Blaz ripped for timing on reform bills
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.”