When the City Council picked the afternoon of Jan. 29 to unveil what its press release called "Legislative Plans to Redefine Public Safety and Strengthen Police Accountability," the suspicion was that it had chosen a Friday—the slowest news day of the week—in the hope that its proposed reforms would be little noted nor long remembered.
Seven months had passed since its last attempts to, depending on your point of view, either improve the NYPD or punish it. A purported $1-billion cut in the department's budget had been orchestrated in tandem with Mayor de Blasio, accompanied by an apology from Council Speaker Corey Johnson for not slicing more. His mea culpa seemed particularly odd because he had been the victim of harassment by the Defund the Police forces that included the vandalizing of the building in which his boyfriend lived, and Council Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo had also expressed anger at the intimidation tactics aimed at her and other colleagues.
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