The D.C. Council on Tuesday rejected Mayor Muriel Bowser’s request for $11 million to hire 170 new police officers, voting instead to set aside $5 million for half the number of officers while directing the remainder of the money to violence interruption efforts. The vote was unanimous.

“We’re not going to write a blank check,” said Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), saying that the 2022 budget the council approved Tuesday already included funding for 195 new officers and an expansion of the existing cadet program — exactly what D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee III said earlier this summer the department could handle. (The budget for MPD is $516.4 million.)

Bowser said this week that the additional hires would help the department respond to the uptick in homicides and stabilize staffing. But during Tuesday’s debate many lawmakers derided her proposal as a reaction to high-profile shootings on 14th Street NW and outside Nationals Park.

“More police may make [CNN reporter] Jim Acosta feel more safe at Le Diplomate, but it’s not going to stop shootings where they happen in this city,” said Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At Large).

“We already had a gun violence crisis in late May. So what changed? What changed is we had a series of shootings in areas that don’t usually have them. When it turned into a political crisis, it became about assigning blame,” said Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4).

In a statement, Bowser expressed her disappointment with the council’s vote.

“I put forth an $11 million proposal for new police officers based on what Chief Robert J. Contee said he needs right now. [The council] was only willing to do half of what he requested. As Mayor, I will continue to work with the Chief to get him what he needs to protect our residents and visitors, and my commitment to a comprehensive approach to public safety that includes violence interruption and associated social service and job opportunities remains firm,” she said.

Original story: A request from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s for money to hire new police officers over the next year faces a critical vote in the D.C. Council Tuesday, where a pair of lawmakers have already hatched an alternate plan that would give the mayor less than what she wants.

Bowser’s request for $11 million to hire 170 new police officers over the next year was first made last week, when she announced an arrest in the killing of 6-year-old Nyiah Courtney. Bowser also pledged to seek additional staffing for the Metropolitan Police Department to tamp down on gun violence and homicides, which are running at 6% above the same time last year.

The mayor spelled out the details of the plan in a letter to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson on Monday, saying the funding would let MPD hire up to 22 new officers immediately and another 150 in the fall and into next year. That, she said, would bring the force to just over 3,600 officers and avoid the use of overtime to address crime.

“[W]e have an opportunity to stabilize MPD’s police force and avoid the stress and burn-out our officers face, while improving MPD’s ability to respond to incidents, close cases and enhance the safety of our residents,” she wrote to Mendelson. (The D.C. Police Union has similarly urged the council to set aside more money to hire new officers.)

But Mendelson was quick to counter Bowser’s proposal on Monday afternoon, saying he and Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) would present an alternate plan that would give her $5 million for new officers while adding more funding for violence interruption efforts and social services.

“The solution can’t solely be more police,” said Mendelson in a statement. “If you think about it, relying only on police is a reactive strategy. Police respond to incidents of violence. On the other side, violence interrupters are proactive. Interrupters work in the neighborhoods, know the people most likely to beef, and calm tensions before retaliatory shootings can occur.”

Mendelson’s counter-proposal drew a sharp response from John Falcicchio, Bowser’s chief of staff and deputy mayor for planning and economic development. In a tweet, he said the mayor had dramatically increased funding for non-police approaches to violence prevention, including Building Blocks, a new initiative to fight guns in targeted areas of the city.

“Investments in violence interruption and Building Blocks DC are up by over 500%. Funding for MPD is down by 4-5%,” wrote Falcicchio. “The Chief of Police asked for 170 new officers, and Mayor Bowser said yes and the Council is saying no.”

Speaking on WAMU’s “The Politics Hour” last Friday, D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee III said that recent violent incidents had convinced him that the department — which has consistently lost over 300 officers annually in recent years to retirements and resignations — needs to start hiring again quickly.

“We’ve been talking about this for some time now. And I think that because we have had some of the violent issues that we’ve had recently the light is really shining on it. And, again, we’re trying to make things happen with the same amount of resources that we have. And officers are not robots. I don’t care how much overtime you have them work,” he said.

But it’s unclear whether that argument will carry weight in the council, where some lawmakers have questioned whether Contee could actually hire officers quickly enough. Speaking to the council in June, Contee said he could only “responsibly hire” a certain number of officers during a particular budget cycle.

In a series of tweets on Monday, Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At Large) laid out her concerns over whether MPD could hire more quickly than the officers and cadets it already has in the pipeline.

“MPD is not suggesting getting rid of any part of their process, but to go from saying in June: ‘135 is what we can responsibly hire’ to saying in August: ‘Yeah, we can double that no problem’ gives me pause,” she wrote.

Tuesday’s debate over Bowser’s request also comes amidst a long-running debate over how many police officers D.C. needs. While some elected leaders have pushed to keep MPD above 3,800 officers, critics say that the city is already over-policed, pointing to data showing that it has more police per capita than any other major city. The D.C. Police Reform Commission, which earlier this year laid out 90 recommendations for changes to MPD, didn’t specifically weigh in on how many officers the department needs, but it did advocate for getting rid of the legal requirement that it have at least 3,000.

“The nature and size of this policing component should be informed by evidence and current circumstances, not politically pre-ordained. Having a pre-set requirement for a certain number of officers potentially constrains the efforts of District leadership to allocate resources as needed to pursue a holistic, effective, and evidence-informed approach to public safety,” said the commission in its report.

Still, the high-profile nature of some of the recent violent incidents in D.C. — 21 people were killed in July alone — may weigh on some lawmakers as they consider Bowser’s request. Speaking on “The Politics Hour,” Contee said that he consistently heard from residents that they wanted more police officers on the ground.

“I’m hearing from thousands of people,” he said. “And I haven’t heard the conversation from anybody saying, ‘Hey, look. Take police out of my neighborhood to cover that thing over there that you’re having a problem with.'”