Pepper spray use excoriated by police reform board speakers
Continued focus on sheriff ’s office use of pepper spray on Saratoga Springs protesters this past summer is taking center stage in community leaders’ calls for police reform.
At Wednesday ’s meeting of the county ’s Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative, faith and social justice leaders told the committee that during the July 30 incident, the sheriff ’s deputies did not “contain violence.” Rather they were escalating “the potential for violence” by showing up to a city gathering of Black Lives Matter protesters in what they described as a military-style vehicle, wearing riot gear.
Moreover, Linda Letendre, a member of the Saratoga Peace Alliance, said the deputies’ actions, shooting pepper spray pellets, should be called out for what it was: fascism.
“If you want to know who wants a riot, you look to see who came dressed for one,” Letendre told the police reform committee. “That was fascism and it must be dealt with right away.”
Letendre was among those who spoke to the eight-member, majority white committee that is tasked with coming up with recommendations on police reform for the county ’s Board of Supervisors to approve by April 1. Since the end of October, the group has been meeting without the knowledge of most community leaders. Still, the group is expected to fulfill Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order 203 on police reform.
Comments from leaders hit on a litany of requests, including a ban on chokeholds and hiring more Spanish-speak
ing officers. But most who spoke kept circling back to the events of July 30, which Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo said was done because “it became apparent that the crowd was advancing on officers attempting to affect arrests at the front of the line.”
“The deployment of pepper served to divide the crowd and prevent them from advancing on officers,” he said.
However, that is not how Rev. Michael Bell of the Dyer Phelps AME Zion Church in Saratoga Springs saw it. He told the committee that the deputies’ actions were “a clear violation of public trust” and made “people feel like as though they are living under a police state.”
“People ought not to be made to feel like an enemy of the state and … made to feel anything other than a citizen,” Bell said. “When you bring that equipment, you are expressing that we are an enemy of the state … It makes a hostile community.”
Hollyday Hammond, a clinical social worker who was representing MLK Saratoga, said she is repeatedly told by people that they feel unsafe around law enforcement. And that people who express their concerns over racism or anti- Semitism to the sheriff ’s office are often “met with hostility.”
“To deny that racism and bias is not a problem here, that’s a red flag,” Hammond said. “There is a real problem that is overwhelming and massive.”
She like others insist a civilian review board be put in place and that the sheriff ’s office must “acknowledge a problem exists before we rectify it.”
She has noticed an
“increase of the opportunity for violence on the side of law enforcement and there is no acknowledgement of the harm done, only defense and justification.”
Lexis Figuereo, who is a member of All of Us and leads the Black Lives Matter movement in Saratoga Springs and was among the protesters who were shot with pepper pellets, said people of color, especially young people “are harassed by the sheriff ’s office” and that he himself was stopped and searched by deputies for “unknown reasons.”
Furthermore, he said the committee’s effort to hear all voices is stymied by the committee’s survey that takes a long time to complete and is more of an explanation as to why the Saratoga County Sheriff ’s Office is doing “a good job” rather than an invitation to the public to reflect on their thoughts on policing.
Terry Diggory, co-coordinator of the Saratoga
Immigration Coalition, said fear of police is not reserved for people of color. Immigrants “fear any contact with the sheriff ’s office,” he said.
“They fear that they or their family members will be suspected of, and possibly reported for, immigration violations,” Diggory said. “It should not be the job of sheriff ’s office personnel to inquire about immigration status. The differences between civil and criminal violations of immigration law are very complex, and for a sheriff ’s deputy to wade into those differences risks violating the rights of community members, as has been demonstrated in court cases.”
Community leaders also said they want bias training that would include sensitivity to the LGBTQ community, better communication with the public so people know when the police reform meetings occur, putting the meetings on Zoom rather than doing them over the phone where it is difficult to hear, creating a simplified survey and focusing on restoring trust in the community.
Bell said he understands that law enforcement is an “awesome task and responsibility.” However, “how do we get from a weaponized model to a deescalation model that is respectful of the dignity of the community … We look forward to a change in the system.”
Michael Prezioso, who chairs the committee, said that the group will come up with recommendations that the public can comment on before the county Board of Supervisors adopts them in March.