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The Syracuse-Onondaga Chapter of the NAACP on Saturday rebuked recent statements suggesting the chapter partnered with the city on a new police reform plan.

The city recently released the Police Reform and Reinvention Plan, which is meant to act as a “road map to reimagining policing in the city of Syracuse.” The city will submit the plan to Albany in April as part of a state mandate for local police reform.

In a presentation of the city’s 78-page draft plan, the NAACP is referred to as a partner of the Syracuse Police Department.

“Respectfully, such a relationship does not presently exist between our two organizations,” said Bishop Colette Matthews-Carter, president of the local NAACP chapter, at a Saturday press conference held downtown. “A partnership is a relationship where cooperation and trust go hand-in-hand. Where two parties agree to work together and share information for the good of the partnership and for those they represent.”

Matthews-Carter met with city officials multiple times to discuss the plan and worked as part of a task force that’s preparing the plan for the April deadline. She said there is “much about the plan that I think is good if properly implemented” and said the NAACP is interested in working with SPD moving forward. But that does not equate to a formal partnership between SPD and the local NAACP branch.

“The NAACP represents the people of this community, many of which have been victimized, traumatized and forever harmed by actions of the SPD,” she said. “As such, we cannot afford to be in partnership with the local police until we can trust they are performing in good faith and honoring their pledge to eradicate biased decision-making against people of color.”

The Police Reform and Reinvention Plan includes a 16-part executive order that Mayor Ben Walsh announced in June in response to protests following the police killing of George Floyd. Gov. Andrew Cuomo also mandated that localities submit police reform plans to Albany by April.

Activist group Last Chance for Change marched for 40 days over the summer to protest police brutality following Floyd’s death. The Syracuse Police Accountability and Reform Coalition, which includes the local NAACP chapter, also released a set of demands to City Hall called the People’s Agenda for Policing.

The city’s website lists measures completed as part of Walsh’s executive order. The city released SPD’s inventory of military surplus equipment, purchased body cameras for all officers and passed the Right to Know Act, which requires stricter guidelines for how police interact with residents. But others have moved more slowly, and some have yet to be implemented.

The Right to Know Act requires officers to give official business cards to people that they stop. But the police union stalled the printing of the business cards for months because they did not want the officer’s first names to appear on them, Syracuse.com reported.

At the press conference, Matthews-Carter called the recent reform efforts a “work in progress.” She emphasized the importance of the measures being implemented in real-time. She wants to see cultural competency training — “not just diversity training” — to train officers to better interact with residents of color.

She also called for SPD to better reflect the demographics of the city. About 9% of the SPD’s staff is Black, while about 30% of Syracuse residents are Black.

“Going forward, we truly would like to work in partnership with the administration and the Syracuse Police Department on a range of issues,” she said. “But we must be confident, along with the community, that the effort for reform is real and trustworthy and not just statements in an executive order with little or no follow-through on the ground.”

Published on February 20, 2021 at 4:52 pm

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326