The POST Act puts cops in danger
Mayor de Blasio needs to resign
COURIER LIFE, JUNE 26-JULY 2, 2020 19
OP-ED
BY NEW KINGS DEMOCRATS
On June 9, 2020, the New
York State legislature voted to
repeal 50-a, the law that shields
police misconduct. On June 12,
Governor Cuomo signed the
Safer NY Act, that which overturns
50-a, into law.
We are in awe of the incredible
leadership Communities
United for Police Reform and
other organizations committed
to criminal justice reform have
exerted in making this change
a reality. As we feel a city grasping
for justice, the repeal of 50-a
is a moment of light.
After what has happened in
New York City in recent days,
there are a lot of obviously bad
actors that need to be held accountable
-- notably among
them, NYPD Commissioner
Shea and elected offi cials that
have propped up and directly or
indirectly enabled the NYPD to
be the racist organization that
it is. But as the dust settles following
today’s repeal of 50-a, we
cannot lose sight of the lack of
leadership at the top.
Mayor Bill de Blasio needs
to go.
Guiding a city of over 8 million
people through a storm of a
pandemic and cumulative days
of violence and social unrest is
no simple task. But it’s also not
as impossibly diffi cult as Mayor
de Blasio is making it out to be.
We are lacking a leader that
says -- and then follows through
with action -- that the NYPD is
racist and needs to be defunded.
We are lacking a leader that
pushes for 50-a to be repealed
and that holds bad actors -- of
which there are many, and
many more than we even know
-- accountable. We are lacking a
leader that shows up and does
the work. Although 50-a was a
New York State statute, the de
Blasio administration has consistently
aided the secrecy of
the NYPD and declined to provide
information hidden by 50-
a. Moreover, Mayor de Blasio
did nothing to hear the call of
justice advocates to join in the
call to repeal the statute in Albany.
The fact is that the tension,
the violence, the sickness, the
inequality characterizing the
past few weeks -- let alone the
past few months -- is on his
shoulders, and he has made it
all worse.
New Kings Democrats works
day in and day out to challenge
politics-as-usual in Brooklyn.
We are volunteers that obsess
over ways to take electeds to
task -- even those that we have
previously endorsed -- if they
are not acting in the best interests
of their constituents, particularly
those that have been
traditionally underrepresented
in politics. When de Blasio fi rst
ran for mayor, we endorsed him;
we believed in his progressive
vision for the city, which he has
fully abandoned. We know a lot
of politicians seek power -- but
Mayor de Blasio and First Lady
Chirlane McCray do so blatantly
and grossly disrespectfully.
Mayor de Blasio is supposedly
positioning his wife for
a Brooklyn Borough President
-- and potentially a Mayoral --
run. They are unfi t to lead.
No politician is owed their
seat by New Yorkers. New Yorkers
deserve leaders that show
up day in and day out, ready to
fi ght for the oppressed and the
disadvantaged. They deserve
leaders who identify inequitable
systems at play in our society,
call them out, and work to
fi x them.
At the moment we need a capable
and present mayor, but
we have Bill de Blasio.
Why did the state legislature
fi nally repeal 5-0a? Because
New Yorkers marched,
called, emailed, tweeted. They
learned from each other and
acted together until, together,
everyone was loud enough to
force the hand of a risk-averse
Senate and Assembly, where
justice advocates had been calling
for this change for years.
Mayor de Blasio could have
acted all along. He could have
called for the NYPD to make
offi cers’ disciplinary records
public. He could have fi red Offi
cer Pantaleo immediately after
he murdered Eric Garner.
Mayor de Blasio knows how
this all works, but benefi ts
from the opaqueness that characterizes
the political system
in this city and state. He has
amplifi ed the problem with the
system.
It’s time for New York City to
begin to heal. We have no time
for anyone other than a truly
progressive mayor committed
to reforming the scars that have
shaped the legal system in our
city. It’s time for de Blasio to go
and for the next mayor to be the
leader New Yorkers deserve.
