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Editor’s note: This story is part of a series investigating criminal justice in the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County.

Activists in the city of Syracuse see the Common Council’s recent passing of the Right to Know Act as a small victory in a much larger battle against institutional racism in the city. 

The Common Council passed the act, which is designed to increase transparency in Syracuse Police Department officers’ interactions with the public, on Oct. 13. The passage came 18 months after organizers initially pushed for it. 

Police reform activists in Syracuse said the legislation is a step in the right direction for SPD, but they hope reform goes far beyond changing how officers interact with residents.

“(The legislation is) really just a stepping stone in creating a system that forces the officers and police department to be more civil in general,” said TJ Davis, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Syracuse. “It just generally minimizes their power in the encounter.”

Organizers outlined to The Daily Orange a vision for policing in the city that includes strengthening systems of accountability for officers, redirecting funding and responsibilities away from SPD and addressing underlying issues, such as poverty, that contribute to crime. At the same time, city officials –– including Mayor Ben Walsh –– have detailed barriers to bringing activists’ goals to fruition.

While Walsh has worked on improving the relationship between SPD and the public, he said the city will continue to do more. 

“One of the challenges to building that relationship is the fact that, oftentimes, when the community and police officers are having direct interactions, it’s at a time of crisis,” Walsh said in an interview with The D.O. “We’re looking for more opportunities to have officers and constituents engage at a time when they can focus on getting to know each other.” 

Fifteen advocacy groups, including Black Lives Matter Syracuse and Last Chance for Change, presented the People’s Agenda for Policing to city officials in July. The agenda included a list of nine demands such as passing the Right to Know Act, directing funds away from SPD and providing more power to the Citizen Review Board, a resident-controlled body that reviews complaints against SPD officers.

Walsh partially agreed to those demands on July 16, and the city has since launched a dashboard to track its progress in meeting them. That dashboard marks the Common Council’s passing of the Right to Know Act as a step toward fulfilling one of the demands, with the act’s implementation set to begin Dec. 14.

Davis believes the city must go further, redirecting resources away from SPD and investing in other services that can carry out some of the department’s functions. These could include programs where caseworkers and social workers respond to mental health crises instead of police officers, he said.

A substantial portion of SPD’s responsibilities include answering nonviolent calls that don’t require armed intervention, which may unnecessarily escalate situations, Davis said. 

“The rest is house calls that they simply aren’t equipped to be at and don’t really serve as mechanisms of de-escalation, especially when it comes to Black and brown people,” Davis said. 

Walsh has previously said the city allocates funding to SPD based on its current responsibilities. In his response to the People’s Agenda for Policing, he said the city would research and consider community-based strategies for responding to noncriminal calls “with a goal of shifting the paradigm from primary police response to response by non-police professionals in relevant fields.”

Syracuse’s dashboard shows that the city’s response to this demand is still in the planning stage, with little additional information.

Zahabu Gentille Rukera, an organizer for Last Chance for Change, said it would benefit the city to defund the police to a limited extent and distribute funds from SPD to other public resources, such as education. 

Police reforms would increase the community’s trust in SPD, which will benefit both city residents and police officers, said Common Councilor At-large Michael Greene.

Greene, who has been a part of the effort to expand the Citizen Review Board, said expanding the board is another key step to establishing trust between police and Syracuse residents. If officers know there’s an independent accountability forum such as the board, they will be more likely to comply with conduct requirements. 

Under the current structure, the board can only make recommendations for officer discipline to the SPD chief, who has the final say in handing out punishments. The police union also poses an obstacle to administering discipline and can sometimes restrict even the SPD chief.

Overall, activists want the review board to have greater authority to impose discipline on officers. 

“You talk to citizens, and you get a sense there’s been a lack of accountability,” Greene said. “To the extent that we have something that’s more citizen-guided, I think that would restore some faith that there’s accountability when officers act inappropriately.”

When addressing the groups’ other demands in July, Walsh deferred to the Common Council to pass legislation that would strengthen the review board.

Entrusting more power to the review board will provide city residents with a stronger platform to hold officers accountable for misconduct, Davis said. The objective of BLM Syracuse is to curb the power of the police department and hold officers to the same standards as residents when they commit crimes, he said.

“There’s no reason for an officer who’s in charge of serving and protecting, who is paid, to then turn around and abuse the people who are supposed to serve and protect,” he said.

While the city has pushed many reforms on SPD in a short amount of time, the department has cooperated with the mayor’s office so far, Walsh said.  

Common Councilor Joe Driscoll, of the 5th district, serves as a member of the council’s public safety committee. The council and city government are currently reviewing all SPD policies for opportunities for reform, he said.

“Hearing from my constituents, they just want more transparency and more accountability. We’re trying to figure out what the best method is to do that,” he said, “But while also not putting so much burden on the police. We want to make sure that they’re able to still do their job.”

Some of the reforms activists are pushing for, such as a requirement for officers to live in the city of Syracuse, are out of the city’s control because they fall under state law, Driscoll said.

Activists are also working to garner greater support for police reform among Syracuse residents. Nathaniel Flagg, an organizer for Last Chance for Change, said many people who oppose police reform efforts in Syracuse don’t sympathize with residents of color or residents who live in low-income areas, such as the Southside neighborhood, who may be more likely to experience police brutality or racial profiling.

If residents knew what it was like to live in those areas, they would feel more connected to the communities that have advocated for the reforms, he said. 

“Do you want your children to grow up and live in fear of knowing what would take place if they got pulled over by police because they have people of color in their car or (are) out to a party?” Flagg said. “You don’t want them to live in fear of not knowing if they’re going to make it back home.” 

Derrick Campbell, another organizer with Last Chance for Change, said the movement is working to educate residents who have not experienced racial injustice in policing about the importance of reform.

Reforms within SPD are not the only way to reduce the role of policing in Syracuse, Davis said. Alleviating poverty and addressing mental health issues should go hand in hand with police reform, as poverty and mental health can contribute to crime, he said.

The city should create a clear plan to reduce poverty in Syracuse, especially for city residents who are more likely to encounter it, he said. 

“If we want to drastically reduce crime in this country, it starts with saying, ‘How can we drastically reduce the levels of poverty that people are experiencing in this country,’ especially Syracuse,” he said. 

Despite the passage of the Right to Know Act and commitments city officials have made to reform, Davis said it will take much more to bring activists’ vision for policing in the city to reality. 

“I think there will be a time when it happens. But not without a lot of intentional, strategic public pressure,” he said. “It won’t happen from the state of benevolence.”

Published on October 21, 2020 at 2:26 pm

Contact Richard: [email protected] | @RichardJChang1