NYC ‘defund police’ lawmaker dismayed when anti-cop protesters harass boyfriend, vandalize apartment

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New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is leading an effort to defund the NYPD, lashed out at Leftist agitators who are harassing his boyfriend.

Johnson revealed Tuesday that anti-police demonstrators have also vandalized the apartment building where his partner lives and sought to terrorize him at all hours of the night, the New York Post reported.

“I support people having the right to protest and expressing themselves, I think social justice movements have been fueled by that,” Johnson, a Manhattan Democrat, told reporters during a press conference following Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement of a budget deal.

“But, the vandalism of where my significant other lives, and the ringing of his buzzer at all hours in the middle of the night — he’s not a public figure. I am,” Johnson noted of his partner, Ernest Martin. “And even though it’s not great sometimes, I recognize that I’m a public figure.”

The two went public with their relationship last year, the Post added.

“This has been personally painful, I don’t want to sugar coat it,” Johnson noted of the ongoing harassment by people who apparently agree with his ‘defund police’ message. “This has been hard and trying.

“People have been coming to my partner’s home multiple days over the last few weeks, at all hours,” Johnson continued. “And that vandalism was to a building that’s owned by a person of color.

“My partner doesn’t own that building, he’s a renter. So, that vandalism — it’s probably thousands of dollars to clean up,” Johnson noted further.

Even as Johnson was lobbying the city council and the mayor for bigger cuts to the NYPD, ‘defund police’ agitators were disrupting Martin’s life and defacing his building.

In response to calls from Left-wing fringe groups and the Black Lives Matter movement to dramatically cut funding to the NYPD — and amid ongoing demonstrations and rioting following the horrific death of George Floyd in Minneapolis — de Blasio proposed trimming the department’s roughly $6 billion annual budget.

“We will be moving funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services,” he announced early last month.

“The details will be worked out in the budget process in the weeks ahead. But I want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people,” he added. “This is a beginning. I want it to be abundantly clear to all New Yorkers. These are first steps to what will be 18 months of making intense change in this city. The work of this task force is crucial.”

Earlier this week, de Blasio announced a $1 billion cut, more than 16 percent, to the NYPD’s budget even as the city has seen dramatic increases in shooting deaths and other overt acts of lawlessness.

“My office presented to City Council a plan that would achieve the billion in savings for the NYPD and shift resources to young people, to communities in a way that would help address a lot of the underlying issues that we know are the cause of so many problems in our society,” he said.

Noting that the city is facing massive budget shortfalls and expected cuts following his extended coronavirus shutdown, de Blasio noted that the NYPD “is being treated clearly in a specific manner.”

“A number of agencies are being cut quite a bit, but we’re dealing with a specific reality with the NYPD unquestionably,” he said.

The $1 billion cut, however, is not enough for ‘Democratic socialist’ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or BLM leaders.

As for Johnson, he appeared to acknowledge that reality places limits on activism.

“I look at myself as someone who’s been trying to achieve the demands that these people have been asking for,” Johnson, clearly frustrated, said, the Post reported. “I know they don’t think it’s good enough, and they don’t think it’s far enough.”

However, “I have to balance what the members of the Council want, and the Mayor wouldn’t move on some things.”

Meanwhile, NYPD officers increasingly believe they — and the city they serve — are under siege, a violent crime rises and support from City Hall wanes.

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