Vallone Gives Total Backing To NYPD For Arrests During RNC Protests

Vallone Jr., with Commissioner Kelly at right. City Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. fought a lonely battle defending the Police Department’s handling of the protest rallies during the recent Republican National Convention, declaring during a council committee hearing that the large number of arrests made by the cops were meant to keep the city safe.

The Astoria lawmaker also stated that it was unreasonable to expect that the police would arraign those arrested within 24 hours because “the law provides for extenuating circumstances to let arraignments go beyond 24 hours.”

Vallone (D) was berated at the hearing before the Government Operations committee by chairman Councilmember Bill Perkins (D–Manhattan) and Councilmember Charles Barron (D–Brooklyn) as well as other speakers who lambasted the Police Department on the issue.

But Vallone, a member of the panel, repeatedly challenged the anti-NYPD speakers who testified. During the hearing however, Vallone’s defense of the Police Department drew praise from an unexpected source, two liberally oriented councilmembers, Philip Reed and Margarita Lopez, both Manhattan Democrats. They said they had found that Vallone was generally fair and objective on issues.

Reed noted he had recently sponsored the bill outlawing racial profiling by the Police Department and that Vallone co-sponsored it.

“I believe that the evidence showed that the cops did a great job keeping the city safe,” Vallone said. “They handled protesters numbering in the hundreds of thousands and constantly were under the pressure of possible terrorist attacks. Remember, prior to the convention, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly and other officials said they were prepared to keep things in check and they followed through on that. They didn’t say they expected to make so many arrests in such a short period, though.”

Actually, Vallone said, there were “over 1,000 arrests in a four-hour period, so you couldn’t expect they would have them all back on the street within 24 hours. That was too unreasonable an expectation.”

He explained, “On a normal day, the average number of arrests is less than 1,000 in Manhattan and they are back on the street in 23 1/2 hours, which is the average arraignment time.”

The mandated 24-hour arraignment period was “being blown out of proportion” at the hearing by Perkins and Barron and other civil rights advocates testifying against police handling of the situation, Vallone maintained.

But, he added, “They all forgot that the law covering arraignments within 24 hours provides that if there are extenuating circumstances, that time period can be extended beyond 24 hours and it was.”

One witness who made this error was an official of the Legal Aid Society, Vallone said.

Summing up, Vallone, a former assistant district attorney, declared:

“Overall, the police did a magnificent job. There are certainly some valid criticisms, but at the hearing, I felt I had to defend the cops from completely unfair charges. Because of the enormous [number] of protestors and the underlying threat of terrorist activity, the police were well within their mandate to protect the public.”

Kelly, whose officers made a total of 1,178 arrests, refused to testify at the Government Operations committee hearings because police activities are overseen by the Public Safety committee, which is chaired by Vallone.

Besides Vallone, Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the Police Department performance during the four-day convention at Madison Square Garden. The mayor said the officers performed admirably under very difficult circumstances, although, he acknowledged as Vallone did, that some innocent people were caught in the cops’ net.

Bloomberg also noted that Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau prosecuted all but three of the arrests, indicating that almost all of them met the legal test.

Also defending the police were three Republican councilmembers, including Councilmember Dennis Gallagher of Middle Village. Council Minority Leader James Oddo of Staten Island, Gallagher, and Councilmember Andrew J. Lanza, also from Staten Island, have introduced a resolution praising the Police Department, Kelly and all other civil service employees who were responsible for security during the convention. All were cited for their “professionalism and effectiveness” during the GOP convention and for “successfully ensuring the public safety under extremely difficult circumstances.”

Gallagher, explaining his backing of the resolution, stated: “I applaud the NYPD and Police Commissioner Kelly on the tremendous work they did in keeping our city safe and in demonstrating to the country and to the world the very best of New York.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg Mayoral Administration Corporation Counsel will be in court next Monday for a contempt of court hearing growing out of the arrests and incarceration of the protestors. There are also several civil lawsuits pending relating to the arrests.

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