Troy to revive review body
Mayor’s plan called political move by election opponents
Mayor Patrick Madden announced a search for members of the city’s dormant Police Objective Review Committee. It comes amid repeated criticism for his handling of the investigation of the fatal 2016 shooting of a DWI suspect by a city police sergeant.
The committee, known by its acronym PORC, is the only body in the city charged with monitoring the police department and its internal affair investigations. It’s considered by civil rights observers and some residents to be a group that needs more muscle and independence to review the police department.
Madden’s announcement in a press release Monday evening stated that he is working with the NAACP Troy Branch on reinvigorating PORC. The committee was inactive throughout his term in office. The announcement comes as he is running for re-election in a three-way race that has seen his opponents push him on why he hasn’t done more to clarify what happened when Sgt. Randall French fatally shot Edson Thevenin on April 17, 2016.
“With the assistance of law enforcement leaders, local representatives, and community organizations like the NAACP we will move this important effort forward and work to ensure objective review committee members receive the necessary training and skills to be effective in this new role,” Madden, the Democratic-working Families candidate, said in a statement.
Republican-conservative Thomas Reale had promised to revive PORC when speaking at the Troy 100 candidates forum Monday night with Madden and Green-independence candidate Rodney Wiltshire.
“I’m happy to see it happen. It’s everything that I’ve brought up,” Reale said. “It should have been done a long time ago.”
Wiltshire, who has lost the last two Democratic primaries to Madden and the 2015 general election, said the mayor was making a purely political move.
“This reeks of insincerity and political maneuvering,” Wiltshire said.
Madden’s refusal to release a memo written by former Glenville Police Chief Michael D. Ranalli for the city about the shooting has become a recurring theme in the election. The Ranalli memo refutes the internal affairs report written by Capt. Joseph L. Centanni, which concluded French was not justified in using deadly physical force against Thevenin.
PORC was created in 1997 and functioned for five years until 2002. It went silent until 2008 when former Mayor Harry Tutunjian appointed new members. The committee stopped meeting again for five years. Then former mayor Lou Rosamilia named new committee members who met from 2013 until September 2014.
In August when the Times Union reported that PORC wasn’t meeting, NAACP Troy President Renee Powell said the committee needed to be restored immediately.
“From developing the duties and responsibilities of the review committee and its members to reviewing the applications of the proposed review committee candidates, NAACP Troy Branch has agreed to support this effort,” Powell said in the statement released by the mayor’s office.
PORC’S duties are outlined in the city code and are restrictive. Melanie Trimble, head of the New York Civil Liberties Union Capital Region Chapter, said the committee needs to be given legal staff and subpoena power so that it can operate independently and conduct thorough reviews of the police department.
The city council president candidates said PORC could have resolved community questions if it had been operating.
“It is important to note that if the PORC had been in place a great deal of the controversy over the internal affairs report regarding the Thevenin case might have been eliminated,” incumbent Republican Council President Carmella Mantello said.
Democratic Councilman David Bissember, who is challenging Mantello, said getting a civilian review board operating is a good first step, but that more must be done to make it credible to the public.
“It needs more teeth,” Bissember said. “It needs more transparency.”