A letter signed by 16 surviving family members of New Yorkers killed by the police in the past several decades urged New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo to preserve his executive order authorizing a special prosecutor in police killings. The letter claims that the governor’s budget proposal is almost identical to last year’s “independent monitor” proposal.
“As family members of New Yorkers killed by police officers in New York State during the last two decades, we dedicated ourselves to advocating for a special prosecutor last year to advance justice for Black and Latino families throughout our state,” the letter stated. “We were proud to stand with you last year when you demonstrated national leadership by signing the executive order for a special prosecutor. You were not only responsive to our advocacy but that of impacted Black and Latino communities across New York and the country. That makes your decision to propose rolling back the special prosecutor in place of last year’s inferior proposal for an ‘independent monitor’ even more perplexing.
We were transparent with you when expressing that we wanted to advocate a permanent solution and would do that with you, but that any permanent proposal to replace the executive order should be stronger and broader, not narrower and weaker.”
The letter was signed by relatives of Sean Bell, Eric Garner, Anthony Baez, Ramarley Graham, Anthony Rosario, Amadou Diallo, Mohamed Bah, Alberta Spruill, Shantel Davis, Kenny Lazo, Jayson Tirado, Iman Morales, Kimani Gray, Hilton Vega, John Collado and Nicholas Heyward Jr.
In 2015, families of New Yorkers killed by police pushed for the governor to issue his executive order for a special prosecutor, but instead saw Cuomo propose an independent monitor to review the actions of the district attorneys and grand jury proceedings after the police killings of civilians. Advocates and families were against this proposal because they felt it failed to address the conflict of interest between local district attorneys and the police departments they’d have to investigate.
“The overwhelming impediment to justice in these cases was the status quo that allows the major conflict of interest to persist when local district attorneys, who collaborate with and depend upon the police on a daily basis for success, handle them,” the letter continued. “Why would we return to this status quo? Even when district attorneys present to a grand jury in cases involving police officers who kill civilians, they too often treat them differently by framing the innocence of officers rather than pursuing indictments and subsequent convictions.
“This provides a separate, unequal justice system, whereby police officers are treated with far more deference than others at all steps of investigations of police violence. This is not only a crisis of perceived unfairness by our justice system, but an existence of injustice that treats police officers as above the law.”