suggested the city get rid of SROs, the police they have in the schools. Another suggestion he had was to for the city to spend more on developing an affordable taxi service rather than just sitting outside the bars and arresting people for DUI.
There were some people speaking in favor of the police. In all the audience about half were from Project Justice ICT. The others came from a group that had protested in favor of the police in front of Century II. There was clapping for the anti-cop crowd and booing by the pro-cop crowd when members of Project Justice ICT members spoke.
I didn’t stay for the whole time. I have herd that the speakers took up quite a few hours. According to KWCH,“the council and members of the community spent nearly five hours discussing where city money should be spent.”
