Buffalo lawmakers ponder 'Right to Know Law' for encounters with police

The new push follows a recent decision by Mayor Byron W. Brown and Police Commissioner Byron D. Lockwood to no longer require police officers to display their names on their uniforms – a move that doesn’t sit well with many community members, activists and organizations.

The change was for the safety of police officers, department officials said. Following Black Lives Matter protests that broke out in late May after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, some officers have had death threats and their personal information circulated publicly.

But some community members believe not having police wear nametags is bad policy.

“My feeling is that the City of Buffalo is going in the opposite direction when it comes to police transparency when the mayor … with the blessings of the police chief, allows officers to not display (their names),” said attorney John V. Elmore, co-chairperson of the Minority Bar Association of Western New York’s Criminal Justice Task Force. The group issued seven recommendations for reform in September, including strengthening civilian oversight of the Police Department, opening police disciplinary hearings to the public and making sure officers turn on body-worn cameras.

Elmore presented Syracuse’s Right to Know Law to the Council’s Police Oversight Committee in November as an alternative to officers not wearing name tags.

The law is one of the police reforms implemented in Syracuse following Floyd’s death. Modeled on a 2018 New York City law, it requires officers to give a reason for certain encounters with citizens, like traffic stops, questioning victims or witnesses to crimes, or questioning during an investigation in which the person is not detained and is free to end the encounter. 

The officer must provide a business card with his or her name and other identifying information for stops that don’t result in an arrest. The law also mandates that 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. And the department is to compile and make publicly available demographic data on civilians who were stopped and searched.

The difference between that and the "stop receipts" policy that Buffalo started in July as another reform is that the receipts are used only for traffic stops, said Lockwood. Under that policy, officers must issue written statements providing a clearly defined reason for each traffic stop, such as what the officer observed that prompted him or her to pull someone over. They are used in several other cities and advocates contend they can reduce racial profiling.

The Right to Know Law is much broader, covering nearly all encounters. Council President Darius G. Pridgen, who is considering drafting legislation modeled after Syracuse’s law, has asked for a review and opinion of it from Brown’s 12-member Commission to Recommend Police Policy and Advance Social Reconstruction. That panel was created in September to examine the city’s police policies and make recommendations.

The commission held its first meeting Nov. 18 and plans to meet three more times, said Niagara Council Member and Majority Leader David A. Rivera, a member. The first meeting was introductory and did not include discussions on police reforms, but Rivera said he will bring up the Right to Know Law and other ideas at subsequent meetings.

The change resulting in Buffalo police officers not having to wear nametags went into effect Sept. 18. Before that, officers were required under department policy to display their names and could be brought up on internal charges for failing to do so.

Lockwood said during the Police Oversight Committee meeting that the change resulted from increased concern for officers’ safety. In the wake of protests in Buffalo and across the country over police killings of Black and brown people, some officers said they had been "doxed," with their names, addresses and other contact information circulated on social media. Some officers said they have received threats and their families have too.

The Syracuse Common Council adopted the Right to Know Law on Oct. 13, and Mayor Ben Walsh signed it two days later. It requires officers to identify themselves at the beginning of encounters, including questioning, frisking or any traffic stop, and to give the reason for the stop. If the encounter does not end in an arrest, the officer must provide a business card with the officer’s name, rank, shield number and the addresses and telephone numbers of the department’s internal affairs unit and the city’s citizen review board in case the person stopped wants to submit comments or complaints about the encounter.

If the officer conducts a consented search without a warrant, the officer must document the time, location and date of the search as well as the race/ethnicity, gender and age of the person searched.

The legislation also says that beginning Jan. 1, within 30 days of the end of every quarter the department shall post the data on its website.

Community stakeholders advocated for the reforms, according to Tajuana Cerutti-Brown, public information officer for the Syracuse mayor. 

“The Syracuse Police Department is currently reviewing its procedures on how to comply,” she wrote in an email. “Regarding public reporting, the legislation requires that the Department report certain data and information to the Common Council."

She said implementation of the new law was expected to begin this month.