Back in March 2015, a rally was held in front of the closed Sixth Precinct building on Community Drive. Ostensibly arranged by the supervisor, the rent-a-crowd of “concerned citizens,” who looked like they had been rounded up from the town’s motor pool, were flanked by what newspapers call “local leaders.”
One leader was not local. Legislator Kevan Abrahams was there to show his support, which I always thought was odd. As far as North Hempstead is concerned, Mr. Abraham’s district may as well be in Macon, Ga.
No matter how many times then Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said it would be of absolutely no benefit, and the crime data didn’t warrant it, an alliance of payroll padders in government as well as some over-moneyed matrons who deemed themselves experts in law enforcement logistics, pushed the reopening. You have to forgive them. Some of these people live in such fear of contact with the commoners, they think they need an armed guard to enter the Buttercooky. And now they have one.
But as big a farce as most knew the reopening of the Sixth was, time reveals all. On Feb. 18, 2021, Newsday reported on county negotiations with the PBA and wrote “PBA President… McDermott’s one strong card might be Nassau County Executive Laura Curran’s bid for re-election in November: The PBA hammered her in the leadup to her 2017 win against Republican Jack Martins and thereafter. Curran wants a deal done and wouldn’t mind a few new friends in blue.”
So Newsday simply blurts out that when it comes to staffing and remuneration, reality doesn’t matter. What the administration needs is “friends,” and they’re going to squander your tax dollars to get them.
About half of Nassau County’s officers earn over $200,000 a year, with “separation pay” averaging another $200,000, sometimes hitting $500,000. Pensions average $100,000. All this, for patrolling one of the safest areas in the nation if not the world.
And now, the Nassau County government, itself merely a pension and benefit extortion scheme that provides sundry municipal services as a side hustle, has to sing for its supper if it wants “friends” and campaign contributions. I mean, how often do you get to bribe the counterparty you’re negotiating with?
Perfectly legal, darling.
But a terrible thing happened along the way: a nine-minute snuff film showing the final moments of George Floyd’s life was flashed around the world, and there were calls for reform.
There’s a lot of dirty stuff that’s gone down in the county when it comes to how law enforcement engages with minority communities that doesn’t make headlines. Like a lot that goes on here, either you know or you don’t. But it’s always been there. The Floyd incident, almost providentially, provided a pretext to deal with it.
So when it came to a police reform plan, the county executive politely listened to representatives of the communities most likely to be affected.
And then blew them off.
Three county legislators, none of them white, voted against the plan.
Legislator Abrahams was always a team player. He went along with what the leadership wanted in a county where every road, every bridge overpass, every local zoning rule, every school district boundary was specifically designed for a single outcome. And he kept quiet about it all this time.
But this was too much. Members of his own leadership shoved Mr. Abrahams and the other two legislators not under the bus but to the back of it. And hard. Hard enough for them to go over the heads of the state party leader and the county executive to plead to the New York State attorney general for oversight.
Politically that is a seismic rift. Just as outrageous as the executive’s dismissive action, that’s how the PBA paid Mr. Abrahams back for his unqualified support of their profligacy.
Laura Curran’s spokesman was quoted as saying, “After hundreds of meetings and countless hours of input from community stakeholders, the Nassau Police Reform Plan passed the legislature in a bipartisan manner.”
Actually, not bipartisan. How many times have I told you there is no such thing as a Long Island Democrat? Moreover, Messrs. Jacobs and Curran must have known how the dissenting legislators felt about the plan, and they went ahead anyway.
Ralph Ellison has been dead for 27 years. Mr. Abrahams is still invisible. Maybe for not much longer.
Donald Davret
Roslyn
