On Tuesday, the New York City Council will vote on two police accountability bills. One represents real reform that will protect New Yorkers' privacy rights when police ask to search them without probable cause. The other is faux reform that is the result of a backroom deal between powerful politicians and the New York Police Department.
The City Council has reached a compromise with the NYPD on the Right to Know Act, a package of police reform bills, following tense negotiations that saw fierce opposition from the NYPD, Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.
Mayor de Blasio reversed course on Tuesday saying he now supports legislation that promotes greater police accountability. The Right to Know Act includes two bills — one that requires police to identify themselves, and another that requires a person's consent before certain police searches.
Until now, the mayor and the NYPD opposed the bills, arguing the department had already addressed these issues by changing their own policies.
The City Council has reached a compromise with the NYPD on the Right to Know Act, a package of police reform bills, following tense negotiations that saw fierce opposition from the NYPD, Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.
A deal between the NYPD and City Council would impose the council’s first day-to-day restrictions on how cops deal with the public.
Under legislation to be voted upon on Tuesday, an officer in certain nonemergency encounters would need to provide name, rank and command, explain the reason for the stop and hand out business cards when no one is arrested or issued a summons. Cops also would need to record explicit consent, either on audio or in writing, before searching a person absent a legal basis.
The City Council and the mayor have reached agreement on two bills that place strict requirements on police officers conducting stops or searches — legislation that police union leaders say would “unquestionably place New Yorkers and police officers in harm’s way.”
Known collectively as the Right to Know Act, the legislation would require cops to explain to individuals “using plain and simple language” that they have a right to refuse to be searched — except in cases where there’s a firm legal basis for doing so.
A pair of police reform measures vigorously opposed by New York City’s largest officers union is moving toward passage in the City Council, a last-ditch effort by its departing speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, who has staked her legacy on criminal justice reform.
After years of debate, false starts and back-room negotiations, the legislation, referred to in police reform circles as the Right to Know Act, is now set to be voted on during the Council’s final full meeting next week, just before new members and new leaders are sworn in January.
When Melissa Mark-Viverito was elected as City Council speaker, some feared that her loyalty to Mayor Bill de Blasio would curtail her independence and influence.
After all, it was Mr. de Blasio who helped engineer her victory so that he could have an ally at the helm of the lawmaking body.
While four years of relative comity have followed between the Council and Mr. de Blasio, Ms. Mark-Viverito, who leaves office at the end of the month, converted many of her doubters by standing up to the mayor when it counted.
With NYPD officers looking on, more than 100 people gathered on a Manhattan street corner to protest the acquittal of a cop cleared in the road rage shooting death of a Brooklyn father.
Demonstrators in Union Square said a jury put Officer Wayne Isaacs above the law when they failed to hold him responsible for the July 4, 2016 slaying of motorist Delrawn Small, who was killed in East New York after a clash with the off-duty officer.
Over the course of two days in early July of last year, three black men, each of them under 40, were killed by police officers in different parts of the country — Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.; Philando Castile, outside of St. Paul, and Delrawn Small, in a case that drew far less national attention, in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn.