Activists: More reforms
Schenectady police measures lacking, community says
It’s a harsh reality to Daniel Smalls, who knows too well how wearing suits or sweats seemingly determines if he will have an encounter with police.
“I never have been pulled over in my vehicle in a suit,” said Smalls, a Black attorney who drives a luxury sports utility vehicle and lives in Niskayuna with his wife and four sons, ages 3 to 15. “Every time I’ve gotten pulled over, it has been in a hoodie, and many times I don’t receive tickets.”
Smalls said he doesn’t like to advertise the fact that he’s a defense attorney.
“But it’s unfortunate because you do have the concern of you don’t want to get shot, you don’t want to go reach for your license and then they automatically say you’re reaching for something else.”
Such is the life of a Black man in the U.S. despite a spate of police reform measures implemented at the state and local levels.
Following a surge of activism for racial justice rekindled by the murder of George Floyd and deaths of other Black people at the hands of police last year, police departments across New York embarked on statemandated reforms designed to restore community trust and boost transparency and accountability. Localities were required to adopt plans by
April 1 at the risk of losing state funding.
While routine, some traffic stops have led to the deaths of Black men from Daunte Wright to Philando Castile. And many activists believe months of police reforms have done little to change a system where an
unarmed person could die at the hands of police despite posing no threat.
Police in Albany, Schenectady and Troy vowed to shift how they respond to mental health calls, diversify their ranks to include more people of color, refine rules on use of deadly force, tighten civilian police oversight panels and add transparency to police misconduct cases.
Yet many activists, clergy members and community leaders who participated in those cities’ reform processes say while the effort was initially promising, the changes were too gradual and their initial optimism has curdled into an alltoo-familiar sense of disappointment.
Among the most vexing: Funding has not been reallocated from police coffers to community programming; civilian oversight boards tasked with reviewing misconduct broadly lack independent investigatory authority and continue to be tethered to the departments they are tasked with overseeing, and policies that have resulted in the deaths of Black people elsewhere — including no knock warrants — remain on the books. Calls to demilitarize police departments, which are regularly outfitted with surplus military equipment from the federal government, were also ignored.
Smalls and others questioned whether the murder conviction of the former police officer who killed Floyd in Minneapolis will bring about real change to policing and a more equitable criminal justice system, and accused police and city leaders of ignoring the needs of marginalized communities.
“We once again feel our voices have fallen on deaf ears,” Jerry Ford of the Troy Coalition of Black Leaders said. “Policing is just like putting a Band-aid on a bullet wound.”
Troy Mayor Patrick Madden called his city’s suite of reforms the “first steps in an ongoing effort.”
“Real change will require a commitment to open dialogue and engagement between the city, the police department and our residents,” Madden wrote in the city’s final report outlining the changes.
Participants on the panel guiding the process in Troy made it clear they wanted deep investments in community centers, vocational services and programming for seniors, said Ford, who voiced his concerns at a town hall-style virtual panel May 2 along with nearly a dozen other panelists.
Instead they got six new officers tasked with community policing, a move that rekindled the debate over whether money should instead be invested in social and youth services.
Those officers will boost the community policing unit to eight. They will be tasked with more than just sitting in cruisers, but rather deepening ties to neighborhoods, whether shooting hoops with kids or engaging in what police brass hope will be more overall positive interactions.
City Council voted last week to transfer $182,731 to pay for the new officers to go through the upcoming academy — a cost of roughly $30,455 per officer.
“The city of Troy continues to be deaf to what our community has already spoken out about — and continues to speak about — and one of those things was not having the need or want of additional police,” said Starletta Smith, executive director of the YWCA of the Greater Capital Region and member of the committee that guided the process.
As part of its reform package, Troy also reconstituted its civilian police oversight board, refined the complaint submission process and pledged to make police disciplinary records more accessible, among other changes.
Activist Danielle Colin Charlestin, who goes by D. Colin, described the series of meetings as “underpublicized and highly controlled” sessions that weren’t held until February,
just weeks before final plans were due to the state.
“The report is thin on substance and barely scratches the surface on many of the recommendations,” she said.
One key omission: The failure of the department to acknowledge systemic racism, or the concept of racism that is embedded in all aspects of an organization and culture, within its ranks.
“It’s horrendous,” Smith said. “It was a slap in the face, to say the least.”
A spokesman for the Troy Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Madden has previously pointed to increased public support for more police officers due to gun violence and a record number of homicides last year as a rationale for expanding the department’s community policing unit.
Activists were coy on future actions, but said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive order compelling the reforms was overly broad and the executive branch could possibly use some additional prodding.
