Governor Cuomo Issues Executive Order On Police Reform

ALBANY – New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an Executive Order on police reform.

Cuomo launched the New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative. He said the executive order would require local government and police agencies to develop a plan that reinvents and modernizes police strategies and programs.

The Governor said they must formulate a plan addressing the use of force by police offices, crowd management, community policing, implicit bias awareness training, de-escalation training and practices, restorative justice practices, community-based outreach, and have a transparent citizen complain disposition procedure to handle those and other issues raised by the community.

He says there must be community participation, and this plan must be enacted into local law by April 1, 2021, or local police agencies can lose state funding.

“We’re not going to fund police agencies in this state that can’t look at what is happening, come to terms with it, and reform themselves,” Cuomo said.