Why Didn’t Brigid Bergin Include Councilman Justin Brannan’s Tweet In Her Story?
Brigid Bergin, a journalist for Gothamist, wrote about the topic of Politicians Defunding the Police (yes now in March 2022). Bergin also created an audio clip about Councilman Justin Brannan. (Hear audio clip)
Why did Bergin fail to include Justin Brannan’s tweet inwhich he responded to the question about Defunding the Police in June 2020?
Tonight, I responded to Bergin and everyone who shared her story.
Bergin didn’t respond, but many people did. Many didn’t know Brannan wrote that on Twitter!
Over the years, I’ve written to a lot of journalists, both publicly and privately. Most respond and some change their stories. Some realize that their reporting matters to our community (one spoke to me on the day of his daughter’s wedding). Some just don’t care.
When Justin Brannan responded, “Ya I’m in” to the question about defunding the police, the 68th Precinct saw that tweet. Think about how degrading that was for the officers in our community to see Brannan write that. Brannan had a responsibility to change the language and he didn’t because he was playing politics.
In the audio clip on Gothamist, Bergin plays Brannan’s actual vote. Then Bergin says that cuts to the NYPD amounted to just over three million dollars. Justin Brannan’s vote that year took money away from the police.
Then Bergin quickly said that NYC Council gave back the money the following year.
NYC Council wasn’t vocal about giving money back to the NYPD. We didn’t hear anyone talk about the police being refunding or that a mistake was made.
NYC spiraled downward after the words “Defund the Police Echoed Through the City.” It killed the morale of the police.
Bergin was surprised that a home on 79th Street still has a sign up. We were all shocked to see Justin Brannan’s tweet.
We understand why the sign is still up. When we voted for Brannan, we thought he would do the right thing for our community. We are angry that Brannan wrote this bill the first month he was in office for lobbyists. And now we are stuck with the defunder.
In December 2021, Justin Brannan and a group of NYC Council members were on Channel 1’s NYC Speaker Forum. The host, Errol Louis brought up “defunding the police” and spoke about the budget being changed for the police. Not one candidate said, “No I didn’t defund the police.” They all knew they voted for a budget to move money away from the police. Errol Louis asked about it because he knew that the defunding the police discourse changed our city.
Finally, Bergin failed to acknowledge that our current mayor ran and won on a platform of supporting the police and street safety because he understood what people in NYC were feeling after NYC Council defunded the NYPD. Mayor Adams went to the NYPD and has publicly spoken on backing them to try to reverse what was allowed by the former mayor.
Many people hearing, “defund the police” think that people don’t want the police or policing in their community. There are actual politicians who want to eliminate the police. NYC Councilwoman Tiffany Caban has this on her website:
Brigid Bergin also didn’t report what happened after Justin Brannan’s vote. The left went to Brannan’s office and he wouldn’t speak to them. (See here) The left promised a challenger, but they didn’t come through. (See here)
Bergin was sympathetic to the Brannan – maybe he forget to tell her that he tweeted and deleted that? If Bergin wanted us to have the truth, she would have added his tweet to the article.
Why didn’t Bergin report about this, this, this or this. Why wouldn’t Bergin consider any of these things important to people in this city? There is a lot more going on than politicians or newspapers will tell us.
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Hugs,
marlene
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