I wanna say his name so bad. But can you believe I’m actually scared? Can you believe that I’m actually scared someone come down to my house and hurt my family if I say his name. That shouldn’t have to be! … watching my house at night. I don’t know what’s gonna happen at night. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me in five months from now if I say this person’s name, but I will sit down and I will sit down in the office and I will make sure they don’t have their jobs no more and you will go back to working at the bank! Just so you know who I’m talking about, you will go back to working at the bank!
And not just that. Let’s talk about every person who’s been harassed by the Beacon police. Let’s talk about it. We got my brothers right here next to me, all harassed by the police every day. (Audience calling back about their own harassment.)
“Put your fist up if you can hear her?” (FISTS GO UP)
Yes, and I don’t wanna disrespect the Mayor, but I wanna let him know it’s time to take action and you gotta, you gotta look and you gotta open your eyes. (Crowd cheers)
You might not be able to feel my personal pain, you might not be able to feel all our personal pain, but you’re not deaf. You’re not blind. You can see what’s going on, and you’re the one. You can take power, you can take control of this.
Systems fucked, y’all. it’s fucked up. This country is fucked up. This country is so fucked up. We gotta do something. We gotta do something for our small town, regardless, this is a small part of a big world and we gotta start somewhere.
NEXT SPEAKER
Mr. Mayor, your entire city is with us in solidarity. We do not want to hear a letter from the cops talking about how they stand with us. Where are they? Are they here? NO. They’re waiting for someone to act up so they can do what they always do.
Mr. Mayor, what are you doing for us? Your whole city is here talking to you. What are you gonna do for us? What are you gonna change. How are you gonna hold the police department accountable? How are you gonna make sure this does not happen in our city ever again? I don’t want no letter!
MAYOR LEE KYRIACOU:
Wow. Let me start with a historical note. What I wanted to say, that someone said that what we need now is action and change. I agree. I think what we need now is a resolve and progress, and I want to offer you three quotes.
Just a moment, I do need the opportunity to speak. (person in crowd yells “we can’t hear you!”)
Let me start with a historical note. Those who have been here long enough recall that as a City Councilman, almost two decades ago, I had to challenge at first alone, but eventually with the unanimous council agreement, and despite repeated lawsuits leveled against me personally, and the rest of the city, I had to challenge the leadership and the practices of our police department. This was in the 2000s, not in the 2020, which led to Justice Department oversight, change of leadership, departure of certain officers, and the gradual transition to a professional and more community oriented police department.
That was in the last 15 years. That doesn’t mean we don’t have progress to do. But I’ve been taken on this battle and when I started it, I was alone on the Council, alright?
And to say that there is nothing to be done now is wrong. But to say that there has been no past of progress is also wrong. So let me just offer you that history. We have work to do. So I ran [for Mayor] in part to make change, and I hear you. Right? I look forward - (interruption)
Let me offer a couple of quotes. One, of course, (interruption…mention of the next public City Council meeting at which the Chief of Police was going to be attending, which he did) well you’d be better if you dialed in but there is some room for public, uh, in person. Everyone can dial in and there’ll be opportunity for input and we will have that dialogue and input.
Let me offer a quote from Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist orator who spoke here in Beacon at the Dutch Reform Church that we walked past. This quote was on my wall as a graduate student and an undergrad. “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. We will have to struggle. If we want progress, there will be struggle. How that struggle occurs…
(audience member yells: “if you really believed it put the paper down and speak from the heart!”)
(audience cheers)
I’m sorry, I wrote my heart on this sheet of paper, alright? I wrote my heart on this sheet of paper. Uh, how we should do it, I look to Ghandi. Ghandi said “Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.” And finally I have a quote from King, and King said and offered us hope. And this is President Obama’s favorite quote from King. “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.”
We have work to do, we have to make resolve here, and we have to make progress. Thank you.
FIRST SPEAKER
I didn’t wanna pull a Kanye west right here but I almost had to. Um, that…I don’t have any fuckin’ words. Let’s go.
NEXT SPEAKER
How y’all doin’? This guy, that this, the Mayor, our Mayor, what he just said about the Beacon police is not true. They don’t mean nothing they say, don’t mean nothing they say.
I used to go to school in Albany. When I came home, I worked for the city of Beacon. And we came down here [to Riverfront Park] one day. We had to cut the grass. I parked the truck next to a water fountain and I hit, I tapped the water fountain.
So our job is to report back to the boss, and they, they write it up, they tell the cops and they file a police report. So the cop called my boss and told me I had to come back down here. I came back down to the riverfront. The cop slammed me on the car and arrested me and told me I did a hit and run. If I work for the City of Beacon, and I hit city property, I did a hit and run on my own property? They brought me down to the station and chained me to the wall for like an hour. Fuck what the Beacon police gotta say.
NEXT SPEAKER
By show of hands, how many people here have been harassed or beaten by the Beacon police? Put your fists up. Someone, you know somebody, you’ve seen a video of it.
FORMER SPEAKER
If you’ve been harassed, let’s take everyone who’s been harassed step at the front. (Interruption)
Everyone who’s been harassed by the Beacon police, if you’re still left here, I know a lot of people left because they couldn’t even bear listen to the bullshit anymore. I’m ready to leave my damn self but we gon’ stand up.
NEXT SPEAKER
I’m…I’m so humbled to stand up with all of you today, to fight for what you actually believe in. I had no idea what it’s like. But I refuse to let my kids grow up because (words are unintelligible) scared still. So I wanna know how many people does it take to get an Accountability Bill against the police? Is there a way to get insurance so that it stops coming from their pockets and comes from the people doing the damage instead? Is there a way to make that happen now, instead of putting it off, putting it off, and putting it off and we have to keep having protests to fight for it? And I say this with all due respect because I know you are a man of authority but I need you to act as a man for all of the people.
NEXT SPEAKER
Chris
Hey what’s up everyone. My name is Chris. Let me talk about my experience. So back in 2009, probably like in the beginning of August, me and two other gentlemen got arrested over in front of Citizen’s Bank on Main Street. Now we got arrested because I guess we were hanging out in the back of the building and some, we were there kinda late, too, kinda like 10:30/11pm, and I guess there was a lady who was still in the bank and they called the cops.
The cops came, you know, chased us over by the gas station which is now known as Valero. And they arrested us, it was two Hispanic cops. So pretty much, the other guy arrested with me was Black and the other one was Hispanic, both of them close friends of mine. So pretty much, the cop came, and while we were running, he hopped in the car and said “freeze before I tase you.”
So we all stopped, he handcuffed us against the wall. They asked us what we were doing behind the bank. Pretty much I told him we were hanging out. We were 17 years old. We just didn’t happen to be 18. Another friend of mine was 17, his birthday was…he was actually gonna be 18 at 12 o’clock am, right before they arrested us.
So while he was questioning us, he told me since he didn’t like what I had to say, he told me that he was gonna take me to the back of the building and beat the shit out of me. And then he talked to my other friend who was Hispanic in Spanish, and I don’t know what he said to him but he let him go, and he kept me and the other dude and he was Black. And they waited until 12 o’clock, until he was able to turn 18 so they could put it on his record. And they arrested him. (Person in crowd yells)
Yeah. So uh, I had other experiences too, but I could say that letter was bullshit as well, you know, so.
NEXT SPEAKER
