NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — New York City lawmakers on Tuesday gathered to try to chart a path forward for new NYPD reforms.
In the wake of George Floyd’s police brutality death and the protests that followed during the summer of 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave the order for all police departments in the state to submit a reform plan by April 2021.
However, there has been little done to create a plan for the New York City Police Department, according to local lawmakers.
“Here we are today, roughly six weeks away from the April 1st deadline and New Yorkers have yet to see a draft of the administration's plans,” said City Council Member Adrienne Adams.
She says Mayor Bill de Blasio and his administration have taken too long to come up with a reform plan, so the City Council took it into their own hands.
“The administration dragged its feet for months and rushed through a halfhearted community engagement process,” Adams said.
The Council on Tuesday released its own package of bills, including one which would require the police commissioner to be approved by elected councilmembers.
Chelsea Davis, a spokesperson for the mayor's office, says the administration is strongly against such a proposal.
“We don't think that this would meaningfully improve accountability in the way it's intended, and we think that the police commissioner should report to the mayor,” she said. “We do not think that creating an additional political process for installing a new commissioner will enhance that oversight.”
The City Council is also proposing two bills that would take away the commissioner's final say in disciplinary decisions and end qualified immunity for officers, potentially opening them up to civil litigation.
The hearing came on the same day that a federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled that many New York City police discipline records can be made public, despite union objections.
The unions on Tuesday also slammed the City Council’s proposed reform bills, with the Police Benevolent Association citing recent deadly attacks on the subway and a surge in violent crime.
“New York City police officers just spent the weekend picking evidence out of pools of blood on subway cars. We’ve spent the better part of a year collecting shell casings by the bucketful from our streets. Today’s Public Safety Committee hearing should have been devoted to a serious discussion of the strategies, resources and support we need to stop the violence — topics on which the committee hasn’t held a single hearing in at least eight months,” PBA President Pat Lynch said in a statement. “Instead, we get another raft of absurd bills meant to help lame-duck Council members pad out their anti-cop resumes for their next political job. While New Yorkers are dying, this is how the City Council is spending its time. It’s shameful and infuriating.”
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