Albany’s police chief not to blame for crime problems

[ad_1]

To the editor

Oct 30, 2022

Over the past four decades, I’ve had the extraordinary privilege of meeting many law enforcement executives from communities large and small from all over this country and some others. Considering all the people I have interacted with and whose careers and accomplishments I have closely followed, I can confidently say that our Chief Eric Hawkins rates very high among his peers. It would be a shame to lose him.

He’s also shameful to blame his leadership for the conditions that have so alarmed and frustrated Councilman Owusu Anane and his constituents in Pine Hills. There has been a rise in crime nationwide and I have yet to see any police executive anywhere who has come up with the solution. So, I earnestly hope that Anane will withdraw his demand that the chief resign. (“Is it time for a new Albany police chief?” Oct. 6.)

The councilman has an urgent problem in his ward with all the gun violence we have witnessed in recent days. That problem is not ineffective police leadership. It is also not bail reform or the raise the age legislation that became effective within the last two years. The problem is guns. That is what the Common Council, the mayor, the Albany Police Department and concerned citizens should be focused on.

If a finger should be pointed at anyone, I’d say that it be at District Attorney David Soares, who is indeed grandstanding over the bail reform issue. Blaming this hard-earned achievement not of police or prosecutors but of people whose families have been greatly harmed by the cash bail system is unconscionable. Yes, he got a lot of attention for himself by demanding an emergency special session of the Legislature to reform the reform, but in doing so, he is distracting all of us from the real problem.

Terry O’Neill

Albany

Director, The Constantine Institute

[ad_2]