The city of Plattsburgh is investigating allegations of racial bias in the Plattsburgh Police Department.
The mayor’s office called an emergency meeting of the Public Safety Committee Thursday after city officials and the media received an anonymous email Wednesday from someone who said they are a member of the police department and has witnessed misconduct and harassment. Committee chair Caitlyn Bopp gaveled in and the group then went into executive session.
“The first thing that we have on the agenda tonight is an executive session to discuss the matter which brings you all here this evening."
"I’d like to just to be clear and make a motion," interjected Mayor Chris Rosenquest, "to go into executive session to discuss a matter which may disclose the identity of the law enforcement agent or informer.
"I’ll second that motion,” responded Bopp.
The Public Safety Committee adjourned after coming out of the executive session without comment. Mayor Chris Rosenquest, a first-term Democrat, then discussed the email.
The writer says they have personally witnessed “unethical behavior and racially discriminatory statements” at the city police department. The tipster was motivated to contact the mayor after what they called a recent and “particularly egregious” incident. The letter claims that as an African American officer in the department prepared for National Guard deployment to Africa, Chief Bud York and allegedly stated “Are you going to Africa to find your ancestors?” and “You better return and not decide to stay and live with your people.”
The writer says as a member of the police department if such behavior is not addressed it will create a hostile workplace and undermine public trust. If not investigated by the city, the writer said, they would contact the state attorney general.
Rosenquest says the city is taking the allegations seriously and while there are some assumptions as to who penned the email he cannot confirm or deny the person’s identity.
“Certainly the concern for us is just the allegation itself, but then also the nature of the anonymity of the allegation as well. We want to ensure that whoever made these allegations can come forward safely without fear of retribution. And so we’ll make that clear. Apparently there was one particular officer that these comments were made to. We’ll reach out to that person. Our Labor Council’s going to reach out to that person. My office is not involved with this. So the Labor Council will reach out to that person and ask some questions, figure out where we go from there.”
The mayor said these are the first allegations of this type he has seen against the police department.
“I’ve been working with that department for a good long while now. This is the first time I’ve heard allegations of this nature from that department, or any department quite frankly. So it’s certainly troubling or concerning that the allegations are being made in the first place. I’ve been working with the Chief of Police for about a year now, working back and forth with that department for two years.”
Rosenquest added that his initial reaction to the letter was surprise.
“As a Black man in our community I have experienced racism. Certainly have never experienced racism from that department or any one person from that department or anybody really, anybody working for the city of Plattsburgh. So it was a little bit of a shock. But again, not to discount it or not to diminish or dismiss it, it certainly was a question for me personally like where is this actually coming from? My job right now is to get to the bottom of this and figure out what’s actually going on.”
The city will not conduct the investigation into the allegations itself, according to the mayor.
“We leverage the Labor Council, it’s a third party labor council that we use Jackie Kelleher from Stafford, Owens, Murnane. And she will start the investigation then make the determination if we need to go further outside of her office to continue."
WAMC's Pat Bradley asked, "Do we know at this point how credible these allegations actually are?"
"I mean I don’t want to make the assumption or provide an opinion about the credibility," replied Rosenquest. "We just, we don’t, we will not know until we can work through the concerns themselves and do some interviews in the department and to make that determination whether they are or not credible.”
Chief York is the city’s provisional police chief and was reappointed last September. He is the only official named in the email. The mayor says whether he is placed on leave or has to step back will be based on the results of the investigation.
“That really depends on where the investigation goes after the first few interviews and we determine where it needs to escalate or if it needs to escalate. From that position then we’ll take other actions based on employee status.”
York is referring all questions to the mayor’s office.
The Labor Council began its investigation on Thursday.
