Banning the use of tear gas and “drastically expanding” funding for alternatives to police response are among the initiatives being called for by the Rochester Police Accountability Board in a wide-ranging policy document expected to help guide police reform.
The document was drafted in response to questions on policing posed by a City Hall working group tasked with coming up with recommendations to reform policing. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has mandated that every municipality in the state arrive at a reform plan on April 1, or risk losing state police funding.
The Police Accountability Board is the first of four organizations in the working group to devise recommendations to release its responses. The other organizations are expected to complete their responses in the coming weeks and for a reform plan to eventually be put to the City Council for a vote at some point in the future.