Chief explains why he knelt
Clifford calls Schenectady protest a “wow moment”
Schenectady Police Chief Eric Clifford said he didn’t think twice when word reached him Sunday afternoon that protesters rallying outside police station against police brutality wanted to talk to him.
And he didn’t spend any time on an internal debate either when protesters asked him to kneel down with them — a now commonly seen practice to condemn brutality that was controversial when done in 2016 by professional athletes including former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
“All I was thinking was here’s a group of people who are emotional and they’re hurting, and they’re asking me to take a knee with them, why wouldn’t I say yes, if that’s going to make them feel better,” he said Monday. “The whole crowd started clapping and it was almost like you could sense the relief that went through the whole crowd.”
Clifford, who has led the department since September 2016, described it as a “wow moment” after he dropped to his knees at the side of patrol car and other officers, some in riot gear, followed his lead.
Before that, Clifford, 49, took questions from people in the crowd about police brutality and his stance on the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Clifford had already condemned the death on Twitter.
“We had some questions that we wanted answered and we wanted them to take a position, which often law enforcement doesn’t do,” said Damonni Farley, who helped organize Sunday’s protest and has been active in local politics. He said some of the officers also took off riot gear in response to another request from organizers.
Farley recalled Clifford kneeling as a seminal moment that dramatically shifted the mood of the crowd, some of whom were getting angry as they waited for police brass to come outside. He noted that the photographs and video circulated on social media and elsewhere do not tell the full story.
Clifford, who lives in Schenectady, said organizers asked if the police would march with them, a request they also obliged.
“I said my officers are on post, so all of them can’t march with you, but I will march with you,” he said. “And then one of the detectives, said, ‘Chief, I’ll march with you, and then another one says ‘yeah, I’ll march.’”
He estimated that about a half dozen officers joined him with the protesters.
Clifford stressed that he’s proud of the city officers and some from other police agencies who backed him up.
“That meant it was it their heart, and they weren’t doing it for any other reason than it was in their heart,” said
Clifford.
A dozen or so cops even marched with the crowd as Clifford along with Wil Rivas, a community activist, held aloft a handwritten sign reading “Black Lives Matter Period” on one side and “No Justice No Peace” on the other.
Clifford said he’s hopeful the interaction can help forge even stronger ties between black residents, the city, and his police force.
He said he noticed the rally drew a lot of people in their late teens to early adult years so he plans to do more outreach to them because “they’re the ones who feel the most vulnerable.”
Farley agrees, and said Monday, he is grateful the protest went the way it did. But he cautioned against people romanticizing it.
“Not saying we shouldn’t have expectations, however, if your expectation for peace is greater than your concerns for black and brown lives, then you’re a willing participant in the destruction of our cities across the nation,” he added.
The situation in Schenectady has been remarkably different than what has happened in Albany. While Schenectady’s protests have been peaceful, demonstrations in Albany have twice turned into confrontations between police and crowds with police firing tear gas after some began throwing rocks. Unrest Monday night and Tuesday morning led to several arrests in Albany.
Mayor Gary Mccarthy put the city under a state of emergency Sunday amid fear of a “likely outbreak of civil unrest” but it never happened and he canceled a similar declaration for Monday.
Clifford is being lauded by many who point to his actions as a reason Schenectady didn’t have any violent protests. The chief said a big part of his message to officers during Monday’s morning and afternoon lineup was that “we need to show empathy and compassion to the community as it relates to police brutality and systemic racism.”
“Every interaction that we have in our community is going to be ref lective on what happened today, as a profession we need to get better,” he continued. “When we use force, we better be able to justify why we’re using it, it better be appropriate and it better not be excessive.”
He said the police knew about the Schenectady rally and began to more closely monitor social media and prepare for the possibility of agitators stirring up trouble and looting after the violence and vandalism Saturday night in Albany.
“There was one report that they were going to burn down our police station, they were going to f lip over a police car, so we had to ramp up our preparation in a big way,” he added.
He said police in the commander center, where Mccarthy was posted, kept an eye on protestors through surveillance cameras in the city.
Clifford said he contemplated addressing the rally when it began in front of the police station, sharing the idea with confidantes. At some point, the protesters made their way to the back police station parking lot where several officers were arrayed in riot gear. He said he could see them on camera but couldn’t hear what they were saying.
He said he was preparing to head out to the crowd when a member of his command staff told him that the organizers wanted a police leader to address the crowd.
“They say that if they come out and speak to them this will end peacefully, so that got up to me and I said ‘OK, let’s go,’” he said. “I said ask them if they’ll come into the police department to speak to me.”
Clifford said he felt comfortable speaking with the crowd because he saw Farley, Rivas, and other familiar faces in the crowd.
The police chief said the reaction to what he did Sunday afternoon has been mostly, and in some cases “powerful messages” and that they have gotten calls from “Live PD,” a show on the A&E channel that covers police officers in the course of their patrols.
He’s also writing an op-ed piece for NBC News.
Hamilton Hill Neighborhood Association Marva Isaacs said there’s a new breed of cops that now make up Schenectady’s police force.
“These are different from the police that used to be there,” she said. “These guys are the best.”