This past week New York State Attorney General Letitia James issued her report, declining to pursue any criminal charges in the fatal New Rochelle police shooting of Jarrel Garris on Lincoln Avenue on July 3, 2023, but rather making a multi-point “recommendation” regarding NRPD’s training and policies. The full report may be found here. During my time on the Westchester County Board of Legislators (2018-2023), I served on the Public Safety Committee and the Police Reform and Reimagining Task Force, and did extensive research on the issue police accountability. My reaction to the AG’s report is in this Black Westchester Magazine post, which includes a germane quote from a book written by then-Senator Kamala Harris in 2019. I’ve been invited to talk more on this subject tonight at around 7:00pm on the Black Westchester People Before Politics radio program that streams online at this site from 6 to 8pm every Sunday. As a preview, here is an excerpt from an inciteful speech in 2015 — after Ferguson and Eric Garner but before George Floyd — by a long-time professor and activist: “ [H]ow is it possible to solve the problem of massive state violence by calling upon individual police officers to bear the burden of history and to assume that by prosecuting them, by exacting our revenge on them, we would have somehow made progress in eradicating racism? **** “I’m not suggesting that individuals should not be held accountable. Every individual who engages in such a violent act of racism, of terror, should be held accountable. But what I am saying is that we have to embrace projects that address socio-historical conditions that enable these acts.” Can you name this 1988 American Book Award winner and now-80-year-old scholar? |