Editors’ Note: This article has been updated to include recent information on the death of Jarrell Garris, the opening of an investigation by the office of the New York State Attorney General, and the City Council’s “Citizens To Be Heard” hearing on Tuesday, July 11.

Once again, a New Rochelle police officer has killed a Black man.  Jarrell Garris was shot and gravely wounded by Detective Steven Conn on the afternoon of July 3 near the corner of Lincoln and North Avenues.  He died after a week in the hospital on July 10. As required whenever a police officer “may have caused the death of a person,” an investigation into the killing has been opened by the office of New York State Attorney General Letita Harris. The case was also referred for investigation to the offices of the New York State Police and the Westchester County District Attorney.  

The killing was reminiscent of the killing of Kamal Flowers by NRPD officer Alec McKenna in June 2020—both were preventable deaths resulting from unnecessary, overaggressive police tactics that would never be tolerated in white communities.  And like the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, this incident escalated to deadly violence after a call to the police from a local food market to report an alleged petty crime.

The killing shows that, despite New Rochelle’s Police Reform plan of 2021, a toxic police culture remains embedded in the NRPD.  At the same time, the response to the incident shows that community activism is forcing some progress toward greater police transparency and accountability.

Garris was initially approached by police officers Kari Bird and Gabrielle Chavarry near St. Catherine AME Zion Church on Lincoln Avenue around 4:30 pm, after the New Rochelle Farms food market called police to report the theft of some food.  Partial body camera video from the officers shows that the officers tried to engage Garris in conversation.  “We just had a phone call that you were inside the store and ate some items.  Is that true or not true?” said one officer.  Mr. Garris says nothing and walks across the street.  The other officer follows him and says, “We just want to have a conversation.  What were you doing in the store?  Were you eating the food?”  Garris continues to walk away peacefully.

At this point, Detective Conn approaches from his car parked across the street.  From a distance, he calls out, “You’re under arrest,” and begins to run towards Garris.  Detective Conn grabs Garris and cuffs his right hand.  Garris loses his left shoe, and he appears to fall over one of the other officers.  The officers scuffle briefly, and Conn calls out “Taser him!”  One of the officers is seen pulling her taser.  Conn then calls out, “He’s got a gun!” and the video ends.  A preliminary report from the New York State Attorney General’s office says that Detective Conn fired one gunshot, striking Garris. 

Later that evening, the NRPD issued a press release alleging that Garris “physically resisted” and “was shot when he grabbed an officer’s gun, in an attempt to remove it from the holster.”  The NRPD also released the partial videos from the officers’ body cameras.  The videos do not clearly show Garris grabbing a gun.  

The videos do appear to be a case study in how police may unnecessarily and recklessly escalate a routine incident, leading to tragic consequences.  The two female officers follow Garris and try to engage him in conversation without confronting him or touching him.  Seconds after arriving on the scene, Detective Conn calls for an arrest, in effect ordering the officers to take Garris into custody, forcibly if necessary.  At this moment, the incident escalates from a conversation to an assault.

Detective Conn was promoted to his current rank less than a month before shooting Jarrell Garris. 

The killing of Jarrell Garris raises many questions. Was this arrest necessary?  Garris, who had a history of mental health challenges, was not running away or threatening anyone.  Should a person be physically detained based on a report that someone stole a few items from a store, when the police did not witness the incident?  Could the officers have continued to follow Garris and speak with him?  Could they have followed him home and spoken with his family?  How would this incident have been managed in a white community?

At an emotional City Council hearing on Tuesday evening, July 11, dozens of community members poured out their grief and anger and demanded meaningful police reform in New Rochelle. The full “Citizens To Be Heard” hearing can be viewed here.

Three years of efforts at police reform:  What has been accomplished?

On June 5, 2020, New Rochelle Police Officer Alec McKenna followed the car in which Kamal Flowers was riding as a passenger from North Avenue to Potter Avenue.  When the officers pulled the car over on Potter Avenue, Flowers got out of the car and ran.  Officer McKenna chased Flowers on foot onto Pierce Street and killed him.  The police claimed that Flowers pointed a gun at Officer McKenna, but there were no witnesses and no clear video record of the incident.  The police have never clearly explained why the car was followed or why Officer McKenna chased Flowers, who could not have committed a traffic infraction because he was not driving the car. 

Kamal Flowers was killed eleven days after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which ignited a summer of massive protests against police violence and structural racism around the world.  In New York State, Governor Cuomo issued Executive Order 203, mandating that every jurisdiction in New York State with a police department review its police policies and procedures to identify any racial bias or overpolicing of communities of color and adopt a plan to correct such disparities.

In August 2020, in response to Governor Cuomo’s order, New Rochelle convened a Policing Review Committee consisting of 14 citizens and several government representatives.  In October, the Committee issued a report with a long list of recommendations. 

At a City Council meeting on December 1, 2020, numerous citizens expressed support for the work of the Policing Review Committee, and Mayor Noam Bramson and District 3 City Council member Yadira Ramos-Herbert issued a memorandum reviewing the work of the Committee and recommending the formation of a Community-Police Partnership Board (CPPB) and other reforms. 

On January 12, 2021, the city leadership submitted a “Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative Plan” to the City Council, based largely on the recommendations of Mayor Bramson and Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert.

At a “Citizens to be Heard” session with the City Council on January 12, numerous community members expressed their dissatisfaction with this plan and stressed the importance of an independent Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to ensure police transparency and accountability.

