Feisty For The Inqy

Good.

Soon, the Philadelphia Police Department will testify in front of Council for their budget hearing. At a time when other departments and programs are being decimated or terminated, the police are proposing a budget increase of nearly $14 million.

Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and the Mayor will need to justify the increase, not just against the fiscal crisis, but against the backdrop of the police department’s community crisis. Taxpayers can not continue to fund the police’s continuation of a status quo based on racism.

The statue of Frank Rizzo is perhaps the most blatant symbol of this city’s brutal police past. Protestors tried to topple the statue over the weekend, and ended up defacing it.

It was one of the first things cleaned up on Sunday morning.