FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JUNE 18, 2020 • THE QUEENS COURIER 3
Cuomo signs justice agenda bills,
orders police to reform or lose funding
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
edavenport@qns.com
@QNS
Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 12
signed new reforms into law that are
meant to start to reshape the justice system
Photo via Twitter/@NYGovCuomo
Shea disbands plain-clothed NYPD anti-crime cops across city
BY TODD MAISEL
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
Th e NYPD eliminated its plain-clothed
Anti-Crime Units — a fi xture in every
precinct that specializes in targeting
armed suspects — and reassigned its
more than 600 assigned offi cers into other
duties, Police Commissioner Dermot
Shea revealed in a stunning announcement
on June 15.
During a press conference at One Police
Plaza broadcast on social media, Shea
described the eff ort as a “seismic shift ”
in policing and an eff ort to rebuild public
trust.
Th e major change in policing comes
aft er two weeks of constant demonstrations,
some of them violent and involving
looting, following the death of George
Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
“Within the last hour, I chaired a meeting
of all the senior executives in the
department regarding deployment of precinct
level and PSA-level (Public
Service Area, for public housing
complexes) anti-crime police offi -
cers. Th ese are the plain-clothed
units that operate our traditional
anti-crime,” Shea said. “Eff ective
immediately, we will be transitioning
those units, roughly 600 people
citywide, into a variety
of assignments, including
detective units, neighborhood
policing and
other assignments.”
Th e commissioner
said the “seismic
shift in the
way we police
this city” comes
aft er months of internal discussions with
NYPD brass. He noted that anti-crime
offi cers are oft en involved in police-involved
shootings, and their current composition
refl ected a “20th-century policing”
model that must be modernized.
Shea also recognized that people in
some communities were “enduring
being stopped, their children being
stopped,” adding “there is a disproportionate
number of complaints
and shootings as they are doing
what we ask of them.” But the commissioner
was quick to note that the
change was “no refl ection on
the men and women of
the Police Department
who are doing an
exceptional job.
“It’s time to move
forward and change
how we police in
this city with
brains and guile,
and move away
from brute force,” he said. Th e former
anti-crime offi cers will focus instead on
intelligence and evidence gathering to
help strengthen cases being prosecuted.
Shea stressed that the NYPD needs the
cooperation of the city’s fi ve district attorneys,
and the general public, in helping to
keep crime down.
“We can do better and 2020 policing is
not what it was fi ve, 10, 15 years ago. …
We need the cooperation of the fi ve district
attorneys and the communities that
we serve — we need their cooperation
and their trust,” Shea added. Th e change
does not aff ect anti-crime units within the
NYPD Transit Bureau, Shea explained.
Shea said the NYPD has faced great diffi
culties in crime fi ghting this year, specifi
cally bail reform laws that he claimed
released more criminals who have committed
additional crimes. Additionally,
the COVID-19 pandemic killed 45 offi -
cers and, at one point, forced nearly 20
percent of the entire force into sick leave.
Th en the George Floyd police-involved
murder in Minneapolis on Memorial Day
sparked nationwide protests, including in
New York City. Th ere were renewed calls
for police defunding, condemnations of
brutality, and a legislative push to reform
how the NYPD works within the communities
they are charged to serve.
Photo by Todd Maisel
in New York state.
Known as the “Say Th eir Name
Agenda,” the reforms include repealing
50-A, which would make the disciplinary
records of police offi cers more transparent
and available should that offi cer be
accused of misconduct.
Th e reforms also include banning
chokeholds, making false race-related 911
calls a hate crime and assigning the attorney
general to serve as the special prosecutor
in these cases. But the governor
went a step further Friday by also signing
an executive order requiring police
departments across New York to work
with their communities to devise a plan
to modernize and reform their policing
strategies — or risk losing state funding
next year.
Cuomo was joined by Senate Majority
Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins,
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and
Reverend Al Sharpton for the signing of
these bills, as well as Gwen Carr, mother
of Eric Garner; Valerie Bell, mother of
Sean Bell; and Hazel Dukes, president of
NAACP.
“New York state is the progressive capital.
We never sit back and just say what the
nation should do,” said Cuomo. “We show
the nation what it should do.”
Cuomo acknowledged that this is only
the beginning and that for more change
to come, the federal government needs
to step up and reform not only the criminal
justice system, but also the education
system, child poverty and aff ordable
housing.
“Why does a child who happens to
be born to a poor family have a second
rate education to those who are born
in wealthier communities? Why do we
still have child poverty in this nation?
How do you justify that?” said Cuomo.
“Aff ordable housing is needed across the
country because the federal government
went out of the aff ordable housing business.
It was the one responsibility that the
federal government used to undertake.”
Under the executive order Cuomo
signed, called the NYS Police Reform
& Reinvention Collaborative, Cuomo is
requiring local governments and police
agencies to devise a plan that reinvents
and modernizes police strategies and programming
in their communities.
Th e plans must include ways to address
use of force by offi cers, crowd controlling
tactics, implicit bias awareness, community
management, de-escalating training
and practices, restorative justice practices,
community-based outreach, a transparent
citizen complaint disposition procedure
as well as any other issues raised by
the community.
Each police department’s community
must be involved in the planning process.
New plans must be enacted by April
1, 2021 — those who do not pass new
reforms by then will not be eligible for
state funding.
“We’re going to say to every police department,
sit down at the table with the local
community, address the issues, get to the
root, get a plan, pass through local government
— and if you don’t you’re not going to
get any additional state funds,” said Cuomo.
“We’re not going to, as a state government,
subsidize improper police tactics.”
“We are at a moment of reckoning, there
is no question about it,” said Stewart-
Cousins. “We know this isn’t a cure. We
know this is the beginning of a movement
to bring justice to a system that has long
been unjust.”
“I joined the Civil Rights Movement
as a teenager. When I was 13 I became
part of Dr. King’s branch here. We were
told you start with demonstration to lead
to legislation, then reconciliation,” said
Sharpton. “Without the legislation, the
demonstration is just an exercise. Th is is
not an exercise; this is to change things.
By signing these bills is bringing the
change. What the governor is doing today,
and this assembly speaker and this majority
leader of the senate is doing, is legislating
what we demonstrated about.”
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