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Police Chiefs to talk reform measures

LAKEWOOD — Local law enforcement leaders are scheduled to meet in Lakewood this week to discuss changes mandated in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative executive order.

The order proposes a wide range of new regulations and guidelines, stating that “urgent and immediate action is needed to eliminate racial inequities in policing, to modify and modernize policing strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, and to develop practices to better address the particular needs of communities of color to promote public safety, improve community engagement, and foster trust.”

Local law enforcement agencies have coordinated on training and policy changes in many cases in the past, and may do so again to implement the changes proposed at the regional level.

“We are going to be meeting the first week of September with all of the police chiefs in the county to discuss these things and say, ‘How can we work with you (the community)?'” Sheriff Jim Quattrone said at public meeting on Tuesday. “The state has offered to send somebody down to help the agencies get accredited. It is a long process but — you have to start somewhere.”

Lakewood-Busti Police Chief John Bentley will host the meeting at 1 p.m. on Thursday, and recently spoke to the Lakewood Village Board about how the process of reform may work.

Procedural changes are outlined in a 125-page guidebook that has been distributed to public officials and law enforcement agencies.

“It is an attempt to change the way police departments statewide operate with regard to just about every facet of law enforcement,” Bentley said. “This is going to be an issue that is going to require community input. It is going to require the board to approve the policies and the procedures of the police department.”

Some reform measures will require accreditation and extra training, which raises questions about available manpower and budgetary constraints.

“Accreditation is something that they are asking for, or suggesting very strongly that we do,” Bentley said. “Accreditation is a very difficult process to get through, especially when you are in a position where you only have enough manpower on the road to just cover the calls and the shifts that come in on a daily basis. It is something that I would realistically have to assign a full-time person to, probably for about six months, and that would be all that they would do.”

Bentley mentioned that state-mandated training courses are often based out of areas such as Rochester or Binghamton, and are not readily available to law enforcement based in Chautauqua County.

“I have found in the last 45 years that by-and-large all the agencies in this county deal with the subjects that are being addressed in this information that the governor sent,” Bentley said. “None of the chiefs nor the departments condone any of the things that are brought up in there in terms of the racist attitudes or any of the heavy-handed tactics. If we do find that, where we have in the past where something has happened where we have had a use of force issue, there is not an agency in the county that has not addressed that quickly and very decisively. Because we don’t condone it.”

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