New York Daily News

Blaz ripped for timing on reform bills

- Jillian Jorgensen

THE MAYOR hastily added a hearing for a controvers­ial police reform bill to his schedule Monday — at a time when many of the activists opposed to it were mourning Erica Garner.

Mayor de Blasio added the Right to Know Act to a slew of less contentiou­s bills getting hearings Monday — slipping the measure into an updated advisory he issued two hours before the event was to begin. The hearing was scheduled a half hour before the Harlem funeral for Garner, whose father Eric Garner was killed as a cop used a chokehold while trying to arrest him in 2014.

Carolyn Martinez-Class, a spokespers­on for Communitie­s United for Police Reform, testified at City Hall, called the timing “diappointi­ng and disrespect­ful.”

The act’s two billswould require cops to identify themselves during stops. Following negotiatio­ns with the NYPD, the bill won’t apply to low-level or traffic stops, turning advocates against the legislatio­n.A spokesman for the mayor said the hearings were “added to the public schedule hours before they took place, leaving time for members of the public to attend — which they did.”

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