As the dispute continues on how police officers should use lethal force, protest groups and relatives of people killed by police have drawn changes that they expects to see. Many of those have demanded for special prosecutors to investigate such deaths. Protesters in Ferguson, Mo., and in New York have raised questions on whether prosecutors who often work closely with police departments could also investigate them.
The appointment of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a special prosecutor to investigate police killings illustrated criticism Thursday from law-enforcement unions. They probed whether the Democrat’s blanket policy is appropriate. Cuomo signed an executive order Wednesday and ordered state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to step in for the local district attorney to investigate and prosecute officers who were involved in the death of unarmed civilians.
The decision of Cuomo was the outcome of numerous high-profile incidents across the nation in recent years where police officers evaded accusation, including the death of Staten Island resident Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man who expired following a police chokehold.
Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, disapproved Cuomo. Her son was killed by a police officer in 2012, and she wrote that Cuomo backed down on his assurance given to families and criticized the idea of restraining the special prosecutor to unarmed cases.
Nevertheless, Cuomo’s order states that the attorney general can investigate cases where there is a significant question that the civilian was armed or not, or was the person perilous during the time of death.
Advocates who had stressed Cuomo to sign the executive order had primarily wished that the special prosecutor will investigate every incident in which police use deadly force, but the final draft of the measure did not go quite that far.
The current news in New York had an immediate impact on law enforcers in that state, but it is an unpleasant indication of what may happen in states across the country where elected officials — who are inspired by their wish to become reelected — are under tremendous political pressure in forming structures for improved civilian oversight of police officers’ actions.
