An Attempt to Scare Residents and Prevent Passage of the Bill?
Binghamton, NY — Misinformation is being spread by the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), the police union, about the content of the Police Modernization Law being considered by the Binghamton City Council. The public, including many human services and advocacy organizations and religious leaders, has demonstrated strong support for this legislation, and it has the support of a majority of city council members. This week, however, a memo from the PBA was circulated among the rank and file members, residents and business owners on Binghamton’s West Side stating that if the law is passed, police will no longer be able to respond to information provided by the victim of a crime and will no longer be able to present suspects to crime victims for identification. These statements are completely false and this memo appears to be an unfortunate scare tactic intended to shift public support away from passage of the law.
In addition to the memo, it has been reported that some Binghamton police officers are telling residents that the law will require them, during minor traffic stops, to ask intrusive questions about their religion and sexual orientation. These statements are also completely untrue. The law does not require the police to ask anyone about anything.
What the law does say is that racial profiling and bias-based policing are wrong and illegal and that a person's race alone cannot be used to assign suspicion. The law still allows police to use race as part of the description of a suspect as long as they have probable cause to believe that the suspect (of that particular race) is linked to specific illegal activity. What the law does do is establish the following priorities: tracking, analysis and reporting of data collected during standard police investigations; cultural competency and anti-bias training for our officers; and development of a plan to diversify the police force. And it allows the specific plans for implementation of these priorities to be developed over 6 months, through dialogue and cooperation among the police, city leaders, and the community. These are all proactive and positive measures to provide our officers the resources and support they need to build trust between the police and residents of color in our community and to prevent a racially charged tragedy, like we’ve seen in the national headlines, from happening in our city.
The Police Administration has stated on multiple occasions that the Binghamton police do not racially profile. We applaud their commitment to fairness and justice, and ask: if they do not racially profile, why are they so opposed to a law making racial profiling illegal?
The current draft of the legislation can be found here on the City of Binghamton website: http://www.binghamton-ny.gov/city-council-business-meeting-61 or at tinyurl.com/PoliceModernizationAct.
There will be a Public Hearing on the Police Modernization Law (LL15-2) on Wednesday, August 19, 2015 at 6:30pm in City Council Chambers.