Small gathering
Before controversial arrest, faced discourtesy allegation
Saturday afternoon saw a few people quietly protest at the state Capitol.
The Schenectady police officer involved in a controversial arrest last year was formally issued a counseling notice by the department for using foul language when he spoke to a teenager on a domestic violence call in 2019.
After responding to the incident on Congress Street on Nov. 10, 2019, Officer Brian Pommer told a juvenile, “Your dad’s an (expletive) and whoever the (expletive) that lady is, I want to smack her in the mouth.”
City police determined the comments failed to de-escalate the situation and made the incident harder to resolve.
“This conduct is unprofessional and reflects poorly on the Schenectady Police Department, the city of Schenectady and law enforcement as a professional,” wrote Lt. Brian Whipple in a counseling notice which also determined Pommer’s actions violated department policy.
The counseling notice was among documents the city released Friday to comply with a judge’s order that rejected a police union effort to keep it secret.
Pommer was involved in a controversial incident over the summer in which a video showed him kneeling in the area around the head and neck of a man he was arresting, an encounter that inflamed tensions in the city following weeks of protests against systemic racism and police brutality. Police and prosecutors insist Pommer kneeled on the man’s head and not his neck, according to official report of the incident released by the Schenectady County District Attorney’s office.
The city released the notice and other
documents Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Law records request from the Times Union. It comes weeks after a state Supreme Court Justice Mark Powers dismissed the Schenectady Police Benevolent Association’s attempt to keep the counseling under wraps. The city had already released much of Pommer’s personnel file to comply with the repeal of a state law that once shield such records from public disclosure.
Pommer responded to the call in the city’s Mont Pleasant neighborhood for a 16-year-old who was “out of control” following an argument with his father, according to materials released by the city. Officers previously were called to the same residence four months earlier when the youth removed his ankle bracelet.
A claim of discourtesy was filed the following day by a female family member who said Pommer also stepped on a door decoration and said “oops” in a “very condescending way” and bumped into her in a hallway and didn’t say anything.
An investigation of the three-count complaint revealed both of those claims were unfounded. However, the claim of discourtesy was sustained.
Ultimately, the incident ended with Pommer and his unidentified partner leaving after advising the complainant that while the juvenile had committed a violation-level offense, she should contact the department’s youth aid bureau and the local probation office. No arrests were made.
Pommer was formally issued the notice on April 15, 2020, and ordered to follow an improvement plan and review the department’s standard of conduct. The documents released Friday by the city also include a questionnaire Pommer filled out when he was a candidate to join the police department in 2012.
In it, he makes reference to a past effort to join the Schenectady police in 2009, but notes that he was rejected because he failed a polygraph test. It is unclear from the document why he failed the test. In the same form, he acknowledges using a steroid and a barbiturate one time each.
Pommer then went on to join the Marines Corps and was honorably discharged in 2013 after serving in Iraq.
The state Legislature last year repealed 50-a, a law that for decades had blocked the release of the personnel files of police officers and firefighters.
Yet the city’s police union initially filed a lawsuit last September asking that the city be blocked from releasing information about unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct and cases that resulted in counseling rather than discipline.
The police union argued that such disclosure would violate the privacy of officers.
All personal information was redacted from files released Friday, including details on Pommer’s previous employers and other identifying information.
Pommer was disciplined for violating two city Police Department policies following the encounter with Yugeshwar Gaindarpersaud last July: Those related to discourtesy and reviewing evidence.
The eight-year veteran of the department agreed to be suspended for six days without pay and undergo field training.