Comptroller candidate and City Councilman Brad Lander has been a vocal supporter of defunding the police, but when it comes to a private police force that serves Brooklyn’s Hasidic communities, he’s been a lot more forthcoming with cash.
From 2011 to 2015, Lander, a Democrat who represents Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, doled out $30,000 to the Shmira Civilian Volunteer Patrol of Boro Park for providing security in the neighborhood, Council records show.
Lander is now running for city comptroller, and if elected, would serve as the city’s top fiscal watchdog with oversight of the city’s vast pension funds. During his run, and in the months before, he’s been an outspoken proponent of the defund movement.
But his past support of the Shomrim patrol has raised hackles among fellow political lefties.
“He was funding an organization that hasn’t been trained as well as the police department has been trained. It’s incapable of handling situations like it should,” said Lander’s longtime colleague Councilman Danny Dromm (D-Queens). “If Brad really believes in deescalation and defunding the police, he should find groups that are trained in deescalation.”
Dromm also accused the Shomrim of being “notoriously homophobic” for not hiring gays.
Last June on the Council’s website, Lander expressed his support of defunding the police.
“I am fighting for $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD this year, and I am committed to voting no on a budget that does not make significant cuts to the NYPD,” he wrote.
His comments came during a bruising budget battle that led to Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who’s also running for comptroller, being attacked for not cutting the NYPD’s budget more deeply. At the time, Johnson was planning a run for mayor, but dropped that effort. In March, he announced his comptroller run. Other candidates in that race include state Sens. Brian Benjamin and Kevin Parker, Assemblyman David Weprin, former CNBC journalist Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, businessman Zach Iscol and Terri Lifton, a compliance officer in private investment.
In Council appropriation statements from 2014 and 2015, Lander justified spending on Shomrim, writing that the money was for “operational expenses, including two-way radios, uniforms and other supplies to assist in providing safety and security services for the community.”
Shmira’s president during that time was Jacob Daskal, who in March was indicted for coercing a minor into sex.
