NEW ROCHELLE, NY — New Rochelle Police Department held a Promotion Ceremony last Deceber at New Rochelle City Hall. Before the ceremony began, New Rochelle Police Captain Robert Gazzola invited New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson to say a few words.
Bramson angered many of the friends, family and fellow police officers present by using the event as a platform to express his views on what he called the “great discussion all around our county” in the wake of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner Grand Jury decisions, essentially a speech on the the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
The entire remarks are within the video that accompanies this article, the core of his remarks on the use of deadly force by white police officers against black men have been transcribed by Talk of the Sound and follow below.
Mayor Noam Bramson: “…Let me just say one additional word. I don’t usually comment on such things but I feel perhaps its appropriate to do so. There has been, we all know, a great discussion all around our county and to some degree in our community about justice and fairness when it comes to policing and when it comes to things much broader than policing and when I listen to this debate I often feel as though people are being forced into one of two corners where you can either acknowledge that we still have challenges in our country or you can stand with the police but you can’t do both. And I reject that as a completely false choice. It seems to me that anyone who’s got open eyes can recognize that you do not erase centuries of injustice in a single generation and we still have a long way to go, not just in the criminal justice process but in every aspect of our society, and yet at the same time we can be enormously grateful for and proud of what out police officer’s do every single day to put their safety on the line for our safety to uphold the principal that you cannot have a strong community if it is not a safe community and to, in so many ways, to make sure that cities in particular have benefited from a historic reduction in crime. So I want you to know that I am proud of our police force. I am proud of these individuals. Not just for what I said earlier but frankly making it a habit of reaching out to our larger community not just in the face of a crisis but as a matter of standard practice because it’s the smart and right thing to do. I’m proud that our police force has been pioneering efforts to make sure the use of deadly force is a last resort never a first resort that is what we have done in New Rochelle in many ways a model for what the nation is struggling to achieve today.”