Beginning in late January, New Rochelle Against Racism (New RoAR) convened a series of online community meetings to hear additional public comment.  Based on these meetings, New RoAR and others drafted a detailed set of proposed amendments to the reform plan.  Among these proposals, an independent CCRB was identified as a critical need.

At a four-hour public hearing before the City Council on February 9, scores of citizens expressed continued dissatisfaction with the city’s proposal and presented the additional proposals drafted in the community meetings.  Several members of New Rochelle’s Black community testified personally to abuse they had suffered at the hands of NRPD and the efforts of NRPD to dissuade them from filing official complaints. In addition, the Next Step Forward Initiative, a local youth  group, collected testimony from members of the Black Community about abusive behavior by NRPD officers and posted these accounts on Instagram.

Some, but not all, of the community’s proposed revisions were accepted as amendments to the city’s police reform plan.  The community’s central demand for a CCRB was initially strongly opposed by the NRPD, the then City Manager Chuck Strome, the Mayor, and the City Council, who all argued that the CPPB would be a sufficient mechanism to ensure police transparency and accountability.  After continued public outcry, however, the City Council agreed to initiate a process leading to the creation of a CCRB.  

The City’s final Police Reform and Collaboration Plan, passed by the City Council on April 20, 2021, created the CPPB and directed it to “recommend a framework for the creation of a Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB).” The CPPB was asked “to present its findings and recommendations to the City Manager and City Council as timely as practical and no later than one year following appointment of the CPPB, so that a CCRB can be established in 2022.”

The Mayor requested applications for the seven seats on the CPPB designated for the “general community.” Several members of New RoAR and others who participated in the community response to the city’s reform plans submitted applications. Other than one member of the original Policing Review Committee, the Mayor did not recommend any of these community activists for CPPB membership.  The Mayor’s proposed CPPB members were approved by the City Council on June 15, 2021.

Since its formation, the CPPB has held a series of “listening tour” meetings and quarterly public meetings to review the city’s police reform efforts.  It did not meet its deadline of June 2022 for the presentation of recommendations for the formation of a CCRB.  It did not engage a consultant until late 2022, when it contracted with CGR, a Rochester-based consulting firm with experience advising local governments on police accountability.  CGR has been reviewing data and conducting interviews with “local stakeholders” and has promised a report this summer. 

Meanwhile, NRPD has implemented much of the City Council’s 2021 Police Reform Plan.  All NRPD officers now carry body-worn cameras, which demonstrated their value when partial videos of the confrontation with Jarrell Garris were promptly released to the public.  The cameras clearly showed who was responsible for escalating this incident to the point of Garris getting shot.  And the videos made it more difficult for the police to use the common police practice after such violent encounters of blaming the victims and justifying officers’ actions.  This was the tactic used by the Minneapolis Police Department in reporting on the death of George Floyd before the video became public.  There are many more examples (including perhaps the killing of Kamal Flowers).  And the body cameras might have deterred other violent behavior that officers knew would be recorded. 

In August 2022, NRPD announced the launch of the city’s Mobile Crisis Response Team (MRCT).  The MCRT is composed of mental health professionals who respond along with, and in some cases instead of, police officers to calls about people in mental crisis.  At the launch of the MRCT, Police Commissioner Robert Gazzola said, “we recognize there are instances where perhaps a Law Enforcement response is not the best option for a person in mental crisis. This partnership will help an individual in distress get the help they need and ensure the safest possible outcome.”  Where was the MRCT when the police confronted Jarrell Garris?  Perhaps if the police had continued their initial strategy of engaging Garris in conversation and not been so quick to escalate to physical force, there might have been time to engage the MRCT, and Garris might still be alive.

The NRPD has described how it trains officers in their “duty to intervene when they observe another officer using force that is reasonably believed to be clearly beyond that which is objectively reasonable under the circumstances.”  Given this training, why did none of the officers involved intervene to stop the needless assault on Garris?

The NRPD has implemented other reforms required by the city’s Police Reform Plan.  But reforms like implicit bias training, an updated bilingual website, and public reports of arrest data, seem to have done nothing to prevent another NRPD officer from unnecessasrily killing a Black man.

The Police Reform plan mandates that the CPPB be convened when there is a “serious incident,” including ”the discharge of a firearm by a New Rochelle Police Officer or other New Rochelle official conducting an enforcement activity” or “any incident involving the use of force by a New Rochelle Police Officer… resulting in grave injury or death.”  The CPPB did meet in closed session on Thursday, July 6, but has not made any public statement about its discussions.  We will see what influence the CPPB can exert on the outcome of the NRPD’s internal investigation of this incident and any disciplinary action against Detective Conn or the other officers involved. 

The police killing of Jarrell Garris is a crisis and a tragedy for New Rochelle, and a demonstration that systemic racism is still a serious problem in the NRPD.  But it is also an opportunity for New Rochelle to show what it has learned and how it has changed since the killing of Kamal Flowers in 2020.  The prompt release of the videos of the encounter was a welcome demonstration of transparency and trust.  The referral of the case to county and state authorities shows an openness to accountability.  The CPPB may provide a meaningful community voice.  The recent Democratic primary suggests that the city may soon have an Afro-Latina mayor and two African-American members of the City Council.  The city’s decisions about disciplinary action against the officers involved in this incident and about a CCRB will show the strength of its commitment to real police accountability.

Whether any of this will result in justice for Jarrell Garris, or real changes in the NRPD that will make the Black community feel safe, protected and respected, rather than monitored, controlled and attacked, remains to be seen.