’We are at a moment of reckoning’: Repeal of 50-a shield law gives measure of accountability to families touched by police brutality

Standing from left, Rev. Al Sharpton, Hazel Dukes, Valerie Bell, Gwen Carr, Carl Heastie and Andrea Stewart-Cousins, watch as Governor Andrew Cuomo signs the repeal of 50-a, the law that shielded police disciplinary records from public view. 

Critics of rule 50-a probably had about 50 good reasons for wanting to repeal the law shielding police disciplinary records from public view, but nothing got rid of the measure quicker than the ugly death of George Floyd.

After years and years of calls for transparency, and case after case of brutal and deadly misconduct, it took the last-straw death of Floyd, under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, for New York legislators to finally come around.

“Every parent, every mother who looks like me understood that scary notion with our kids, with our husbands, with our brothers,” said state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who stood with Gov. Cuomo Friday as he signed the new “Say Their Names” law.

“We are at a moment of reckoning,” Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) said. “There is no doubt about it.”

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

To emphasize her point, Cousins and Cuomo were joined by Valerie Bell, the mother of Sean Bell, who was killed by cops in Queens in 2006, and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who was killed by police in Staten Island in 2014.

Eliminating the law, known as Section 50-a, makes complaints against officers, as well as transcripts and final dispositions of disciplinary proceedings, public for the first time in decades.

And the state's approximately 500 police departments will all have to develop plans to address everything from use of force to implicit bias awareness training by next April under an executive order.

The governor said New York is the first to come up with such a plan and warned that police departments that fail to comply will not receive state aid.

From left: Civil Rights activist Hazel Dukes, Valerie Bell, the mother of Sean Bell and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

In 1976, legislators passed the provision, known as 50-a of New York’s Civil Rights Law, as a way to protect police officers who testified in court.

“All personnel records used to evaluate performance toward continued employment or promotion, under the control of any police agency or department of the state … shall be considered confidential and not subject to inspection or review without the express written consent of such police officer, firefighter, firefighter/paramedic, correction officer or peace officer …. except as may be mandated by lawful court order,” the provision states.

But criminal justice advocates and public defenders have sought to overturn the provision, arguing that it removes a crucial layer of transparency for police officers accused of misconduct and gives police departments even more power than they already have.

“The repeal of 50-a is a critical step toward justice for New Yorkers, especially black and brown New Yorkers who have historically been the main targets of police abuse,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The repeal will make it harder for police departments to cover up abuse and to look the other way when officers engage in gross misconduct.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo with a list of black people who died at the hands of police officers. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

And while the police department appears to be on board with the changes, the union that represents rank-and-file cops blasted what it describes as "anti-police measures."

“The NYPD has long-advocated for the reform of 50-a and the need for greater transparency while also balancing officer safety,” said Sgt. Jessica McRorie, an NYPD spokeswoman. ”We will review the final version of the legislation and utilize it in a manner that ensures greater transparency and fairness.”

But Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said the repeal of 50-a will make it harder for cops to do their jobs, and will put them at greater risk.

"New York state had been failing our communities for decades: failing to provide economic opportunity, failing to educate our youth, failing to care for the vulnerable and the mentally ill,” Lynch said.

“Police officers spend our days addressing issues caused by these failures. Now, we won't even be able to do that. We will be permanently frozen, stripped of all resources and unable to do the job. We don't want to see our communities suffer, but this is what Governor Cuomo and our elected leaders have chosen."

New York City PBA President Pat Lynch (center) surrounded by supporters. (Seth Wenig/AP)

But the momentum and public sentiment has shifted the other way, and for that Lynch can thank officers like Derek Chauvin — the white cop who was fired and charged with the murder of Floyd. Chauvin pressed his knee into the handcuffed black man’s for more than eight minutes during a Memorial Day arrest.

His last words, caught on camera for the world to hear, were “I can’t breathe.”

They were also the last words of Garner, whose mother made a crusade of the effort to repeal 50-a during last year’s departmental trial of former NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who applied the banned chokehold that led to Garner’s death.

Pantaleo was fired after the trial, but several other officers involved in the deadly arrest remain with the department.

In the absence of true justice for her son, the still-grieving mother has sought some measure of accountability, and with the stroke of a pen, in the wake of yet another unspeakable death, she finally got it.

"It was a long time coming,“ Carr said. “But it came,”