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6/16/2025, 7:21:54 AM
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“I feel that what we should do first is to apologize to the Black community, for having to wait this long for this,” Brown said. “It wasn’t the council that asked for the unarmed responders, it was community members that were very involved in the very beginning when this came out who got ignored.”
Brown expressed apprehension about the alternate proposals presented Wednesday, as she felt they wouldn’t honor the initial plan that was supported by the community, which called for five unarmed responders, among other things.
Other Common Council members agreed with Brown’s sentiment, though Fourth Ward Alderperson Patrick Kuehl said he was “elated” by the presentation and felt it represented a “concrete step” toward fulfilling the promises of the Reimagining Public Safety plan.
The concept of an unarmed responders unit first came about in 2021, in response to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive order requiring all New York municipalities to submit law enforcement reform plans in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020.
The city working group tasked with formulating Ithaca’s police reform plan originally billed the unarmed responder program as the Division of Community Solutions. They proposed the program to exist alongside the Ithaca Police Department under a proposed umbrella agency, to be called the Department of Community Safety.
“I feel that what we should do first is to apologize to the Black community, for having to wait this long for this,” Brown said. “It wasn’t the council that asked for the unarmed responders, it was community members that were very involved in the very beginning when this came out who got ignored.”
Brown expressed apprehension about the alternate proposals presented Wednesday, as she felt they wouldn’t honor the initial plan that was supported by the community, which called for five unarmed responders, among other things.
Other Common Council members agreed with Brown’s sentiment, though Fourth Ward Alderperson Patrick Kuehl said he was “elated” by the presentation and felt it represented a “concrete step” toward fulfilling the promises of the Reimagining Public Safety plan.
The concept of an unarmed responders unit first came about in 2021, in response to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive order requiring all New York municipalities to submit law enforcement reform plans in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020.
The city working group tasked with formulating Ithaca’s police reform plan originally billed the unarmed responder program as the Division of Community Solutions. They proposed the program to exist alongside the Ithaca Police Department under a proposed umbrella agency, to be called the Department of Community Safety.
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