The Albany Community Police Advisory Committee held a meeting Tuesday night to hear from city Police Chief Brendan Cox.
Cox began the session stressing partnership. He asked several officers present to stand and introduce themselves, pointing out that during his first stint as chief from 2015 to 2017, he boosted a community policing philosophy to heal a rift between police and neighborhoods.
"We'd rather have people actually wave to us and say 'hello' and have a conversation with all five figures than with just one finger. So we're like, well, we clearly need to make a change, because the people don't trust us, that people feel we're not accountable, and if people don't really care about what we're putting up on the white screen to show that numbers are going down, that we're not actually doing our job. So. We needed to make a change, and we made that change," Cox said.
At the same time community relations were showing signs of improvement, staffing numbers continued to fall, an officer shortage Cox says began during a 2012 budget crisis. "We're short about 25% of our staff. Right now, as of today, we're short 83 officers."
Cox says short-staffing impacts APD's ability to address non-emergency issues. He notes that among the many challenges of recruiting and retaining officers, the need for better pay and a work-life balance are most important of all.
Cox, bristling at a recent newspaper article that placed seven Albany police officers on a Top 10 list of Capital Region wage earners, says officers have quality of life issues too.
“They didn't get to see their family for 10 straight months and get to do anything with their families, and they were here 16 hours a day, seven days a week, and missed holidays and birthdays, and they're burned out and exhausted," said Cox. "So we need to find a healthy balance between work life and home life, and how we give them the opportunities to be able to step away and take a breather and not live this life 24 hours a day.”
Cox also defended officers who choose to live outside city limits.
“Sometimes the reason why an officer may make a decision to say, I'm going to live instead of where I'm working, I'm going to live one town, a suburb over, is because when they drive into their driveway at midnight a town over, they feel like they can take a breath," Cox said. "They don't feel the pressure of, ‘I'm at work 24 hours a day.’ So we don't always take that into consideration when we say, ‘Well, geez, we'd love to give officers an incentive to live in the city.’”
Cox stressed the department's commitment to establish positive interactions with youth. He also addressed concerns about federal immigration enforcement, clarifying that city police do not enforce civil immigration laws unless there is a judicial warrant. He also called for community advocacy to address issues like methadone clinics.
An Albany mayoral candidate in the audience quizzed Cox on coordination between city, county, and state public safety and law enforcement personnel.
"I'm Carolyn McLaughlin and I'm a county legislator, and I'm representing part of the South End, and I want to know, do you see any value in the intersection of the city, county and state public safety personnel working together to protect the city of Albany?"
Cox replied "I absolutely do, and there are initiatives that we run in coordination. We have a detail right now that we work. We're doing it on Thursday nights with the state police, and it's a very coordinated approach where the state police are working hand in hand with us on ensuring that when they come into the city, we know what they're doing, they know we're doing. We have it both for patrol and investigations, and I see that that growing."
The Albany County Sheriff also assists in street patrols and arrests.
The meeting concluded with a call for community input on topics for future forums.
ACPAC supports community policing, with representatives from each ward. The group aims to re-engage the community post-pandemic, address public safety concerns, and improve diversity and inclusivity as an organization.
