Protesters push for full adoption of Saratoga police reform plan

SARATOGA SPRINGS – About 100 protesters marched on City Hall on Saturday to demand the full adoption of a 50-point police reform amid resistance from members of the City Council.

Next Wednesday evening, the City Council will decide the extent to which it will adopt recommendations made earlier this month by a city police reform task force. Though the task force was appointed by the Council last August, on several key aspects of the task force’s resulting 50-point plan, lawmakers are now resisting. The meeting next Wednesday will come hours ahead of an April 1 deadline. All municipalities statewide are required to adopt a police reform plan by the date, per an executive order issued last year by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Black Lives Matter protesters gathered at Congress Park on Saturday and a handful gave testimonials about experiences with biased and excessive policing in Saratoga Springs. They stressed that only full adoption of the task force's plan would be acceptable.

“We need transparency. We need accountability. We need trust,” said Lexis Figuereo, an organizer of Saturday's protest. "We said last year, 'We don’t want to continue to be in the streets. We don’t want to continue to have to fight. We don’t want to continue to scream.'…But we cannot do that until we have accountability.”

Among the 50 recommendations of the task force, the Council is stopping short of accepting several key items. Those include a proposed ban on no-knock warrants; a recommendation to reinvest the proceeds from seized assets into community-based restorative groups and community service organizations, rather than police budgets; and most significantly, the proposed creation of a civilian review board to consider complaints from the public against Saratoga Springs police. Instead, the Council’s most recent proposal only calls for considering a civilian review board.

The resolution, approved March 23, approved the development of a board “in principle while calling for an evaluation period of the potential legal, union, charter and community elements that could impact the ability to adequately develop a civilian review board.”

Supporters of the civilian review board say it must be created without delay to provide accountability and transparency, especially in light of trust lost following the death of Darryl Mount Jr., a 21-year-old biracial man, who died after being pursued by police in 2013. Mount's death remains a point of contention with activists and city police who, police said, fell from a scaffold, sustaining his injuries.

While most people spoke in favor of the 50-point-plan, at the meeting last Tuesday, Commissioner of Public Safety Robin Dalton said she had gotten about 100 comments in support of the police. Former public safety commissioner Chris Mathiesen also spoke at the meeting, saying while he was in office, he got "very few complaints" about police. Mathiesen was in office when Mount died.

Dalton declined immediate comment when contacted Saturday following the protest.

After harsh criticism, city leaders revised an initial March 15 proposal that dismissed many of the recommendations of the city's Police Reform Task Force. In the second iteration, city officials agreed to consider hiring an external consultant to address the tension between the community and the department, revising the use of force policy "to prioritize deescalation and protection of life" and revising policy on limiting cooperation with federal immigration agents. It also agreed to evaluate and develop a pilot program with social workers and terminate paramilitary training.

Still, critics said the Council had not gone far enough. Camille Daniels, co-chair of the task force, noted in a press release last week that the revised resolution on police reform "still does not adequately address the demands of the community."

She mentioned the "refusal to adopt" a civilian review board and accountability over the July 30, 2020 counter-protest to a rally in support of police that ended when the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office showed up with a tank-like vehicle and shot pepper spray pellets at protesters.