Final Thursday, Jan. 23, Councilmember Chi Ossé reintroduced the CURB Act, which might cease the NYPD from deploying the militarized Strategic Response Group (SRG) to protests and different First Modification-protected exercise.
The unit gained scrutiny after overly aggressive responses to demonstrations just like the George Floyd uprisings in 2020 and the pro-Palestinian campus sit-ins final yr.
“The proper to meeting and protest is enshrined clearly within the First Modification of the Structure,” stated Ossé throughout final Thursday’s metropolis council assembly. “The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group has confirmed persistently to violate that proper. This invoice would limit their potential to take action…all New Yorkers should train their proper to protest and assemble, they usually should train this proper with security and dignity.”
New York Civil Liberties Union coverage assistant director Michael Sisitzky and senior organizer Isabelle Leyva, who Ossé credited for partnership on the invoice, informed the Amsterdam Information that the laws is only one avenue police reformers are pursuing to dismantle the unit.
“It is a militarized unit that has entry to instruments and military-style crowd management techniques that we don’t see utilized by the overall NYPD,” stated Leyva. “So we launched this marketing campaign to disband them, to really take away their funds from the NYPD price range and to reinvest these funds into our communities. And that battle continues, we’ll proceed pushing to disband the SRG.
“However… models get disbanded in identify on a regular basis after which they simply pop up and are referred to as one thing else. A part of what this laws [hopes] to perform is to stop that from occurring by truly concentrating on the techniques of the SRG and the issues that they’re identified to do.”
The invoice would additionally prohibit the NYPD’s use of tear gasoline, pepper spray, and sound cannons for crowd management functions, in addition to kettling, the tactic of surrounding and containing protesters usually employed through the 2020 demonstrations. Crowd management use of bikes, that are a major kettling instrument for the SRG, would even be stopped.
“These are a number of the most typical abuses from the SRG,” stated Sisitzky. “It’s nice to ensure the SRG is just not deployed at protests. We additionally must ensure that there are prohibitions in opposition to the deployment of the SRG techniques at protests, no matter which NYPD officer or unit is responding. And that’s what’s lined in laws — ensuring that we’re not letting these abuses carry ahead.”
To be clear, the SRG is just not restricted to policing protests. Little is publicly identified in regards to the extent of the duties of the unit, which began as a counterterrorism outfit round a decade in the past. The NYPD web site says mobilizations vary from protests and the Pope’s go to to shootings and financial institution robberies. Notably, a number of SRG officers have been concerned within the 2018 killing of Black New Yorker Saheed Vassell.
“It isn’t clear what the SRG does outdoors of protests and the issues that we all know that they are saying to do, like counter terrorism efforts, these are issues which can be already executed by a number of different devoted models within the NYPD.” stated Leyva. “There may be nothing new that the SRG does that isn’t already taken care of by different models apart from protests. So if we take away them from that area, then there actually isn’t any justification for spending $133 million on this unit per yr.”
The NYPD didn’t reply to requests for remark by press time.
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public security for the Amsterdam Information. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps hold him writing tales like this one; please take into account making a tax-deductible reward of any quantity right this moment by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
