City, county collaborate for public safety reform

Earlier this month, Tompkins County and the city of Ithaca announced their collaboration for public safety reform and reinvention, bringing together city and county leadership and their respective public safety departments like the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office and the City of Ithaca Police Department.

According to a recent press release, the county and city will be working with the Center for Policing Equity (CPE), a national organization that partners with police departments on data-driven interventions. The group also will engage other Tompkins County municipalities with public safety departments throughout the process.

The collaboration comes after recent protests regarding police brutality in the nation and a recent requirement from Gov. Andrew Cuomo that all municipalities with police departments in the state adopt a plan for police reform and reinvention by April 1 of next year.

“As we started to really understand a little bit more from the state what they wanted, what they were looking for, it really became obvious that there’s going to be a lot of overlap between all law enforcement jurisdictions. And we figured, there’s probably an approach to this that can be done … collaboratively,” County Administrator Jason Molino said. “It just made a lot of sense to try to collaborate, not only with the city, but with our other jurisdictions to try to figure out how we can best work together and rather than have multiple meetings of the same nature with the same stakeholders.”

The state’s guidance, available at the governor’s website (t.ly/fpIy), mandates all municipalities to address policing functions, standards and strategies, fostering community-oriented leadership, culture and accountability, and recruiting and supporting diverse personnel.

“We started right here at the city level of determining that we were going to have a task force and look at ways that we can reimagine and reinvent policing and build bridges within our community,” said Dennis Nayor, city of Ithaca police chief. “There were some separate conversations about connecting with the county as well because … we all want to be on the same page of what we’re doing to build relationships and trust and the best policing model we can.”

Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne shared a similar goal from his department.

“For me, the biggest thing that I can impact as a law enforcement administrator is policy and training, and so, that’s where we’ve really been focusing our efforts. … Because to me, policy dictates behavior in our department,” he said. “We can coordinate our training or frame our training around what the community expects of us, whether it be increased diversity training, de-escalation training, things of that nature.”

Leslyn McBean-Clairborne, chair of the Tompkins County Legislature, explained that these efforts are important for enacting the real change necessary to properly address racism in the county and the country.

“This collaboration will allow us to come to a more equitable and consistent public safety system throughout our community,” she said in a recent press release. “With the sheriff’s office and IPD being our two largest local police forces, we’ll be able to make real inroads addressing tensions between the community and police. Immense tragedies have impacted the entire country, and this is an opportunity to listen, reflect and act toward equity in policing and real systemic change.”

County Legislator Rich John, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, added that this collaboration follows months of protests after the death of George Floyd and others at the hands of police earlier this year.

“There is a clear pattern and practice that’s gone on in our country — and to some extent here, but certainly in our country — where certain groups of people are treated very differently by the police,” he said. “And trying to figure out why is that happening and to do something about it makes great sense. So, the protests are a good driver for [the collaboration], but it should be done in any event.”

In the coming weeks and months, there will be a series of public forums to bring in residents’ perspectives on what changes should be made ahead of submitting reform plans next year. As Nayor put it, these feedback stages are crucial to reach an understanding between departments and residents about what policies and practices are already in place and where there’s room to grow.

“It’ll be good that people who live in the county know that they have a voice in the method of policing and that there’s a connection and that there’s a willingness and an openness to want to learn and to grow and to build the best policing model possible,” he said. “It’ll open the doors to conversations and to building bridges and to hearing really what the concerns are. And then, if there are concerns that we aren’t aware of, we will now know, and we’ll be able to address them.”

Osborne added that working with the CPE will be especially crucial to this process.

“We’re hoping they’re going to be really instrumental in this, helping us to figure out the best way to engage the community, get input from the community, also, extrapolate data from our records management system here at the sheriff’s office and IPD so we can examine it and see what’s going on,” he said. “I think we have a good framework going.”

Molino said that he hopes to see the efforts of this collaboration carry on long after April 1.

“The bigger picture and the bigger goal and responsibility [is] to work collaboratively with all of our partners,” Molino said. “Whether it’s the sheriff, whether it’s the district attorney’s signed council, whether it’s community groups or whether it’s other jurisdictions like the city or other villages, I think there’s a longer-term vision here, a longer-term goal, which is to keep this issue on the forefront.”

John added that achieving that long-lasting change relies on looking not just at police officers but also at the larger systems to which they belong.

“It’s important to look at what the police are doing, but if you want to structure change to the whole system, you have to look at the whole system,” John said. “And I’m hoping that our review will go beyond just looking at police officers to look at a lot more, too, which is ambitious, I know, and it will make it harder. But I think there’s a greater chance of a lasting change.”

Both Tompkins County and the city of Ithaca have web pages where information on the collaborative will be shared throughout the process, along with details on how community members can participate and provide feedback.

The city of Ithaca’s reinventing public safety web page can be found at cityofithaca.org/688/Reinvent-Public-Safety, and the county’s can be found at www2.tompkinscountyny.gov/ctyadmin/policereform. Visit the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office website at tompkinscountyny.gov/sheriff and the IPD website at cityofithaca.org/234/Ithaca-Police-Department for more information.