Syracuse, N.Y. — The Common Council adopted ‘Right to Know’ legislation Tuesday, establishing stricter rules for how police interact with the public and requiring the department to report age, gender and race statistics on the people stopped and searched by officers.
Advocates have spent nearly two years pushing Mayor Ben Walsh’s administration to adopt the law, which had been stuck in legal limbo after a review by Walsh’s top attorney in 2019.
The law attracted newfound attention this summer, however, as police accountability groups spent weeks protesting in the streets and issued a set of nine detailed demands for reform. Adopting “Right to Know” was one of the demands presented to City Hall by the People’s Agenda for Police Reform.
The law is based on New York City’s Right to Know legislation, passed in 2018 in response to the NYPD’s “stop-and-frisk” policy. It requires the department to establish detailed rules for officers who want to search a person or property. Those rules include informing the person of their rights before seeking their consent to a search.
The law requires an officer to give his or her name, rank and command at the onset of any questioning or any traffic stop. The officer must also give a reason for the stop.
At the end of an interaction, if there’s no arrest, the officer will leave a business card with the citizen. In addition to the officer’s information, the card will include the phone numbers for the Citizen Review Board and the department’s internal affairs office.
The law also requires officers ask for and receive recorded consent before searching a person or property without a warrant. The officer must explain to the person that there will be no search if the person refuses.
Finally, the department must put quarterly reports on its website with information about the number of consensual searches, the number of refusals and the race, gender and age of the person who was searched or was asked to be searched.
Walsh signed an executive order in June promising to enact the Right to Know policies. The council, however, wanted to codify it with a law so it would outlive any individual mayor. The city’s corporation counsel, Kristen Smith, questioned whether that was legal.
The fight prompted the council to hire its own lawyer, Ronnie White Jr., in July. White opined that the council was within its authority to pass the law. After several months of delay while lawyers and officials reviewed the law, it went to a vote Tuesday.
Yusuf Abdul-Qadir, director of the local chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, applauded the council’s vote, but described the passage as a “mixed victory.” He was among the activists who first proposed the legislation last year and has been fighting for its adoption since then.
“It’s really important to celebrate the fact that we’ve gotten this done, and that collective action has gotten this done,” he said. But, he added, the law simply codifies something that is already guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and should already be policy.
“It’s the lowest of low-hanging fruit. It addresses whether or not when you’re stopped that you know who is stopping you and why. That should be common sense.”
Abdul-Qadir said he and others will be monitoring to make sure the law is properly translated into action. And activists are still working to ensure their other demands for police reform are met.
The Right to Know law takes effect Dec. 14, 2020.
Joe Carni, the council’s lone Republican, was the only councilor who voted against the legislation. Carni did not return a phone call seeking comment after the meeting Tuesday.
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October 14, 2020 at 02:03AM
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Syracuse Common Council adopts ‘Right to Know’ law aimed at police accountability - syracuse.com
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