“I think we need to press the
governor to do his due diligence to stand up from an activist standpoint,” said Tasheca Madina from Equality for Troy.
The past year has been the most transformational in decades when it comes to ushering in police reforms, which have long been opposed by unions representing police officers.
Cuomo signed a series of executive orders last year, including a ban on chokeholds.
The Democratic-controlled state Legislature also took up legislation, including new laws requiring police to provide medical attention to those in custody, to track arrest data by race and outfit the State Police with body-worn cameras.
While the laws have stripped the police of some protections — including a statute that shielded police disciplinary records — activists believe the changes simply nibble away at the edges and stop short of a full transformation of policing, which includes acknowledgment of systemic racism in police operations as well as defunding operations and steering that money elsewhere.
Albany adopted a more expansive reform package than Troy, offering three dozen action items that officials acknowledged may take several years to implement, including boosting staff for juvenile diversion programming and strengthening accountability for how the department uses money seized during drug raids.
But activists said they see no revolutionary changes.
“As it stands, I don’t see how the work we did in the police collaboration has made much of an impact so far,” said Jahaira Roldan, founder and executive director of Project TRY in Albany.
Alice Green, executive director of the Center for Law and Justice in Albany, was similarly frustrated. While she praised some of the panelists tasked with shaping the reforms, she contends she was boxed out of the process and criticized the perceived absence of tangible benchmarks and wondered if the state would ever follow up with localities to ensure reforms are met.
“We got nothing,” Green said. The disappointment in the activist community is compounded by numerous factors:
For one, police are still killing Black people across the U.S., including Wright, who was shot by a Minnesota police officer last month, a slaying that sparked protests outside of both Albany and Schenectady police headquarters further inflaming
“As it stands, I don’t see how the work we did in the police collaboration has made much of an impact so far.” — Jahaira Roldan, founder and executive director of Project TRY in Albany
tensions locally.
Activists also point to police departments’ own actions — including the decision to pepper spray and forcefully clear peaceful protesters camped in front of the South Station Albany police precinct last month — as contradicting their claims to be more receptive and inclined to deescalate thorny situations.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, who has defended the police action, acknowledged the move damaged relationships.
“I would say that they are very frayed,” Sheehan said a panel discussion April 28, moments before Chief Eric Hawkins briefed the city’s Common Council on his department’s actions — which included officers covering up their badges before clearing the encampment, a move Hawkins pledged to investigate (a promise that was met with skepticism from activists who have called for broader civilian oversight).
“I think that literally once again leads to a lack of transparency and trust with the community when the police we don’t trust are investigating police,” said Lexis Figuereo, an activist arrested in the aftermath. “That’s insane.”
Activists say they’ll continue to push for further changes after the altercation at South Station, including the firing of the officer who grabbed a megaphone out of an activist’s hand and the creation of a database tracking complaints against officers. The department’s final report did recommend the department post information online about disciplinary actions taken against officers but acknowledged a system may take years to fully implement, as will other reforms.
“We still have our demands,” said activist Legacy Casanova. “We’re taking time to regroup, heal and we’re going to come back out fully wanting to continue this battle of police reform.”
Still on the table: Pushing the Albany Common Council to ban tear gas, a move currently being debated.
And activists want all charges dropped for those arrested in connection with the altercation outside South Station.
Nearly one year out from Floyd’s May 25 murder, Casanova cited activists’ most resounding successes as those generated from direct street action — not hashing out policy details.
Those include bringing to light racist remarks allegedly made by the now-former owner of a Schenectady ice cream parlor through a prolonged pressure campaign that culminated with him pointing a pellet gun at organizers and protesting Grace Baptist Church in Lansingburgh, whose outspoken pastor became known for giving away AR-15 rifles to congregants.
But Casanova doesn’t count last month’s conviction of ex-minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin for Floyd’s murder as a win.
“Other officers still need to be convicted,” Casanova said, cycling through the names of other Black people killed by police. “Should we be happy? No, we’re not — at all.”
Activists have said their movement is a regional effort encompassing Albany, Troy and Schenectady, where the city’s police department pledged to create a community policing unit, hold regular neighborhood discussions and boost foot patrols.
But the Rev. Nicolle Harris, president of the Schenectady NAACP, worries those recommendations didn’t reflect some of the nagging problems residents have been complaining about for a long time.
“I think the people of Schenectady are still waiting to see if there’s going to be actual change or whether or not this process manipulated them,” Harris said.
Jamel Muhammad, who was in on task force panels for the city and county, suggested that having to accomplish such an important work in such short time during a pandemic was a tough ask.
