SYRACUSE, NY - Religious groups peacefully protested outside of Syracuse City Hall on Sunday demanding police reform in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Protesters held signs, and chanted, “No justice, no peace”, “Black Lives Matter” and as Floyd said in his final moments, “Get your knee off my neck. I can’t breathe.”
“America was tired,” said Promise Land Church Pastor Erik Eure. By the time that series of things happened with Breonna [Taylor], with [Ahmaud] Arbery and now with George Floyd, it’s just too much. Enough is enough.”
The overarching belief among Eure and the rest of the protesters is that police officers are ill equipped to handle all of their responsibilities. Mayor Ben Walsh agrees.
“We expect our police officers at the stop of a dime to go from the situation where there is the potential for the use of deadly force to dealing with children. That’s difficult for anybody to do. It’s an opportunity to make sure that we’re prioritizing where we’re focussing our police resources.”
Walsh believes those resources, like funding, would be put to better use outside of law enforcement. So, partially defunding the police is being discussed. The conversation begins with cutting police presence from schools.
“Many of the issues that they’re dealing with are not law enforcement issues. They’re mental health issues, economic issues, substance abuse issues,” said Walsh. “All of those issues need resources. As we shift responsibilities from the police department, we need to be looking to shift resources as well.”
The protesters expect the local government to be an ally in their fight for change, but South Onondaga’s Peter Kosik says the onus is on him as a white man.
"There were times when I said things and did things that were just not thoughtful,” said Kosik. “That’s something that I’ve lived with, and now I just wanted to make a little statement and say ‘I want to do better.’”
A number of other protests, rallies and marches were held over the weekend in the City of Syracuse and surrounding suburbs. All of the events called for a common list of nine demands for Syracuse police reform.
LIST OF NINE POLICE REFORM DEMANDS
- Revision of the Syracuse Police Department's use of force policy.
- Revision of the body-worn camera policy.
- Publicize the police union contract as written.
- Empower the Citizen Review Board to enforce reccommendations of police disclipline.
- Demilitarize the Syracuse Police Department.
- Defund the Syracuse Police Department, and minimize the role policing plays in the community.
- Allow for public oversight of surveillance technologies; ban biometric and facial recognition technology.
- Remove police prescence from schools, and invest the savings in counsilors and other support staff.
- Pass the Right to Know Act, which would require officers to tell people their privacy rights during encounters with poolice and provide those stopped by police a notice laying out why they were stopped.