NYC NOW - August 30, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

New Jersey is likely to send its first Latina to Congress in November after Democrats selected State Senator Nellie Pou to replace the late Bill Pascrell on the ballot. WNYC's Nancy Solomon reports. Meanwhile, New York City workers have removed a plywood passageway that covered a sidewalk in Kips Bay that spanned three mayoral administrations. But as WNYC's David Brand notes, it's just a small step in addressing the city's vast network of sidewalk sheds. Plus, New Jersey is making changes to how police respond to mental health crises and how rape kits are handled. WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, whose office is overseeing both initiatives.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, August 30th. Here's the midday news from David First. New Jersey is likely to send its first Latina to Congress in November following the Democratic Party's choice to put State Senator Nellie Poe on the ballot. WNYC's C-Solomon reports she replaces the late Bill Pascrell who died last week. faced with a very short deadline to make changes to the ballot, hundreds of party committee members from the 9th Congressional District

met last night to choose a candidate. Poe has represented Patterson in the state legislature for 27 years. Patricia Campos Medina of Latina Civic Action says she's known Poe for two decades. I had been able to work with her on labor issues, on immigrant rights issues. She was very thoughtful in the process of getting the domestic workers feel a right stall recently. The party bosses from the district's three counties, Passaic Hudson and Bergen, endorsed Poe, all but assuring her assent. New York City workers have torn down a plywood passageway that covered a Kipps Bay sidewalk through three mayoral administrations.

But WNYC's David Brand reports it's barely a dent in New York City's vast network of sidewalk sheds. About 2.1 million feet of steel and plywood now lined city sidewalks, according to to the buildings department. That's enough to stretch from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to Williamsburg, Virginia, and almost halfway back. There's a reason. The familiar green sidewalk sheds are supposed to protect pedestrians from falling debris, but nearly 300 active sheds were erected more than five years ago.

Mayor Adams wants to make sure property owners are completing facade repairs in a timely manner so they can take them down. He's proposing new penalties for neglected work. He's also ordering city agencies to target scaffolding outside municipal buildings. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. Changes are coming in New Jersey to how police respond to mental health crises and how rape kits are handled. Here to talk about all of it is New Jersey Attorney General Matt Placken,

whose office is directly involved in both initiatives. Attorney General, thanks for joining. us. Thanks for having me, Sean. Can you tell us more about the recent changes you made to New Jersey's use of force policy pertaining to people who have barricaded themselves in the midst of a mental health crisis? Sure. Well, we know that in New Jersey and frankly across the country, too often we don't take a clinical approach to what is really a public health problem, a mental health crisis. And in New Jersey, we have the first program of its kind statewide, providing alternative crisis response, incorporating mental health into our response.

And we've learned from that, as well as we've learned from our experiencing overseeing the tragedies of when fatal police encounters occur. And what we saw from that is if we take a more clinical, a more enlightened approach, if we bring all the resources to bear, including our mental health providers and our mental health resources, and we don't ask law enforcement to do too much. We don't ask them to be everything. That we can resolve these situations that are the situations most likely to result in an injury to a civilian or an officer. we can resolve them peacefully, we can resolve them safely, and we can get individuals the help that they need. What did inspire you to try and make these changes? Well, when I came into this job now about two and a half years ago, one of the things I said was that I've seen too many times when we ask law enforcement to do everything. The same way we wouldn't ask anyone to be both a patrol officer and a mental health professional and a social worker,

when we asked them to do everything that sometimes things don't go the way we'd like them to go. And when we bring resources together, when we respond in a way that incorporates our mental health response and social workers, among other resources, that we can get people to help they need when they need it. We can keep people safe and we can avoid injuries either to civilians or officers. And I said I wanted to do that statewide and arrive together now as the first program in the country to be operational in all 21 of our counties. And through that work, we've seen particularly with respect to barricaded individuals in the midst of a mental health crisis, that those are the situations that are most challenging for law enforcement that all too frequently result in an outcome that we'd like to avoid. And we thought we could do something about it. Now, you've said that these new changes will save lives. Does that mean that you believe people have been unnecessarily killed because there wasn't a greater role for mental health than these calls? Any loss of life, Sean, is a tragedy. even when force is used in a way that's legally justified, we have to ask ourselves,

could we have had a different approach? Could we have brought a different set of resources? Could we have taken different tactics that would have resulted in a different outcome? And this isn't a response to any one case. I first announced that we were going to undertake this review when I took over the Patterson Police Department last year. And what we've seen throughout the state is when we allow law enforcement to work together with mental health professionals, when we take a clinical approach to what is genuinely a mental

