Syracuse’s Citizens Review Board meets Tuesday evening, with fresh support from elected city lawmakers who are not taking the advice of the city’s top lawyer.
Syracuse’s Corporation Counsel, the city’s top lawyer, said recently that the Common Council should shut down the Citizen Review Board for now. The Citizen Review Board investigates reports of police misconduct and provides a report to Syracuse’s police chief, which he is free to accept or ignore. It is an advisory panel, like nearly all other such boards in other cities in New York, except Rochester.
The advice to shut down the board came after a top state court ruled that Rochester’s Police Accountability Board exceeded its authority because it could discipline officers after an investigation. Syracuse’s Corporation Counsel said that decision applied to Syracuse’s board, too, and urged city lawmakers to suspend the board’s work.
Last week, the Council held a special meeting to discuss the issue. They heard a sharply different view of the court decision from veteran Syracuse civil rights lawyer Alan Rosenthal, who has sued police departments over alleged misconduct.
"I think that the council and the CRB have been hoodwinked and hornswoggled by your own corporation counsel," he said.
Rosenthal said the Rochester case doesn’t apply to Syracuse because Syracuse's Citizens Review Board does not have the power to discipline officers.
Michael Sisitzky of the New York Civil Liberties Union told lawmakers the court decision never mentions any other review board other than Rochester’s.
"I think this is a real failure of Corporation Counsel and the Mayor to recognize that it is their responsibility to exercise bold leadership on behalf of the people of Syracuse," Sisitzky said. "They should be coming to the table here with their best arguments, their best ideas for why they want to vindicate the powers of the CRB."
Mazaher Kaila heads a committee of the local NAACP that receives complaints about police officers. She said her board has received about 30 complaints so far this year, making the Citizen Review Board vital.
"A lot of those complaints that the Legal Redress Committee receives, they leave the people of Syracuse feeling dismissed and not heard, particularly from communities of color," she said.
The arguments must have been persuasive, because reports indicate the Council has told the Citizen Review Board to go ahead with its work. Tuesday's meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
