Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is putting the state's money where his goals for better policing are.
The governor said police agencies must reinvent and modernize their strategies or risk losing their state funding.
"We’re not going to fund police agencies in this state that do not look at what has been happening, come to terms with it, and reform themselves," Cuomo said Friday from New York City. "We’re not going to be, as a state government, subsidizing improper police tactics. We're not doing it.
"This is systemic reform of police departments," the governor said. "Because this has been 40, 50 years in the making."
The moves and others are in response to the death of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota and the protests and demonstrations in communities across the nation that followed.
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Cuomo also signed a package of criminal justice and police reform bills into law Friday, a package that was dubbed the “Say Their Name” agenda and was passed by the state Legislature earlier this week.
The package included changing or repealing Civil Rights Law 50-a (to make police disciplinary records public); banning chokeholds by law enforcement officers; criminalizing false, race-based 911 reports; and codifying the attorney general as an independent prosecutor when an unarmed civilian is killed by police.
The executive order issued by Cuomo states that local governments and police agencies will be required to develop a plan to address the use of force by police officers, crowd management, community policing, implicit bias awareness training, de-escalation training and practices, a citizen complaint procedure, among other topics.
Agencies must enact a plan by local law by April 1 to be eligible for state funding.
Cuomo was joined by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and the Rev. Al Sharpton along with several relatives of victims of police brutality in New York State.
"To give the executive order that he is giving, let us be very clear: There is no governor in this country that has said what he’s said this morning," said Sharpton. "To say that every mayor must come up with a plan along these areas or they will withhold state money, is a model for where we ought to be dealing with 21st century civil rights in this country. ... This is a new level that all other 49 governors ought to look at.
"To say that I want to see mayors deal with this or I want to see city councils deal with this is one thing, but to say that we’re going to hold funds, means that he means it."