health crisis, we can get people help, we can avoid injuries, and we can respond to situations peacefully and safely. And so that is the lesson that we brought to the table here. And that is what we are trying to achieve in all circumstances now involving individuals suffering from mental health crises, particularly in a barricaded situation. Now, police already have to abide. by use of force policies. The one from your office says force should be used as a last resort when verbal commands and de-escalation techniques aren't working. But you also just release body cam footage that shows last month police shot a woman in Fort Lee almost immediately after they forced their way into her apartment, even after discussing which officers would use lethal or less lethal

duties while she made threatening statements on the other side of the door. We should stress that this is still under investigation, but is it clear that police are using the de-escalation techniques already at their disposal? Well, as you noted, that case is under investigation by my office and will be presented to the grand jury, so I can't comment on a particular case. Let me say this about New Jersey's law enforcement. We've the best trained law enforcement officers in the country. We're the only state that required de-escalation and bystander intervention training for

all of our officers. Our use of force policy that you just referenced, which I updated last week, is a model for the rest of the country. And we don't read about the cases that I see day in and day out, particularly coming from our arrived together program, which originated with law enforcement, where cases are resolved peacefully and safely. But that doesn't mean we can't do better. And that doesn't mean that things go right every time.

And our goal here is to learn from situations that we have seen, particularly ones that we've seen that tragically end up with a use of force or a use of lethal force, and try to avoid that outcome. And so that's what we're doing. And that's what I'm proud of the fact that law enforcement community in this state is embracing. We spoke with Yanik Wood, the director of the Criminal Justice Reform Program, with the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. He says any armed force carries the risk of a fatal shooting. My issue is with that co-response, having a mental health person with an arms police officer.

Instead, I believe that we should be sending mental health trained professionals into these scenes without the armed response. And because there's no armed response, then there could be no shooting of that person or killing of that person. Attorney General, as you mentioned, you've been expanding the program called Arrived Together, which pairs cops and mental health officials. But what about a situation where armed forces are completely removed from the seat? Well, I would say, I'd like to come down. We can show you all the situations where we're doing just that. We're in Patterson and Newark and communities across the state where we are training dispatchers for certain subsets of calls that don't require law enforcement at all. And law enforcement has embraced that. We're using social worker-only responses in many parts of our state.

Arrived together is now operational in 21 counties serving nearly 5 million people. And we have different models in each community. And we're going to continue to expand that, including in many instances, allowing law enforcement to focus on the calls where they're really needed and allowing our mental health professionals to focus on the calls that they can handle a loan. But let's not make any mistake. There are always going to be some set of calls that require a law enforcement response. If someone calls 911 and says there's a person barricaded in a room with a double barrel

shotgun, there is no mental health provider in the country that would show up to that call alone, and it would be irresponsible to do so. So what arrived together and what the barricaded subjects policy that we just put out sets rules of the road for how that response should go, a way that ensures that mental health response is incorporated into what traditionally was a purely law enforcement response. And we know that that can save lives. How do we know it? Because arrive together, including a co-response model where you have law enforcement in plain close arriving on a scene with a mental health provider has already helped thousands and thousands of people in our state. And we haven't had a single injury, either to a civilian or an officer.

So we know that this is part of a solution, and we know it's part of an evolution to how we get to a more enlightened response to incidents of crisis and to a mental health epidemic that is not just affecting New Jersey, but is affecting every state in this country. On to another topic, your office is actively engaged with forensic evidence in sexual assault cases had been at the discretion of investigators. Can you tell us more about your office's new guidance? Sure. This is another, Sean, significant change in how we operate here.

And it's, again, a part of an evolution towards. being as survivor-centric and as trauma-informed as we possibly can be. So now in New Jersey, we will be testing every single sexual assault examination kit that is released to law enforcement at the victim's choice. And again, this is part of ensuring that in New Jersey, we respond to the needs of our victims and our survivors from a trauma-informed approach. It builds on the work that we've been doing now for years. It builds on the first ever office of its kind created at a statewide level that I created called the Division of Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance to ensure that survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and gun violence have a permanent

seat at the policymaking table. That office is run by one of the most experienced sexual assault survivor advocates in the state, and it is a key reason why we have now got to the point where we can put this policy into effect. That was New Jersey Attorney General Matt Placken. Attorney General, thanks so much for joining us. John, thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC.

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