Member of city police commission resigns

Minya DeJohnette, who served for less than a year, says she was not pressured to step down.

KINGSTON, N.Y. » A member of the city Board of Police Commissioners has resigned after serving less than a year but says she wasn’t pressured to do so.

Minya DeJohnette announced her resignation during an online meeting of the commission Wednesday evening.

In a Facebook post Thursday, DeJohnette said she was choosing not to share her reasons for stepping down, as she did not see the benefit of doing so. She said, though, that she wanted to clarify her decision because of questions she had been getting.

“No one pressured me, coerced me or intimidated me into stepping down,” she posted. “Anyone who knows me ... knows I would not put up with that for a single second. I developed a good working relationship with the mayor and the [police] chief, even when we had our major differences.”

DeJohnette, who was the commission’s secretary and a member of the Re-envision Public Safety Task Force, also said no police officers tried to intimidate her into stepping down. She said the majority of her interactions with officers in the Kingston Police Department “were friendly and very respectful.”

“Our city is in crisis, and at this moment, most people are well aware that income inequality, lack of jobs, the housing crisis, rapid gentrification, systemic racism, COVID and lack of adequate youth programs are just a small part of the underlying cause,” DeJohnette wrote.

“As unpopular as this is going to sound to a lot of folks, we were hearing from some of the most impacted members of the community asking to increase police presence because they are scared and asking for help.”

DeJohnette said while those people did not speak for everyone, they represented voices that deserved to be heard.

DeJohnette also said finding a short-term solution to gun violence in the city that works for both the community and the police is a nearimpossible task. She said, though, that Mayor Steve Noble and Police Chief Egidio Tinti “are headed in the right direction [in] trying to find the best way to solve this immediate crisis by trying to listen and involve the community every step of the way.”