#Union leader calls Corey Johnson racist in bid to remove NYPD from schools

The battle over funding of the NYPD is getting ugly.

Gregory Floyd, the Teamsters Local 237 president who represents 6,000 mostly minority NYPD school safety agents, hurled the race card at Council Speaker Corey Johnson for failing to consult him about a plan to slash the police budget by $1 billion and potentially remove the police from overseeing school security.

“If this was a union with a white labor leader and with a mostly white membership, Speaker Corey Johnson would have called me to discuss his plan,” charged Floyd, who is black.

“He [Johnson] is pretending to care about black and brown children, but he is disrespecting a black man. He didn’t have the guts to call me.

“I’m calling him out for being a racist. What he did toward me is racist,” the union leader accused.

The campaign to defund the police has gathered momentum following the police-custody killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

But Floyd stressed that his members, who are 90 percent black and Hispanic and 70 percent women, are being ignored and disrespected.

“These men and women are black and brown,” Floyd said. “These are mothers, grandmothers, fathers, New Yorkers. They don’t carry guns, they don’t carry batons, they don’t carry tasers.”

Floyd was responding to announcement by Johnson and other council leaders last week including Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo (D-Brooklyn), Democratic Conference Chair Robert Cornegy (D-Brooklyn), co-chairs of the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus; I. Daneek Miller (D-Queens) and Adrienne Adams (D-Queens), as well as Finance Committee Chair Daniel Dromm (D-Queens), Capital Budget Subcommittee Chair Vanessa Gibson (D-Bronx), and Public Safety Committee Chair Donovan Richards (D-Queens), calling for $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD’s $6 billion budget.

“This is possible: We have identified savings that would cut over $1 billion, including reducing uniform headcount through attrition, cutting overtime, shifting responsibilities away from the NYPD, finding efficiencies and savings in OTPS spending, and lowering associated fringe expenses,” their statement read.

“Our budget must reflect the reality that policing needs fundamental reform. Over the last few weeks, we have seen an outpouring of New Yorkers demanding change from their leaders. It is our job to listen — and to act. We will not let this moment pass, and we will fight for the budget they deserve.”

Among the proposals being discussed is transferring responsibility over school safety from the NYPD back to the city Department of Education.

Floyd said he was blindsided the plan — but only blamed Johnson, who plans to run for mayor.

After much resistance, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani secured an agreement with the old Board of Education in 1998 that put the NYPD in charge of school security after complaints that violence had gotten out of control in some schools and incidents were being swept under the rug. The NYPD hires, trains and supervises the unarmed officers assigned to the 1,600 schools.

Floyd remembers how chaotic the schools were before the NYPD handled security and said that the students who will be adversely impacted by removing police oversight will be mostly black and brown.

He said entrusting the DOE with school safety makes little sense given its performance in other areas, including academics and controlling spending.

“Corey Johnson should know the history of this city before he tries to run it,” Floyd said. “If this is his audition for mayor, he has flunked it.”

Floyd did say that Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a black former cop and, like Johnson, a 2021 mayoral contender, did call him about what he thought of removing the NYPD’s oversight of school safety.

“I have a message for every council member who votes for an insane idea like this,” Floyd said. “There is going to be chaos. Serious assaults, shootings, stabbings. And you will own it.”

Johnson declined comment and his office instead forwarded a statement from Queens Councilman Richards, who chairs the public safety committee.

“This is a plan, and nothing is final. We are working with all members,” said Richards, who is black.

“As we have repeatedly said, we want to listen to communities most affected by over policing.”