Clowntime in Troy
Officers who harassed State Police troopers need to be dismissed before their wrong-headed attitudes lead to something much worse happening
The menacing element of the way a group of on-duty Troy police officers hounded two state troopers is unnerving, to put it lightly.
According to the Times Union’s Brendan J. Lyons, four Troy officers in their patrol cruisers surrounded a State Police vehicle containing two troopers, flashed them with their searchlights, and at one point yelled at them over a loudspeaker that they “don’t belong here.”
A senior-level officer who responded to the December incident in Lansingburgh joked with the troopers that it was all in good fun and, yeah, maybe a little inappropriate. That is an understatement: The officers’ behavior was aggressive, territorial, entitled and mean.
The Troy Police Department acknowledges the encounter was wrong and promises to discipline the officers involved. But we sense the department plans to pass it off as young officers being silly. Chief Daniel Dewolf called the conduct “childish and … unprofessional,” describing the encounter as an isolated incident involving younger officers who didn’t comprehend the seriousness of what they had done and the potential harm it might cause to the department’s relationship with the State Police.
This can’t be passed off as a few rogue idiots. This was a group working in concert to harass people — fellow members of law enforcement — that they didn’t want to be in “their” city. The mere fact that they thought they could get away with it in public is yet another sign of rot within the department’s culture.
People don’t suddenly decide to terrorize someone: These are officers who went through 26 weeks of police academy training and then further instruction under the tutelage of more veteran officers in Troy.
Troy Mayor Carmella Mantello said she had “expressed my unhappiness with the chief and I’m glad he is following through on disciplinary action.” We hope she’s ready to say that should include dismissal.
One would think every member of the department would be on something a lot closer to their best behavior at a time when the department is still under investigation by the state attorney general’s office into the February 2023 deaths of Sabeeh Alalkawi, the 30year-old who died when a Troy police SUV slammed into his car. Hasn’t the department learned enough from the years-long litigation that followed the April 2016 fatal shooting of Edson
Thevenin, 37, as he fled a traffic stop?
Calls from elected officials, advocates and the general public for changes to the way police officers are selected and trained have been louder in the years since the 2020 death of George Floyd. Such changes include ensuring those sworn to protect and serve have the right temperament. The officers involved in this encounter clearly do not.
We have no doubt that Chief Dewolf and Mayor Mantello are genuine in their mortified response to this episode; that sentiment is no doubt shared by most hard-working officers in the city. For their sake, it’s time for the department to send a clear message that this kind of behavior won’t be tolerated. It’s time to take away the gun and the badge before something much worse happens.