Democratic mayors and government officials in cities across the country have cops providing them with personal security — at the same time that public safety budgets have been cut by them amid the progressive “Defund the Police” movement, according to a report.
In crime-ridden Chicago, the cost to have 22 officers guard “unnamed city officials” reached a record $3.4 million last year, up from $2.7 million for 15 officers in 2015, the website OpentheBooks.com found.
Meanwhile, 400 cop jobs in the Windy City were quietly eliminated last year, according to an article by Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of the site’s nonprofit parent organization, American Transparency.
Soft-on-crime San Francisco — where officials have pledged to shift $120 million from the police budget to health and jobs programs amid out-of-control shoplifting — spent a total $12.4 million to protect Mayor London Breed between 2015 and 2020, Andrzejewski wrote on the Forbes website.
The NYPD continues to have a detail solely to protect Mayor Bill de Blasio despite having $1 billion slashed from its $6 billion budget last year amid anti-cop protests that included an encampment outside City Hall.
Officials didn’t respond to a request from Open the Books to provide details on the annual cost of Hizzoner’s security detail, according to Andrzejewski.
But his report cited a Post exclusive that last year found taxpayers shelled out $385,000 on de Blasio’s NYPD bodyguards during his quixotic 2019 presidential bid.
Those costs infamously included $490 for seven cops to join de Blasio as he watched his favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, play the Los Angeles Angels while he was campaigning on the West Coast.
Baltimore — which has cut about $22 million from its police budget — spent $3.6 million last year to protect Mayor Brandon Scott, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Police Commissioner Michael Harrison, Andrzejewski wrote.
The bulk of that money, nearly $2 million, reportedly covered six officers and one sergeant assigned to the mayor’s security detail.
Open the Books uncovered the expenditures by filing public records requests with 25 cities where officials have cut or are considering cutting their police budgets, Andrzejewski wrote.
Officials in as many as 20 of those cities, all run by Democratic mayors, enjoy personal police protection, he wrote.
Open the Books requested comments from several mayors but only got a response from a spokesperson for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who confirmed reports that Hancock is opposed to defunding the police, according to the report.
