Cuomo government backs, calls for police reform
The New York City Council wants to reduce the NYPD ‘footprint’ with a comprehensive billing package. New York City Councilman Joe Borelli and Lieutenant Randy Sutton weigh in on ‘Fox & Friends First’.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday raised the possibility of a federal monitor being placed on the New York Police Department (NYPD), as well as candidates they choose to run for mayor Bill de Blasio later this year. to campaign. their proposals for police reform.
State Attorney General Letitia James earlier this month filed a lawsuit against the NYPD and its leadership over the treatment of protesters against racial injustice following the death of George Floyd.
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“In New York City, the situation is even worse because the attorney general has filed a lawsuit finding that the city police did abuse people and the attorney general’s demand that a monitor be instituted,” Cuomo said Sunday. said at a press conference. reference to the lawsuit that includes reforms, including the appointment of a federal monitor to oversee the NYPD’s policing tactics during future protests.
The lawsuit also calls for a court order declaring the policies and practices used by the department during the protests to be illegal.
Separately, Cuomo came under fire after James released a report last week indicating that his state health department reported up to 50% among deaths to the coronavirus nursing home.
Cuomo focused on the attorney general’s actions against the NYPD and explained that if a monitor is instituted, ‘then we’re going to another stage where it’s not really the mayor who controls the police. It’s not really the police commissioner who’s in charge of the police. This is a monitor. And the monitor is not elected by anyone, it is appointed by a court under the lawsuit of the Attorney General. ‘
Cuomo turns up in the New York City mayoral election in 2021 and challenges hopefuls, many of whom are already involved in city politics, to unveil their own plans for police reform.
“I’m surprised there’s no more talk of this in New York,” the governor said. “There’s a mayoral election coming up. There’s a lot of issues to talk about. But how do you not talk about police reform?”
Cuomo spoke directly to Eric Adams, a Brooklyn borough who is a former police officer, and asked, “What’s your idea?” The governor continued: ‘I mean, Borough President Adams, he knows the situation from several sides very well. What is your position? ‘
Cuomo leaves for Scott Stringer, the city inspector ‘who has been there all along,’ and asks again, ‘What’s your idea? You want to be mayor. What would you do about this? In concrete terms. ‘
“Right [now]”A few months after a mayoral election, I do not know what their positions are, I do not know what their plans are,” Cuomo said. Once again, I was amazed. In the New York City mayoral election, you have the incumbents in control. Where were you, what did you do? Where were you when Rome burned? ‘
But Adams’ spokesman, Evan Thies, told the New York Daily News that Adams “set out an extensive reform agenda, including diversifying the department and holding bad police accountable through historic transparency measures.” ‘
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“We will send Eric’s police reform agenda to the governor,” he added. Meanwhile, Hazel Crampton-Hays, the press secretary at the controller’s office, told the newspaper that Stringer “will have more to say in the coming days.”
The union representing NYPD officials responded to Cuomo’s remarks about the lawsuit, again arguing that city leaders were failing to give officials a plan while risking their lives during violent protests that erupted in the city during the summer. .
“We’ll say it again: what we saw in June was a failure of the New York leadership,” said the president of the NYC Police, the Goodwill Association, Patrick J. Lynch in a statement issued to Fox News was provided Monday. “They sent police officers unprecedented protests and violent riots to the police without plan, strategy and support. They should be forced to answer for the chaos that ensues, instead of pointing the police in the street and the criminals who attacked us. have, to ignore. bricks and firebombs. ‘
The mayoral election will consist of Democratic and Republican primary elections on June 22, 2021, followed by a general election on November 2, 2021. Last week, the city council blamed ‘months of delays by the de Blasio administration’, which 11 – page legislative police reform package. Measures in the proposal include the need for the city’s next police commissioner to be approved by the city council, as well as other methods to promote “non-car” interventions in community safety.
“The city council is moving. And I say that well to Speaker Corey Johnson, because they have to approve a plan before April 1, that’s 60 days,” Cuomo said Sunday. He added that he did not have a specific opinion on whether the city council should confirm the police commissioner, but said that politicians should act to address increasing crime, especially in black and colored communities.
“Everyone is unhappy,” Cuomo said. “I’ll tell you where it is now, the police are unhappy, the community is unhappy, the activists are unhappy and all New Yorkers are unhappy because crime is going through the roof. And the black community and the poor community and the brown community, “What feels most contemptuous is fear, pays the highest price because they are the victims of more crime. And I think the city council is pulling at least.”
James, a Democrat, was instructed by Cuomo to investigate whether NYPD officers used excessive force to quell the unrest last spring and enforce Mayor Bill de Blasio’s night bell. She issued a preliminary report in July calling for a “clear breakdown of trust between the police and the public”.
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The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Jan. 14, found the city, de Blasio, police commissioner Dermot Shea and department head Terence Monahan accused. James criticized de Blasio for saying that the use of boilers was justified and Shea for saying that the NYPD “had a plan that was carried out almost flawlessly” when officers struck aggressively on June 4 in the Bronx.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.