#Cuomo signs police reform bills that expand records access in New York

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a slew of bills Friday that promise to improve transparency at police departments across the Empire State, including granting the public access to officer disciplinary files.

Lawmakers in Albany fast-tracked the package of legislation as tens-of-thousands hit the streets of New York — and across the country — demanding police reforms and budget cuts in the wake of the police-custody killing of George Floyd, who died as a Minneapolis Police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.

“There’s no trust and if there is no trust the relationship doesn’t work,” Cuomo told reporters Friday before he signed the package of bills. “If there’s no trust the police can’t effectively police. If there’s no trust the community is not going to allow the police to police.

“There is no trust or there is a breach of the trust and that has to be restored.”

Cuomo was joined by state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester), Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-The Bronx) and longtime civil rights activist, the Rev. Al Sharpton, as he signed the legislation.

The newly enacted legislation makes a slew of changes to state laws, which were among the most favorable to police in the nation, including:

• Repealing the state’s controversial police records secrecy rule known as ’50-a’ that sealed off access to disciplinary records
• Requiring courts to compile and publish demographic data about New Yorkers hit with low-level offenses
• Ordering the state police to wear body cameras
• Codifying Cuomo’s existing executive order granting the state’s Attorney General the power to conduct independent probes of in-custody deaths