VACPUSA

by worker-correspondent Mike Roark

Members of the NoVA Club of VACPSUA attended the Alexandria City Council meeting on April 18th as part of the ICE Out of Alexandria coalition (IoA). Among other items, the City Council heard public comments on a proposed budget cut of $200,000 from the Alexandria Sheriff’s Office (ASO) in order to fund an independent inquiry into the operations of the Alexandria City jail. The IoA Coalition has been steadfast in their demand that the Sheriff’s Office receive punitive budget cuts in response to Sheriff Sean Casey voluntarily allowing ICE to disappear our community members by honoring administrative warrants. (See this article from a previous Council meeting in February for further background) Since he first took office in 2022, Casey has transferred 142 detainees to ICE, so IoA organized to speak and show support during a public comment period. 

We arrived to find the meeting hall filled by Sheriff deputies, dressed in full black uniform and armed. The literal blackshirts gained access to the community center before the public, and about 50 deputies (more than a quarter of their entire force) packed out the limited available seating, forcing more than a hundred community members into an overflow room and out of sight of the Council. It was a blatant attempt by Sheriff Casey to intimidate the community and to downplay support for the budget cut. The Undersheriff stated that the deputies were off the clock and attended of their own will, but community members noticed that the officers were transported to the community center on a church bus belonging to the father-in-law of one of the deputies. The Council did not seem impressed by this anti-democratic stunt; highlighted by Councilman Aguirre directly asking one of them if it’s standard practice to show up and play politics in uniform. Scared by impactful community organizing, it was a desperate and futile stunt by Casey and his goons.

Most of the earlier docket items concerned public services like the “Stay Cool Campaign”, bike lane and pedestrian safety, school board reform, and the housing authority. All underserved issues in Alexandria due to a budget crunch caused by disproportionate state underfunding and municipal bond instability. The $200,000 cut from the ASO total budget of about $36 million is a .56% cut, a fraction of a percent. It is not an attempt to defund the Sheriff’s Office and use that money for the community. The money from the cut is already proposed to be used for an external review of the Alexandria jail operations. Facing a budget crisis, the City Council called for all departments to propose at least a one percent cut. In response, the ASO proposed $351,000 in cuts, almost twice what the Council is currently considering. In total, twenty one departments were proposed to be cut by at least one percent, and five more (including ASO) were to decrease by less than one percent. Apparently, Sheriff Casey failed to share any of this information with his deputies. Just as he’s failed to educate his staff on the difference between administrative and judicial warrants.

Many of the deputies that spoke during the comment period complained about missing holidays and family celebrations due to their jobs, thinking themselves something special and distinct from the working class, as if waged labor does not dominate all of our lives. The deputies also complained about compensation, despite the entry level deputies making $61,375. When combined with overtime opportunities, the ASO offers entry level (no experience required) positions close to Alexandria’s per capita median income of $74,096, in one of the most expensive and wealthiest municipalities in Virginia. There is no other job in Alexandria requiring no experience that pays that well, and yet the deputies had the audacity to complain about pay on the same day they pulled their blackshirt gimmick. They also could not contain their contempt for the public. As IoA supporters spoke, deputies and Casey’s allies hissed and made snarky comments. The deputies all reiterated that they swore to uphold an oath, like their public comment was a poorly written police procedural, but clearly that oath was not to their community. Every deputy who spoke at the meeting only served to highlight their own ignorance, if not full idiocy. Their blackshirt stunt should serve as a clear reminder to the working class that police (especially reactionary Sheriffs and their deputies) are class enemies. 

Despite Sheriff Casey’s intimidation, the ICE Out of Alexandria coalition was successful at mobilizing support and speakers that brought the political theatrics back to the fundamental issue: Sheriff Casey’s willing collaboration with ICE by honoring administrative warrants. Tenants and Workers United also showed up with about 80 members and supporters for justice in the Alexandria Housing Authority, and many of their speakers used their limited time to also denounce the ASO cooperation with ICE. Unfortunately, no one on the Council wanted to publicly tie the proposed ASO cut to Casey collaborating with ICE. The quiet supporters of ICE Out of Alexandria on the City Council can still make a public statement saying that this budget cut and jail review are an explicit punishment for Sheriff Casey ignoring the City Council wishes, especially since Sheriffs are seeking their own funding from DHS for ICE collaboration. Even though the budget cut has passed, it’s not too late to tie the issues together. If not, then all of this struggle will go down as one small reduction in a year of many budget cuts.