I walked to the store this morning to pick up some decaf iced tea before the New Year’s crowd descended on my local PC. Still weighing heavy on my mind were my feelings regarding the incident on South Pearl in which a police officer shot a 19 year old man. As I explained to Councilman Freeman when he asked me yesterday if I planned on doing anything on this story, I didn’t know enough about it. I heard the hysteria, I heard so many versions of the story that my head was spinning…I watched people in pre-mature reactive mode…and none of it made sense.

I explained to Freeman, if the left-leaning Times Union printed the story they did, to believe this man didn’t invite the defensive reaction he received is just plain ridiculous. Since Chief Krokoff was selected to run the Albany Police Department in June of 2010, the Chief, I believe, has gone above and beyond creating a collaborative policing effort with the community. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve attended community/APD meetings which tended to be “bitch” sessions by the end of the session. The same people stand up and yell or rise to beg the APD for help but people, we don’t want the police at our kitchen tables with us every night.

At the press conference yesterday, I sat beside the woman who was driving the vehicle which the police approached on Thursday night and the vehicle in which Nahcream Moore was riding. I had no idea who she was until she jumped to her feet and began telling her version of the incident. Now, I wasn’t there that night…odds are, if you’re a regular reader of mine, you weren’t there either…and, odds are, you aren’t a very young woman whose friend was just shot under what, from her viewpoint, are unfair circumstances…so I certainly am not going to be critical of her emotions yesterday. I am, however, critical of the “leaders” in the community who are fueling her rage. (Ya noticed the quotation marks in that last sentence, right?)

I attend a lot of community meetings and, I’m not sure where it became acceptable for citizens to yell at the facilitators or hosts of the events, but the audience edging toward the “out of control” stage is not something alien to Albany Community meetings. Of course, this presser drew much more media attention than a regular “community policing” meeting or a “Citizens’ Police Review Board.” (I’ve have NEVER EVER seen a camera or “legit” reporter at the CPRB!) While yesterday’s meeting was a bit over the top on reaction, it was not unexpected…by me, anyway.

I’ve commented on a few cases down at the Judicial Center, it’s amazing to me that some of the young men come through and plead down to some pretty hefty charges (which, of course, means the original charge was heftier) to be sent away to prison for a few years. I was outraged as I spoke to some legal types…”why don’t they have attorneys who will help them fight the charges?” “Why don’t they take this to trial?” From my initial perspective, it looked to me as if the DA was just lining up the young men (and women) in our community and putting them behind bars to get them out of our hair. Then, I started paying a lot more attention.

You see, with every plea bargain accepted, the ADA making the offer explains the charges, the defendant’s priors and the circumstances involving the plea bargain. (This is all the “fine print” most observers tend to ignore.) After watching for less than a year, I can tell you that the plea bargains are not being accepted by innocents. If a defendant in Albany County is put behind the bars of a State Prison with a plea bargain, I feel pretty confident that the defendant is deserving of the sentence. Of course, that is changing as more defendants are learning that it’s harder to get a guilty verdict from a jury than it has been in the past.

Normally, right about here in my thought process I would normally say that Moore, having been sent to prison for Attempted Robbery in the 2^nd (D Felony), did his time and was living by the rules of parole and society while attempting to rebuild his life….for that, we must question the police reaction. But, he wasn’t.

According to prison records, Moore was released in August of this year and was subject to the demands of Parole…which, according to Parole, he had ignored. Now, even disregarding statements from the police regarding another case in which Moore was being sought for questioning, the fact that NYS Parole had issued a warrant for him was reason enough for the APD to be a bit more than curious since he was known to be keeping company in this particular vehicle. Now, in opposition to the young driver who seems to believe this incident to be closer to an ambush of her parole violating passenger, it seemed to be more of the APD just trying to pick up this guy with a rather serious warrant.

Think about it, according to all accounts, Officer Kelly approached the vehicle alone. Now, if Kelly had anticipated a “tussle” or a gun or another parolee in the vehicle…or any possible danger to the vehicle’s passengers or the surrounding community wouldn’t he or his partner called for reinforcements? I would hope! Would his partner have remained settled in the police car permitting Kelly to venture into danger alone? I would hope not, that’s not what police officers do…they protect. My feeling on the solo approach to arresting Moore was that, as the driver of the vehicle insisted, Officer Kelly did know Moore…and he didn’t expect a resistance.

