Calls for calm and change

City, county officials speak of need for dialogue and reform

Local leaders continued to ask for calm after a second round of violence broke out in the city early Tuesday morning.

But later in the day Tuesday, as anger still simmered over the death of George Floyd during a Minneapolis police encounter last week, there were no large gatherings outside Albany’s police headquarters. At 5 p.m., there were three demonstrators, quietly holding cardboard signs and waving to people who honked in support. Two of them, both white, said they were from Delaware County.

Athird,a man, named

Antonio, said he lives in Albany and brought his 9-year-old son to try to explain the dangers he faced growing up black. Antonio said this was his third day of protest.

“It’s a cycle that’s been going on and going on. He doesn’t know any better. Why is he scared of the police? He doesn’t really understand what’s going on. It’s on me as a father to bring him out and show him what the world is really about,” he said.

Along Central Avenue, most businesses had some or all of their windows boarded up. Anthony Capece, executive director of the Central Avenue Business Improvement District, said he had been fielding questions and concerns from businesses damaged in the past few days. Some were wondering if the violence had passed.

“We’re telling people to leave the plywood up,” he said. “Let’s play it safe.”

Late Monday night and early Tuesday morning, police faced off with protesters for the second time in three days. The confrontation between the two sides came after a larger, peaceful protest earlier in the day in front

of police headquarters on Henry Johnson Boulevard. In an attempt to pacify the demonstrators, Police Chief Eric Hawkins spoke with them and took a knee in solidarity with those protesting police brutality and Floyd’s May 25 death. But protesters seemed dissatisfied with some of Hawkins’ answers. The protest became more tense as the night went on and protesters began to get more aggressive toward police.

Officers repeatedly fired tear gas canisters at protesters after being hit with bricks, bottles and fireworks. One protester tried to light a box spring on fire and push it under a police SUV.

Albany police later charged nine people with a variety of offenses, including attempted assault and inciting a riot for throwing bricks and rocks at officers near Quail and West streets. Police said four of those charged are from Albany, three are from Schenectady, one is from Clifton Park and one is from Rensselaer.

It is the second time in three days that a protest — like many around the country that followed the death of Floyd, a black man who died after a police officer pressed a knee onto his neck — turned violent as the night went on.

A confrontation late Saturday behind South Station led to vandalism throughout the South End neighborhood, downtown and Central Avenue.

Tuesday morning outside of police headquarters, Mayor Kathy Sheehan said the city was taking steps to create a way for residents to express their opinions on the recent protests, their experiences with the city police department and what changes they believed the city and the department need to make. The coronavirus pandemic makes that more difficult because of the need to avoid large public gatherings.

“I know there are residents who are concerned about what they saw and what they heard and what they experienced,” she said.

Tuesday morning, Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy called for pastors and community leaders across the Capital Region to help “bring people together.”

Both he and county Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen addressed recent protests and said government leaders have more work to do when it comes to dismantling systemic racism. But Mccoy contended Tuesday that violence, looting and property destruction are doing more harm than good.

“I’m not going to try to walk in your shoes,” he said. “I’m not going to try to tell you how you should feel. I understand the protests around this whole great country of ours and why people are protesting. But please do it safely, and do it where we’re not breaking into businesses and damaging cars and burning buildings down. That’s not the right message. It’s not the right message.”

Mccoy urged people to listen to comments made Monday by Floyd’s younger brother in Minneapolis, in which he urged people to engage in peaceful protests and condemned violence.

“If I’m not over here wilding out, if I’m not over here blowing up stuff, if I’m not over here messing up my community — then what are y’all doing?” Terrence Floyd said. “Nothing, because that’s not going to bring my brother back at all.”

Many activists have argued that riots are an understandable consequence of pleas for change going ignored for so long. But as protests stretch into their second week, calls for both change and calm are growing louder and more urgent.

Mccoy said early Tuesday that the Albany County Interfaith Council would host a socially distanced “call for peace and tolerance” at 5 p.m. at the Moses statue in Albany’s Washington Park. Roughly two hours before it was set to begin, however, county officials said it had been postponed.

Asked whether the county would implement any policy changes or repeals in response to protesters’ demands for change, Mccoy said there are policy, health and quality-of-life issues “that need to be looked at,” but offered no specifics.

Whalen, who has normally discussed the threats posed by coronavirus during Mccoy’s daily Facebook briefings, took time Tuesday to address the national unrest.

“I feel today it is important for me to discuss another public health threat — a public health threat that we have worked within the county to address for as long as I have been working, and long before that,” she said. “And that public health threat is racism and racism is real. The killing of George Floyd was a despicable act that has angered the entire country. But a large part of this anger is due to an underlying systemic problem that occurs across this country and that is racism.”

She noted that racism has an impact on physical and mental health, and that minority health disparities are fueled by systemic racism in housing, education, criminal justice and employment. The disproportionate impact of coronavirus on the county’s black population is the latest evidence of this, she said.

The county has sought to address the impacts of racism on health, she said, through the formation of task forces and listening forums on issues such as maternal mortality, as well as through community education on health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes and heart disease, that disproportionately affect minority communities.

“I think that we have, within the work that we do every day, established a good start and we have made this part of our mission,” she said. “But I would like to say today that we know we can improve. We know that we still have a long way to go. And really the actions of the last week haveshownmethatina way that nothing else ever has.”