NY Police Agencies Must 'Reinvent' Or Lose State Funding: Cuomo

NEW YORK CITY — All New York police forces must "reinvent" their departments or risk losing state funding as part of sweeping reform legislation Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law Friday.

"It's good to be part of the solution," said Cuomo. "Eric Garner did not die in vain."

The New York governor signed an executive order Friday mandating the state's 500 police agencies develop a plan to address racial biases within their department, as well as reform legislation repealing 50-a, which shields police disciplinary records from the public.

Police departments that fail to enact the plan into local law by April 1, 2021, will not be eligible for state funding.

Plans must address use of force, crowd management, community policing, implicit bias awareness training, deescalation training, restorative justice practices, community policing, and a transparent citizen complaint procedure, Cuomo said.

The newly enacted legislation also requires courts to publish demographic data about New Yorkers charged with low-level offenses, mandates state police wear body cameras, and empowers the state’s Attorney General to investigate of in-custody deaths.

The governor sat beside by Garner's mother Gwen Carr, clad in a red shirt with an image of her son, who died in Staten Island in 2014 after his pleas of "I can't breathe" were ignored by NYPD officers.

"It was a long time coming," Carr said of the reform. "But it came."

Also in attendance were New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, state Senate Speaker Andrea Cousins and Rev. Al Sharpton.

Said Sharpton, "I'm most glad for the mothers who, no matter what we do, will always have an empty seat at their tables."

Heastie celebrated the bipartisan passing of police reform legislation in the Assembly and thanked Republican representatives who supported the legislation.

The speaker's posited Floyd's death made clear that police reform was not an issue that affected only black and brown Americans.

"It wasn't just a people of color issue," said Heastie. "Watching a man crying for his mother, it struck a nerve."