Unfortunately, Officer Kelly anticipated an arrest but he didn’t expect this 19 year ole parolee to be in possession of a loaded 22 caliber handgun. Now, while I heard several times yesterday, the driver doesn’t believe Moore had a gun, she stopped short of claiming that he definately didn’t have one. (I heard this morning that the driver was not just a friend but a cousin to Moore…I heard that through the grapevine…not with my own ears.) I have no reason to disbelieve that the “tussle” described by the young driver of the vehicle didn’t actually happen…I see an awful lot of “resisting” arrests and, in the eyes of a former inmate, in violation of parole, wanted for questioning in another crime, in the company of another parolee and in possession of a loaded handgun….and young and stupid…”resisting” would be the anticipated reaction when the police arrived.

I believe, the APD has become more comfortable with the growing trust and cooperation with the community than they should be. I thought about this last week when the OAers had over-estimated their “control” over the police department. That reminded me of a scenario where the teenager has become best friend to their parent…at the point where the authority must kick in, it’s always a shock for the teenager. Now, I’m certainly not saying that Moore had any awareness at all of the Occupy Albany situation or the social dynamics of it but I can say that, over the last few weeks, the kindness of the Albany Police Department could understandably be interpreted as weakness by some.

In defense of the police actions of Thursday night, what would our opinion had been if the APD had visited the parked Land Rover without apprehending the parolee…and then what if the occupants proceeded on to use the “loaded weapon” on someone else? The APD would still be ridiculed for not being heavy handed...while violation of parole is not deserving of the death penalty, the Police Department, from what I’m understanding, acted to protect themselves and the community in the split of a second.

While I’ll await more information from the Police Department, I continue to support our Police Chief and the rest of his team. While many people can second guess him on the wisdom of hosting a press conference with the inclusion of the public, I know for a fact that he hosted the meeting with the intention, as always, of hoping to heal the community’s pain beginning with these initial stages of the investigation being as transparent as possible. Unfortunately, I feel that there was a fox in that hen house.

When I woke up on Friday morning, it was with the anticipation of Jim Leahy’s retirement from the Police Department and no one was going to ruin that day for him. Then I opened Facebook and saw that several members of the community and a councilman were discussing the Thursday night shooting in the social media. This mechanism, gone unchecked, fueled the anger based on second, third and fourth hand information. It was like the telephone game…ya know, where ya start with a whisper in one ear and the whisper morphs into something unrecognizable by the time it rolled back around. It’s all quite a big laugh when you find out that the term “I left my heart in San Francisco” morphs into “I met my dog in Encino.” I didn’t get a laugh out of how the social media message “morphed” out of control with each comment posted and shared and I certainly didn’t get a laugh from those perpetuating the rumor mill. I might add, while the APD didn’t realize the “witness” was present in the conference room yesterday, the “leadership” did have the information that the “witness” was in the room prior to the Chief’s arrival at the press conference yesterday and could have worked with the APD to respond to the community rather than aiding in the sabotage of our police department.

Back to my morning stroll to the neighborhood PriceChopper, along the way, I came across two men wildly discussing the shooting….”yeah, without asking anything, the police pulled the kid out of the car, threw him on the ground and shot him in the head…IN THE HEAD!!” The shocked looks were exchanged and the anger was fueled. It took everything I had to keep from intervening in the discussion. I hoped the Chief had the fortitude to overcome the damage that’s been done.

With all the sound bytes that were gathered by a shocked press corps yesterday, I believe that I captured the most profound of all. While the traditional media types continued to fuel the flame by hanging on every of the sleep-deprived words delivered by the understandably angry young woman and friend of the young man shot by the APD, I wandered out onto the front sidewalk of 200 HenJohn into a crowd of citizens. I walked right into a young woman with three kiddos and wondered to myself if having such young children exposed to this anger was a wise move.

At about the same moment my mind wondered, the oldest of the three did a pirouette and asked to no one in particular, “I’m tired of guns…why do we have to talk about guns all the time?” His sibling did another pirouette into the group and said, “can’t we just put it all behind us?”

From the mouths’ of babes.