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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an Executive Order on Friday, June 12 that will require the state's more than 500 local and county police agencies to develop a plan “that reinvents and modernizes police strategies and programs in their community based on community input.”
If communities don’t comply, Cuomo said that those police departments will not receive state funding.
“We’re saying this to every police in the state: sit with your local community, address the issues, and get to the root of these issues,” Cuomo said. “We’re not going to fund police agencies in this state that do not look at what’s been happening. They have to come to terms with it and reform themselves.”
Cuomo said that the discussion will have to happen with community participants and stokeholds in the room while the plan is being made. It must be submitted to the state for approval and enacted into local law by April 1 next year, or else they will not be in compliance and will face punishment.
Cuomo said that currently, there is little to no trust between the community and police, “which is what the protests say.”
"The protests taking place throughout the nation and in communities across New York in response to the murder of George Floyd illustrate the loss of community confidence in our local police agencies,” he said.
Cuomo called it “a reality that has been fueled by our country's history of police-involved deaths of black and brown people.
"Our law enforcement officers are essential to ensuring public safety — they literally put themselves in harm's way every day to protect us,” Cuomo continued. “This emergency regulation will help rebuild that confidence and restore trust between police and the communities they serve by requiring localities to develop a new plan for policing in the community based on fact-finding and meaningful community input."
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