Chief says community supports police
Upbeat assessment comes despite allegations about suspects being roughed up
City Police Chief Egidio Tinti considers the relationship between his department and the community to be mutually supportive despite recent allegations of officers mistreating suspects.
“I think that the officers continue to do their jobs,” Tinti said. “They feel that the community does support them. I don’t have any belief to the contrary on that.”
Tinti spoke following last week’s meeting of the Kingston Board of Police Commissioners at which the board recommended departmental discipline against four officers for their actions in a July 20 arrest in Midtown. The officers are accused of tackling, pepper spraying and tasing Adrin Brodhead, 24, after he didn’t obey a police order to put his hands behind his back.
The officers’ names have not
“I think that the officers continue to do their jobs. They feel that the community does support them. I don't have any belief to the contrary on that.” — Kingston Police Chief Egidio Tinti
been made public, and there has been no indication of the punishment they might face.
Tinti, responding to a reporter’s question about complaints regarding his leadership in dealing with abuse claims, said questions about his effectiveness as chief should be taken up with the mayor’s office and the commission.
“I think the commission
has the authority under the city charter to review such actions when complaints come through,” he said.
Critics of the police department said at a press conference prior to the commission meeting that Kingston officers treat people in some neighborhoods with less respect than those in other parts of the city and practice “broken-window policing.”
“Broken-window policing is when a police officer is trained to go into a community that they consider [to be] not a suburb, not a middle-class
community; they might see broken windows, abandoned buildings,” city resident Odell Winfield said at the press conference, held by the group Citizen Action of New York. “But they think that the people ... trapped in these communities are all thugs. They think that everybody that lives under those conditions are out there trying to commit some kind of crime.”
Winfield said that, locally, the philosophy amounts to “training police to be gangs” that focus on Midtown Kingston.
Others at the press conference said a recent public forum with the mayor and police chief did not provide answers about how the Kingston Police Department implements its policy regarding the use of force.
“The question was about the KPD policy for tasing and pepper spray,” city resident Shalawn Brown said. “Specifically, what conditions have to be [met] to use the pepper spray and taser [and] be justified according to the existing policy?”
Brown objected to be being told “we could look
online” and questioned whether police officials were trying to avoid discussion of policy issues.
“When we ask a question like that, I believe that’s a question that needs to be explained personally by Chief Tinti,” she 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 a related matter, the police commission said last week that a complaint
by 27-year-old Fabian Marshall, who says he was tased more than 20 times by officers in September 2015 after they mistook him a suspect in a reported assault, remains under review.
Marshall was convicted last month of obstructing governmental administration.
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.