Syracuse’s Citizen Review Board had the green light from the Common Council to resume investigations into police misconduct complaints — but some of the board’s members have chosen to idle.
CRB Chairman Don Johnson on Friday scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday to discuss and vote on whether the board will heed the council’s directive to resume investigations. The board did not hold a vote to pause investigations, but Johnson and CRB member Michael Kerwin at the Citizen Review Board’s monthly meeting on Tuesday evening repeatedly suggested holding a vote — both in-person and behind closed doors — on resuming investigations.
In that meeting, board members cited their fears of lawsuits as they told frustrated residents that the board will reject the council’s directive to renew investigations without further guarantees of legal protection from the council.
“You want to sort of put the ball in someone else’s corner,” said CRB Chairman Don Johnson in an interview with Central Current after the meeting.
Johnson said that the board would request that the Common Council pass a non-binding “formal resolution” instructing the board to resume investigations.
Despite the council pledging to support board members if they are individually named in a lawsuit, Johnson repeatedly said during the meeting he wanted a guarantee “in writing” that the council would financially support the board in a lawsuit.
If the CRB gets that guarantee, Johnson pledged that the board will resume investigations by its next meeting in September, Johnson said.
“Absolutely, we would be able to do that because now we have that blanket. We have that security blanket. Until then, it’s just your word,” Johnson said.
But Councilor Donna Moore — who has been the Citizen Review Board’s biggest ally in the Syracuse government since Mayor Owens’ administration ordered the review board to pause investigations into police misconduct — on Friday ruled out the possibility of passing such a resolution.
Moore at a Monday meeting had directed the CRB to resume its investigations after a three-month pause. The board had not investigated complaints since April, when a state court determined the city of Rochester’s Police Accountability Board was violating state civil service law. The Rochester PAB has disciplinary powers over police officers, unlike the Syracuse CRB and similar review boards across the state.
The resolution Johnson was requesting would not be any more legally binding than the letter, Moore said.
“Even if we were to write a resolution, the ball is still in their court. They are a board and they are the ones doing the investigations, not the council. That isn’t going to change,” Moore said. “He needs to do the right thing and do his job as a board member and chair, or he needs to step down.”
The council issued its directive after hearing opinions from three attorneys who rejected the opinions of the city’s top lawyer Susan Katzoff and the council’s outside lawyer Thomas Cerio, who advised the city that the Rochester ruling applies to Syracuse’s CRB. The city had instructed the board to cease investigations to avoid a lawsuit and warned that if the board continued investigations and was sued, the city would not represent the board’s members.
Three attorneys, including the lawyer who helped create the CRB, and several outspoken activists have asserted that Owens’ administration was taking proactive action to squash the city’s civilian oversight board.
Whether or not the city intended to intimidate the Citizen Review Board, board members’ statements at Tuesday’s meeting demonstrated that Katzoff and Cerio’s advice achieved that end.
Owens has rejected that characterization and contended that her office had offered legal advice to the board and Common Council and left those two bodies to determine their next steps.
At the Citizen Review Board’s monthly meeting on Tuesday evening, members cited their fears of lawsuits as they told the frustrated residents in attendance that they will not accept the council’s directive to renew investigations without further guarantees of legal protection from the council.
Since April, police accountability activists have urged the Syracuse city government to stick up for the Citizen Review Board. Moore worked for months to win the support of her colleagues, and the council formalized its unified support for the CRB on Monday.
But after months of defending the board and calling on the mayor, council, and city residents to do the same, the frustrated advocates at Tuesday’s CRB meeting were calling on board members themselves to step up in defense of the board’s investigatory powers.
Former CRB Chair Peter McCarthy said that some Syracuse residents already consider the CRB to lack teeth and warned that choosing not to resume investigations may reinforce that negative reputation.
Activists Tammy Honeywell and Barrie Gewanter, a longtime civil rights advocate who helped rewrite the CRB’s legislation in 2011, laid into Johnson and the board for waffling on resuming investigations and for trying to hold a vote on whether to resume investigations.
Other concerned residents throughout the meeting questioned why board members accepted their appointments to the board in the first place, given their position inherently exposes them to litigation.
At one point, Johnson challenged the attendees in the room to raise their hand if they would pay his legal fees if he is sued.
“You are 11 people in the city of Syracuse. They’re going to be able to find 11 people who are able to risk and want to risk this liability to do work that helps the city,” Michael Pocyntyluk told the board. “You’re too scared to help the city. There will be people who have the bravery to do what’s needed to help those around them.”
Some board members acknowledged that Pocyntyluk was correct — they were scared of being sued. CRB member Octavia Christina Gernhardt after the meeting told a Central Current reporter that she plans on resigning.
Chris Fierro, a data analyst for the CRB, addressed the board, making clear he was speaking more as a resident than as a member of the CRB’s staff. Fierro described his personal path toward joining the board’s staff, explaining that he recently signed a lease with the expectation that he was gainfully employed in a role that fought against police misconduct and “could create actual systemic change.”
The board may not be able to continue for much longer if it maintains its current position on investigations, Fierro said.
“Why are you all on the board? I can tell you why I took this job… The world around us is full of institutions that do nothing for people, and all that I’m asking is that this institution isn’t one of them,” Fierro said. “The CRB needs to make a stand, and if board members aren’t willing to make a stand like staff members do every single day, then you need to resign.”
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