Punished officers not likely to be ID’d
State Civil Rights Law allows names to be kept under wraps
It appears unlikely that the names of the Kingston police officers facing departmental discipline for allegedly roughing up a suspect over the summer will be made public.
Section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law allows the personnel records of law-enforcement officers to be kept from the public. And Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, said Section 50-a supersedes the state’s Freedom of Information Law.
“Section 50-a is a terrible statute,” Freeman said Thursday. “... Our first priority is to see that statute either repealed or significantly modified.”
Freeman said the law covers “primarily people who wear uniforms — police officers, correction officers and professional firefighters.”
“It says that personnel records of those classes
of public employees that are used to evaluate performance toward continuing employment or promotion are confidential,” Freeman said of the law. “They cannot be disclosed unless the cop consents or unless a court, in some other context, orders disclosure.”
The Kingston Board of Police Commissioners on Wednesday recommended discipline against officers involved in the July 20 arrest of Adrin Brodhead in
front of the 440 Pizzeria on Broadway in Midtown Kingston.
Brodhead, 20, and his supporters have said the officers tackled, pepper sprayed and tased him after he didn’t obey a police order to put his hands behind his back.
The city’s lead attorney, Corporation Counsel Kevin Bryant, said Wednesday night that “three or four” officers will be subject to discipline in the matter, but he did not provide their names or say what the discipline might be.
Kingston Police Chief Egidio Tinti also declined to
provide the officers’ names or discuss possible action against them.
Callie Jayne, lead organizer for the group Citizen Action of New York, said at Wednesday’s police commission meeting that she does not expect significant consequences for the officers.
“We’re talking about police officers getting a note in their file, and that note in their file isn’t necessarily going to change anything,” she said. “As a person of color, who walks down the streets of Kingston everything single day, I ... and every other person of color should know which officers
were involved in this.”
Brodhead is black. Demonstrators who have showed up in support of him at some of his court appearances have said the officers in the July 20 incident were white.
Brodhead has said the encounter began when officers approached him and asked him for identification as he was walking home from work while carrying an open beer container. He ultimately was charged with resisting arrest, violating the city’s open-container ordinance and littering.
Brodhead rejected a deal in October under which
the open container and littering charges would have been dropped in exchange for him pleading guilty to disorderly conduct. As a result, he is to stand trial in March.
Citizen Action wants information about any allegations of Kingston police officers mistreating suspects.
“We are looking for [statistics regarding] stops by race and ethnicity; use of force, including pepper spray and tasing; and more information about the complaints against members of the Kingston Police Department,” Jayne said.
City officials have not responded to a Nov. 16 request from the Freeman for records about the use of force or tasers by the Kingston Police Department during the past five years.
In another matter Wednesday, the Board of Police Commissioners said a complaint by 27-year-old Fabian Marshall, who says he was tased more than 20 times by Kingston officers in September 2015 after they mistook him for a suspect in a reported assault, remains under review.
Marshall was convicted last month of obstructing governmental administration.