By: Andre Malo
On Sunday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo made it clear that he’s looking to close the “bureaucratic loopholes” in his state that allow for police officers to hold on to their credentials after losing their jobs due to their behavior while performing their duties, The Root reported.
ABC 10 reports that during a news briefing, Cuomo expressed his concerns over the phone that cops are allowed to continue being cops after being fired because their credentials don’t reflect their records of misdeeds.
“There can’t be these bureaucratic contrivances and loopholes that, ‘Well, he wasn’t fired for cause, he was allowed to resign, and therefore he can be a police officer somewhere else,’” Cuomo said, ABC reports. “If a police officer is not qualified or does not perform to the standards for one police agency, that doesn’t mean you take a person who acted unprofessionally and you let them go work in a different police department. That doesn’t work for the people of the state.”
“I will be making proposals,” Cuomo said during the conference, according to ABC. “I want the people of this state to know trust is a two-way street and the police should trust the community and the community should trust the police and the conditions exist for both of them to do it, and if there is a bad cop, that bad cop should no longer be a police officer. A bad cop does a disservice to the 99.9% of good cops, and we’ll make sure that happens.
Cuomo referenced a story from the Times Union about an ex-cop in East Greenbush who was allowed to keep his law enforcement certification — even after being accused making inappropriate sexual advances toward women he met while on-duty
NY Post reported: he former cop in question, Matthew C. Wyld, was able to apply to at least four other police departments after he resigned amid the allegations, which included that he had sex with a woman in his patrol car hours after he arrested her for shoplifting and that he made advances on Facebook toward a 17-year-old girl he encountered during a traffic stop.
Cuomo on Sunday said he would be “making proposals” to address the issue, but did not give specifics, according to all accounts of Cuomo’s announcement.