State Senate Ignoring the Facts to Pander to Police Unions
Albany, NY – In response to the New York State Senate’s passage of legislation to expand the state’s hate crimes law to include police officers as protected categories, Karen Scharff, executive director of Citizen Action of New York, released the following statement:
“Already this year, 352 people have been shot and killed by police in the United States, including 89 Black and 57 Latinx people. Instead of working to address that very real problem, the New York State Senate decided to pass legislation that could decrease the effectiveness of hate crimes protections – making all of us less safe, especially people of color. Crimes against first responders are already vigorously prosecuted, but when people of color are shot and killed by the police, officers are rarely held accountable. Promoting so-called “Blue Lives Matter” policies only strengthens a false narrative designed to, at best, distract from the institutional racism that has resulted in so many needless killings.”