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Policing reform efforts underway for new group

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter the senseless killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police last month, Westchester County officials immediately announced a 30-day review of policy and procedures at the county’s police academy.

But before long, the governor widened that scope and required all communities statewide to dig deeper.

On June 12, Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, issued an executive order requiring each jurisdiction with a police department throughout the state to perform a comprehensive review of current deployments, policies, procedures and practices, and develop a plan, by April 1, 2021, for the purposes of addressing the particular needs of the communities served; promote community engagement; and address any racial bias and disproportionate policing of communities of color.

Mayo Bartlett, a White Plains attorney, is selected to co-chair a Westchester working group that aims to develop new policies for county police training. Bartlett said he’s willing to look outside the U.S. for ideas.

“Police reform is long overdue in this state and this nation, and New York is once again leading the way,” Cuomo said in announcing his executive order. “These critical reforms will help improve…  the many injustices minority communities have faced because of a broken and unfair system.

Cuomo is also requiring each jurisdiction to form a working group to conduct the review, comprised of specified stakeholders such as police leadership, elected officials, members of the community and faith-based groups.

Westchester has 40 separate police entities within its geographic footprint, which includes 43 municipalities.

The county, which employs a Department of Public Safety, Corrections Department and Probation Department, proactively created its own 24-member Police Reform Task Force, on June 1, prior to the governor’s order.

“We wanted to see what the governor was expecting us to do as a county government and incorporate that into what we were already going to do,” said Westchester County Executive George Latimer, a Democrat.

This isn’t the county’s first crack at progressive policing, having previously implemented body cameras on all patrol officers beginning in 2018.

That move came a decade after one of Westchester’s most controversial officer-involved shootings when county police mistakenly shot dead Christopher Ridley, an off-duty Mount Vernon police detective, outside the Department of Social Services building on Court Street in White Plains.

“What we face now requires us to take a more profound step,” Latimer said. “We know that it is not enough to rally. It is not enough to express heartfelt anger and frustration. And, as I’ve said, it really isn’t realistic for a white man to be the person to try and channel what is being felt in the African-American community and for that matter communities of color.”

So, Latimer tapped two prominent African-Americans to lead the way: Mayo Bartlett, a civil rights attorney, and Leroy Frazier, a former prosecutor.

Frazier, who spent 30 years as a New York City prosecutor, said, in his view, the county already has standards in place that are better than the city.

Some of the issues the task force will tackle are what training should look like and recruiting the right type of candidates for the police academy, with a goal of trying to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community. The county administration already plans to add implicit bias training to its academy program.

Bartlett considered the moment a unique opportunity, “to make Westchester County… perhaps the best, in terms of public safety, that exists in the world.” In a 2016 wrongful death lawsuit, Bartlett represented the family of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., a black ex-marine who was shot and killed in 2011 by White Plains police during a standoff in his South Lexington Avenue apartment. His son, Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. will also sit on the task force.

Westchester County police have already equipped all of its patrol officers with body cameras and plan to implement implicit bias training into the academy curriculum. “It’s important to understand we have great respect for the way our county Department of Public Safety works,” County Executive George Latimer said.

“This is an opportunity for real meaningful, structural change,” said Bartlett, adding that he’s willing to look beyond the U.S. for law enforcement ideas. “We’re looking at recreating and restructuring public safety not just for the 21st century but 100 years from now.”

The group will have until Dec. 31 to file its report with Latimer’s administration. The report would then be referred to the county Board of Legislators for its review. Lawmakers would have 90 days to vet the proposal and make any revisions before adopting it. The process would include at least two rounds of public discussion prior to Latimer codifying the plan into law and sending it up to Albany.

If a jurisdiction doesn’t comply with the state order it would risk forfeiting future state or federal funds, according to Cuomo.

“We’re not doing this because of state funding, we’re doing this because it’s right,” Latimer said. “We’re doing this because we need to make sure that every effort that we’re making as a government… we can avoid to the greatest extent possible the kinds of incidents that we’ve seen happen already.”

CONTACT: chris@hometwn.com