Still, he said “the process for both of them were good considering all those factors,” but that there’s a lot of hard work and difficult conversations for real progress and change to happen.
“It’s not the police department alone,” Muhammad said. “You need to have the right people coming to the table to request implementation of the things that the police department needs to be doing.”
The city’s reform process saw nearly 200 people weigh in through a series of moderated panel discussions.
Several members of the steering committee began sharpening their criticisms just as the effort began winding down following a grueling stretch of forums and internal meetings.
People were feeling
“cautiously optimistic” when the process started last summer, said the Rev. Dustin Wright, speaking on behalf of Clergy
Against Hate. He cited the city’s attempts to build consensus and assemble a diverse panel.
And while he praised feedback sessions and the reforms designed to bolster wellness programming for officers and steer police calls to mental health agencies — a move designed to avert deadly outcomes, including the fatal shooting of a man by police who was experiencing mental duress at an apartment complex last March — Wright said the process fell apart in its waning days.
“Things took a pretty negative turn right before the process ended,” Wright said, citing the lack of a final vote on projects and ambiguity over the department’s knee-to-head restraint policy, a technique the city announced it would ban last summer, but later quietly reinstated for situations police consider life-threatening.
“It just doesn’t build trust,” Wright said. “The relationships eroded even further and the process has done the opposite of what was intended.”
Police have pledged to
“I go back as a child of the ’60s, so I have seen so-called talk of change, but we’re still dealing with the same problems that I saw when they shot a kid in Harlem in 1967, so for me as someone who has experienced decades of protest against treatment by police, my feeling is wait and see.”
— Walter Simpkins
participate in ongoing community conversations led by members of the public, a move Wright said is critical to bringing to the table people who haven’t yet participated in the conversation.
Walter Simpkins, 72, with Community Fathers, Inc., who lives in Schenectady’s Hamilton Hill, insisted that community police will only help if officers truly immerse themselves into a neighborhood and get to know people.
He’s heard all the talk before.
“The only way that’s going to change is for the police to come into the community because we’re not coming into the police stations willingly,” he said, “I go back as a child of the ’60s, so I have seen socalled talk of change, but we’re still dealing with the same problems that I saw when they shot a kid in Harlem in 1967, so for me as someone who has experienced decades of protest against treatment by police, my feeling is wait and see.”
The Rev. Phil Grigsby, the former executive director of what is now SICM Community Ministries, said the process “left a bad taste in people’s mouths because it was so hasty and it was so top-down and really not what we would call a community-driven process.”
Grigsby said it only became clear to him and some other task force members late in the process that Mayor Gary Mccarthy and Chief Eric Clifford would ultimately decide what recommendations would be included in the final report.
And he was also skeptical of an online survey designed by the John F. Finn Institute for Public
Safety that officials used to glean feedback on policing operations. “They had great detail on the survey, but when you looked at it closely, it mostly profiled people like me — old retired white guys on the north side,” said Grigsby, a Schenectady Clergy Against Hate member.
“It really didn’t talk about people in Hamilton Hill or Mont Pleasant,” Grigsby said. “It had some responses from there, but really was not significant, so I challenged acceptance of the Finn report.”
Grigsby also said the city missed opportunities to strengthen the review
board and fully extract police from responding to mental health calls.
“I think a number of the recommendations are good, but they just don’t go far enough,” he said.
Clifford declined to address at length the methodology behind the survey, which revealed generally strong public support for police and how they function, but said it was designed by social scientists who are “experts in their field of service.”
“I don’t believe public trust is being eroded,” Clifford said. “I think it’s a certain group, and a certain following, who are
agitators in police-community relations. Their actions will not deter the forward progress I’m striving for, the department is striving for and the city is striving for.”
Clifford also pushed back on criticism that reforms were not subject to a vote. The steering committee by definition, he said, was given an advisory role with an emphasis on consensusbuilding. The city never indicated there would be an up-or-down vote on reforms.
Smalls, the Niskayuna attorney, said motorists need to politely assert their rights with police, one of many things he tells his sons all the time.
“The biggest thing that I tell them is that everyday you walk out of this door, you are a Black man in America, just know that,” he said.
From there, he reminds his boys to “be respectful if you have interactions with police, but you do have rights” and watch the company you keep.
“I don’t believe public trust is being eroded. I think it’s a certain group, and a certain following, who are agitators in police-community relations. Their actions will not deter the forward progress I’m striving for, the department is striving for and the city is striving for.”
— Schenectady Police Chief Eric Clifford