At St. Francis: Finding a balance with police and communities
St. Francis College hosted two reporters — Harry Siegel and Azi Paybarah — for a talk called “Policing in New York and America” in Brooklyn Heights on Friday. The pair discussed the current state of policing in the city with a focus on how cops and communities can find a balance that works for both sides.
“New York City is a forward looking, progressive, great place to live as long as it’s safe,” said Paybarah, a reporter at Capital New York. “If crime starts to increase and goes back to the way it was in the ’60s and ’80s, all of these liberties and things that we take for granted, all of the flexibility we give one another, starts to recede because no one wants their families, lives or property put in jeopardy.”
Siegel, who is a columnist for the New York Daily News, said while there is a call for change in the way cops police communities, it’s difficult because not everyone perceives the problem the same way. He cited a Rasmussen poll conducted last year where 82 percent of black people who responded said they felt that police treat them unfairly while only 30 percent of white people agreed.