Kavanagh: I understand anger about handshake photograph
But says he wouldn’t have greeted Shabazz as DA rival Clegg did
Ulster County District Attorney candidate Michael J. Kavanagh said Friday that he does not fault his opponent, David Clegg, for shaking an admitted felon’s hand at a January campaign event but that he wouldn’t have done the same and understands the angry reaction from local law enforcement about a photo of the interaction being included in campaign material supporting Clegg.
“I cannot, I do not fault him for shaking Ismail Shabazz’s hand,” Kavanagh, a Republican who currently is the county’s chief assistant district attorney, said Friday morning. But “when the image of Mr. Clegg shaking hands with somebody who is a lifelong criminal, who has advocated for injuring police officers, they (local police) are obviously going to be very upset.”
Asked if he would have shaken Shabazz’s hand, Kavanagh said in an email later Friday: “As someone who has worked in the criminal justice system in this county for the last 12 years, it is inconceivable that I would not recognize Ismail Shabazz immediately, no matter the size of the crowd. I would not shake the hand of anyone who promotes violence against police officers.”
Authorities have said Shabazz, who pleaded guilty in 2016 to selling illegal weapons to an undercover federal agent, previously
recruited members of the Bloods street gang into the New Black Panthers Party in Kingston and advocated violence against police officers. Shabazz denies that allegation.
A recent pro-Clegg campaign mailer. produced by a political action committee called New York Justice and Public Safety, featured a prominent photo of Clegg and Shabazz shaking hands just after the Democrat announced his candidacy at a January event in Kingston. Clegg has said he has no contact with the PAC and no control over its actions,
Clegg said Monday that he has had “absolutely no contact” with Shabazz since he was introduced to him by a minister at the January event.
“I shook his hand. He was in a crowd. I don’t shun people. I didn’t know what he was alleged to have done,” the candidate said.
Saugerties Police Chief Joseph Sinagra, president of the MidHudson Association of Chiefs of Police, responded to the mailer with a press release that said the photo “should offend every lawabiding citizen in Ulster County.”
Shabazz pleaded guilty in October 2016 to selling weapons to an undercover federal agent the previous year. He spent two years in prison before being released in January 2019.
Shabazz admitted in court that he sold six illegal weapons, including an assault rifle and a sawed-off shotgun, all in working condition, from his home on Prospect Street in Midtown Kingston.
“What I’ve said before and what I keep saying is: What about Mr. Clegg’s platform is so attractive to somebody like Ismail Shabazz?” Kavanagh said Friday.
Shabazz said he supports Clegg and was at the January event because Clegg is “a good man.”
Kavanagh predicted the mailer will be a problem for the Clegg campaign.
“This is an issue that is between law enforcement and police officers and Mr. Clegg, and that’s something he’s going to have to deal with,” he said. “As somebody that’s running for chief law enforcement officer, that’s something that’s going to be a problem for him.”
In a statement emailed to the Freeman on Thursday, Clegg’s campaign manager, Casey Sabella, said Shabazz was one of “hundreds of people” Clegg represented when he was a public defender in the 1980s.
“Some years later, Dave ran into Ismail Shabazz on the street and said he was glad to see him doing well. His next interaction with Shabazz was 15 or 20 years later, at the campaign rally where he shook his hand,” Sabella wrote. “He was unfamiliar with the details of Mr. Shabazz’s recent criminal case . ... Dave is a deacon in his church and believes everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.”