The Syracuse Citizen Review Board determined in a meeting lasting less than four minutes that it will on Monday resume investigations into complaints of police misconduct.
The independent police oversight board has not conducted investigations since April, when a state appeals court ruling stopped citizen-led police misconduct investigations in Rochester and a city lawyer advised Syracuse’s CRB the ruling would also apply in Syracuse.
During Wednesday’s special meeting, CRB Chair Don Johnson read a letter on behalf of the board which declared that a majority of board members want to heed the Syracuse Common Council’s directive to resume investigations.
The council issued that directive on Aug. 3. But at a CRB meeting on Aug. 4, board members detailed their fears of being sued for resuming investigations. Mayor Sharon Owens’ administration had previously told the board that it would not represent board members if they were named in litigation for continuing CRB operations after the Rochester ruling.
Last week, incensed police accountability advocates at the meeting laid into board members, and particularly Johnson, for opting to not resume investigations despite the council unanimously pledging to supply necessary resources for the board members to obtain outside counsel should they be named in a lawsuit.
A week later, the board pledged action.
“The board will not remain idle. The residents of Syracuse who were promised citizen review — on Monday — they will have that again,” Johnson read at the meeting, which he adjourned immediately after reading the letter.
Johnson said that the board deliberately chose to begin investigations on Monday rather than immediately to give board members who have not decided whether they want to remain on the board until Friday to choose to stay or resign.
Board members Elise Baker, Linda J. Betts, Peggy Chase, Octavia Christina Gernhardt, and Ibrahim Mohamed attended the meeting alongside Johnson; Johnson said that Ada E. Hernandez Gaudalupe, Michael Kerwin and Harry Pratt were excused from the meeting, but said he was “not sure” about Samia Al-Fareh, who was not in attendance.
Gernhart, who had told Central Current last week she planned to resign, said that she had spoken out of frustration and plans to continue on the board as it resumes investigations.
Afterward, Johnson told reporters that those who were not in attendance weren’t necessarily against proceeding with investigations, and said it is up to those members to decide how they wish to proceed.
Councilor Donna Moore, who has been the city’s most outspoken official in defense of the CRB’s operations, said simply, “I’m happy” after the meeting.
Councilors Marty Nave and Hanah Ehrenreich, the only other city lawmakers in attendance, said they were happy the board decided to answer the council’s directives and begin investigative operations again.
Gwendolyn Muok, President of the Syracuse/Onondaga County NAACP Branch, applauded the decision and its timing, saying she had recently referred a resident to the CRB for help with a police misconduct complaint.
“I think it’s wonderful. It’s the only decision for them to make, absolutely,” Muok said. “It’s time.”
Police accountability advocates applauded the decision, though some criticized the board’s apparent flouting of state Open Meetings Law and called for greater transparency from the CRB in future meetings and operations.
At the start of the meeting, Johnson said that the board had determined that a majority of members wanted to resume investigations. The board did not reach a conclusion at its previous meeting to resume investigations, and the board did not hold a vote at the beginning of Wednesday’s meeting.
Multiple reporters from Central Current and other publications asked Johnson how he knew what board members wanted to do, given the board had not reached any public conclusions and did not hold any public votes.
Public bodies in New York state are not permitted to hold private or offline votes, nor gauge how officials plan to vote on public matters. In the board’s regular meeting last week — which was not livestreamed and from which no public meeting minutes have been published, another potential violation of Open Meetings law — board members suggested holding a private vote in executive session.
After holding a private conversation in a closed-door room for nearly an hour during that meeting, Johnson spoke with knowledge of other board members’ perspectives on resuming investigations, implying the board had used the executive session to informally gauge each other’s intentions without holding a public vote.
Barrie Gewanter, a longtime civil rights advocate who helped amend the CRB’s legislation in 2011, said that she was very happy with what was achieved but called for more transparency.
“All the advocates have wanted the CRB to resume. Today, they said they will. And people who don’t want to do that can step back on a day that’s certain,” Gewanter said. “So, we’ll see what happens.”
Tammy Honeywell and Genevieve Kendrick, outspoken government accountability activists and organizers with the local Democratic Socialists of America, joined in the praise for the CRB’s decision while calling for greater transparency from both the board and the city.
The New York Civil Liberties Union praised the board’s decision in a statement to Central Current. NYCLU lawyer Michael Sisitzky had presented to the Syracuse Common Council along with one of the CRB’s original architects, Alan Rosenthal, and a local NAACP legal redress representative Mazaher Kaila. Before that meeting, the NYCLU’s Central New York organizer Lizmarie Montemayor Robles wrote a letter to the editor of Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard advocating for the board to resume investigations.
“We are relieved that the Citizen Review Board’s important work will resume, and will monitor to ensure that any new bad-faith attempts to thwart police accountability in Syracuse are stopped in their tracks,” Robles said in a statement.
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