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SARATOGA SPRINGS — The City Council by a 4-1 vote on April 18, approved a resolution that bans no-knock warrants except “in the most extreme circumstances.”
“I think it’s really important sometimes to take a stand on some things,” said city Mayor Ron Kim. “And this is one of them.”
An Executive Order issued in June 2020 by then-N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo required local governments to perform a comprehensive review of its existing police force deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, practices and develop a plan for improvement with community input.
The Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force was initiated two months later and tasked with developing recommendations along with the police chief and the city attorney to present to the City Council. Portions of the subsequent “Reinvention Plan: Toward a Community-Centered Justice Initiative” was accepted by the previous council in March 2021, although it refrained from action regarding the plan’s recommendation to ban non-knock search warrants.
“This City Council’s goal is to make our community safer and protect the rights and safety of all residents, including black residents who have historically experienced systemic racism,” read the resolution presented by the council this week. “Restrictions on no-knock search warrants will enhance safety for both the citizens of Saratoga Springs and the law enforcement officers who protect them.”
“Restrictions” on no-knock search warrants was a late-added revision, replacing an earlier version which stated intent for an outright “ban.” The revised version added a handful of new paragraphs and revisions and was read aloud prior to the resolution vote, but not available for public viewing on the city’s website. The updated resolution, still titled as a “ban,” allowed for exceptions “in the most extreme circumstances.”
“This restricts no-knock warrants. There is still the extreme circumstance where the police can in fact ask a judge for a no-knock warrant, so it does not remove no-knock warrants from law,” said DPW Commissioner Jason Golub, who served as co-chair of Saratoga’s Police Reform Task Force prior to his appointment, and subsequent election, to the council.
“It simply says: we are restricting them to the most extreme circumstances where they might be required. “The ask by Gov. Cuomo was for every city to reimagine police reform…I think that is reimagining what we can do to protect our community, and that’s where we need to be going,” Golub said.
The issues were discussed and debated by the city Police Reform Task Force for about nine months Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran reminded those at the council meeting, during which a great majority of those making public comments voiced their support for the city’s adoption of the resolution.
“There was a comment earlier today that there hadn’t been enough community conversation. I just don’t think that’s true,” Moran said. “The recommendation has been out there for a while and there has been plenty of opportunity for people to come forward, voice their support for – as we’ve heard this evening - and folks to use their voice against.”
At the council table, Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi verbally supplied data that showcased: dozens of deaths involving civilians and police had occurred in the U.S. over a six-year period during no-knock raids; funds paid by municipalities due to resulting lawsuits, and statistics that highlighted a high percentage of no-knock warrants executed upon blacks and Hispanics indicating that “race is clearly an issue.”
“No-knock warrants have been banned in Florida – which I don’t think anyone would think is a liberal state – they have been banned in Virginia, which has a Republican governor, and in Oregon,” Sanghvi said. “They don’t make sense for the safety and security of our police or our community, and it doesn’t make sense financially either for our local government.”
The New York State Legislature is considering a bill that would sharply limit the use of no-knock warrants.
Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino cast the lone council vote opposed to the resolution, citing procedural issues – including that the revised measure was not available to the public – as well as current state law. “Unless and until either our legislature amends article 690 (Search Warrants) or we go through the proper process to amend the City Charter, I don’t think this resolution should be adopted.”
Montagnino said as best he could discern, while “a number of” no-knock warrants were issued by city judges, most of those city police opted to execute as standard announce warrants. “As best as we can tell, one warrant was executed as a no-knock warrant in the city of Saratoga Springs, about 7 years ago… so the process itself is extremely rare.”
The condition providing exception to the ban reads as follows: SSPD will only initiate no-knock warrants in the most extreme circumstances where officers detail specific facts in the search warrant application that explain why giving notice would create an imminent danger to a person’s life.