New Kings Democrats is a
progressive organization dedicated
to reforming the Kings
County Democratic Party.
BY RODNEY HARRISON
Being a police offi cer can be
a dangerous job. Working as an
undercover offi cer in the units
that deal with gangs, guns, or
drug dealers takes the “can be”
out of the equation. It’s just dangerous.
As Chief of Detectives of the
NYPD, I have the honor, but
also the great responsibility for
deploying the undercover offi -
cers who, on a daily basis, walk
into some of law enforcement’s
most dangerous scenarios. We
try as best we can to protect
them with covert communications
and back-up teams but we
know undercover work is also
unpredictable.
I know that as a commander,
but I also know it as an undercover.
On Sept. 21, 1995, I was
working as a narcotics undercover
with another offi cer. After
attempting a buy from fi ve
suspected dealers on the street
I couldn’t score. Something was
off. After attempting another
buy from a couple of other dealers
nearby, the same. The vibe
was off.
Walking back to the car that
night I was being shadowed by
my partner, Detective Mike
Stoney. I was going over it in
my head. We were in the middle
of Bedford-Stuyvesant in
1995 where I had bought drugs
undercover many times but the
tension seemed higher.
As I turned the corner,
the fi ve dealers I had fi rst approached
saw me walking towards
the car. I played it off,
went the other way but Stoney
walked ahead to distract them
from me. The group challenged
Mike and one of them, unprovoked,
pulled a gun and opened
fi re.
Stoney was struck by gunfi
re and seriously hurt, but he
fi red back. I moved in and returned
fi re as well. I believe to
this day, Stoney saved my life
and I may have saved his.
I spent much of that night at
the hospital until I knew Mike
was going to be okay. The fi ve
men involved including the
shooter were arrested later that
night. Last December when I
was promoted to Chief of Detectives,
I looked out to my right,
and several rows back amid
hundreds of people, there was
Detective Mike Stoney, retired
by then, but still watching my
back as I assumed this new responsibility.
The POST Act — recently
passed by the City Council and
now at the mayor’s desk awaiting
signature — is a law, that in
its current form, will put NYPD
undercover offi cers in more
danger.
It is also easy to fi x that law
if the City Council will go back
and add one sentence to the
bill.
The POST Act requires the
NYPD to disclose all its “surveillance
technology.” Most of
what is described as “surveillance
technology” in the proposed
bill is not for “surveillance”
but are actually systems
that my detectives use in investigations
every day. That’s why
we support 99 percent of what
the POST Act requires.
When it comes to security
cameras we recover video from
to solve crimes or the license
plate readers we use to retrace
the direction of a getaway car,
or facial recognition software
that has been instrumental
in identifying robbers, hatecrime
perpetrators, and sexual
predators, the NYPD believes
people have a right to know
about these systems, how they
work and how privacy is protected.
The problem with the POST
Act is it also requires the
NYPD to give a description of
any and all devices that are
“used or designed for, collecting,
retaining, processing, or
sharing audio, video, location,
thermal, biometric, or similar
information, that is operated
by or at the direction of the department.”
The POST Act says the department
must place on its
public website a list of this
equipment with a description
of it and how it is used. There
is no exemption for the covert
electronics used to protect our
undercover offi cers.
Granted, since the days I
was undercover and buying
drugs with a tape recorder and
a transmitter, the electronics
have gotten smaller and easier
to conceal. But undercover offi
cers face increased dangers.
The drug deals moved away
from the open-air drug markets
on street corners and into
the buildings, hallways, and
apartments, where an undercover
is at greater risk of being
searched more thoroughly
than the street.
The City Council can fi x
the POST Act with one simple
sentence. Give the Police Commissioner
the authority to report
all the technology we use,
how we use it and what the
rules are which is what the
law was intended for but also
give the commissioner the
ability to exclude descriptions
of the technology used by our
undercover offi cers in the
fi eld whose jobs are already
very dangerous.
Why would we ever legislate
a way to make their work
more dangerous?
Rodney Harrison is the Chief
of Detectives of the NYPD.