Obstacles to reform
The exoneration of an Albany police officer who broke down a door at a loud party, pepper-sprayed occupants without warning, and touched off a series of events that left city taxpayers on the hook for over $250,000 says a lot about the disciplinary process in law enforcement. It also says much about the challenge of trying to eradicate systemic racism from the criminal justice system.
Communities around New York are due soon to submit plans for reforming their law enforcement agencies. How many of those plans will be able to stand up to the extraordinary protections police officers enjoy under their contracts and the standards of behavior that have come to be tolerated by state arbitrators remains to be seen — especially by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislators who may have reforms of their own to do.
The Albany case involved Officer Matthew Seeber, who with other officers responded to a complaint of a loud party on First Street in March 2019. He broke down the door after the residents refused to open it, and pepper-sprayed several of the people inside. Video shows police beating people in the street. Eight officers faced disciplinary charges; one, Luke Deer, was charged criminally. Three, including Seeber, were recommended for termination.
Three civilians who were arrested had their charges dropped, and the city has settled with them for a combined $265,000. An internal review found misconduct by officers and a breakdown in their supervision.
Officer Seeber successfully appealed his firing through arbitration, as the contract allows. In clearing him of the disciplinary charges, the arbitrator wrote that it came down to a judgment call, that the neighborhood is a rough area, and that the people inside the home were dangerous and probably armed. It’s worth noting there was no evidence guns were found. Mayor Kathy Sheehan has blasted the decision as racially biased, which the arbitrator denies.
Yet it’s hard to imagine this ruling — or the police behavior that night — would have come down in any way like this in a predominantly white middleclass neighborhood.
It’s cases like this that should give pause to city and community leaders around the state as they complete law enforcement reform plans required under an executive order by Mr. Cuomo in response to the national uproar over the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed when a Minneapolis, Minn., police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in an arrest over an allegedly counterfeit bill. The plans, due April 1, have been viewed as an opportunity for communities to address the historically disparate treatment of minorities in the criminal justice system.
Any overhaul of police departments will likely need to include greater accountability, better conduct standards and effective enforcement of them. As the First Street case underscores, that’s easier said than done when police contracts and arbitration precedent come into play.
It falls, then, on Mr. Cuomo and lawmakers to heed the obstacles communities will encounter in trying to reform their police agencies. As the Legislature did in repealing a law that shielded police disciplinary records from disclosure, it may well have to pass new legislation to better balance the interests of police officers with the need for communities to fire bad cops — and those who just aren’t cut out for all this admittedly tough job demands.