After deciding to take extra time to review the case, Albany's Community Police Review Board unanimously agreed that First Ward Councilmember John Williamson's misconduct allegations against two Albany police officers were unfounded.
Julia Morris, the board member who reviewed the case, concluded that all of Williamson's allegations were unfounded, based on the available evidence. An investigation conducted by the Albany Police Department's Office of Professional Standards reached the same conclusion.
The allegations stemmed from a May traffic stop. Morris' report considered allegations that APD officers improperly pulled Williamson over on May 18; that they racially profiled Williamson, who is Black; that the officers were "rude, sarcastic, dismissive, arrogant and nasty"; and that an officer gripped his gun during the traffic stop, which scared Williamson's passenger, his 16-year-old grandson. Morris said she reviewed both officers' body-camera footage and video from a traffic-light camera that captured the scene.
Williamson did not file a complaint with the APD or the CPRB. Both groups started investigating the incident after seeing Williamson's Facebook post about the incident, where he first publicly accused the police of racially profiling and harassing him.
When Williamson's case was first heard in August, the board moved to table the report by a vote of 3-0, with two abstentions. Before the board took up Williamson's complaint for a second time, CPRB Program Director Garrett Schaaf noted that "conversations were had with the members" present at that first meeting "to ensure that any of their questions they had were answered."
Before this month's vote, several members said they thought Williamson's allegations could be correct, but they didn't have enough evidence to sustain them.
"I'm clearer now than I was last time that you really couldn't make a determination or corroboration one way or the other," Board Member Marc Johnson said shortly before the vote. "So, in all fairness, if that's all we have to go on, is what we saw and what we heard as being unfounded, I'm ready to make a decision on that motion."
John-Raphael Pichardo, a board member who was appointed to the CPRB in August, said Williamson and APD could potentially find an "alternative" to reach "some sort of conciliation."
"I think we can help him and his grandson, and even with working with the chief on something on that," Pichardo said before the vote. "I just don't think this is the mechanism for it. That's my feeling."
Williamson did not address the board at its September meeting. When his case was first considered in August, he reiterated that he and his grandson were scared of the officers. He apologized for telling officers he was a member of the CPRB and clarified that he is a member of the Common Council's Public Safety Committee, but his apologies ended there.
"[I'm] trying not to get too emotional, because this is not about me," Williamson told the board in August. "This is about other Black and brown young men that get pulled over."
WAMC has reached out to Williamson for comment. He denied an interview request in August.
