On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to cut the budget for the city’s police force and reduce staff to levels not seen since 2008.

The vote was a terrible financial forecast and a response to demands from mass protests after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd.

The Council voted 12-2 to scale the number of civil servants from 10,000 to 9,757 next summer – part of a $ 150 million cut in the LAPD budget, The Lost Angeles Times reported.

Councilman Curren Price, the only black member of the council’s budget committee, supported the cuts and said that about $ 100 million of these savings will be directed to summer youth jobs and recruitment programs to help color residents.

“This is a step that supports minority communities as they deserve – as respect, dignity and an equal playground.”

The vote came one day after the New York City Council moved to cut one billion dollars from the NYPD’s $ 6 billion budget, which will lead to a decline with the wear of 1,163 police at 36,000 members.

Defenders in LA criticized the city’s budget, as in New York, for not being able to reduce police spending at the LAPD, which operates at a budget of $ 3.1 billion.

Black Lives Matter-activists from Los Angeles called on the Council to pass a “People’s Budget” that will essentially deprive policing and reposition funds for housing and other social services.

Times reported that Los Angeles City Council members responded by seeking other ways to alleviate the police footprint in the city.

The body is investigating how more 911 are heading from the police department and other city agencies. City workers were ordered to submit a draft for an “unarmed crisis response model”.

The additional step pleased Melina Abdullah, co-founder of BLM-Los Angeles.

“It has the potential to undo the call to undo the police functions, to terminate the police much more than to approve a $ 150 million cut,” said Abdullah.