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Mount Vernon Man Sentenced to 6 Years for Firearms Sales, Storage Unit Burglaries

AJ Woodson
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Mount Vernon Man Sentenced to 6 Years for Firearms Sales, Storage Unit Burglaries

A Mount Vernon man who admitted to burglarizing storage units in New Rochelle and later selling stolen firearms to an undercover state trooper has been sentenced to six years in state prison.

Zaid Lewis, 33, was sentenced Thursday, September 3, 2026, by Westchester County Court Judge George Fufidio. Lewis pleaded guilty July 23 to Criminal Sale of a Firearm in the First Degree, Criminal Sale of a Firearm in the Third Degree, and two counts of Burglary in the Third Degree. He was also sentenced to five years of post-release supervision.

According to prosecutors, Lewis was involved in a series of burglaries at an Extra Space Storage facility on Huguenot Street in New Rochelle between September and November 2025. Among the property reported stolen were clothing, shoes, jewelry, ammunition, holsters and three firearms.

On September 18, 2025, prosecutors said Lewis met an undercover New York State Police trooper on Union Street in Mount Vernon and sold him several firearms and related items for $3,750.

The weapons included a .38-caliber Ruger revolver, a Glock 19 9mm pistol and a SIG Sauer P226 9mm pistol, along with two blank-firing pistols, ammunition, a speed loader and two holsters.

At the time of the undercover sale, however, investigators had not yet determined that the three firearms had been stolen.

Six Weeks Later, the Connection Was Made

The connection between the firearms and the New Rochelle burglaries emerged roughly six weeks later.

On September 20, New Rochelle police were notified that approximately $15,000 worth of property had been stolen from a storage unit. Investigators learned that someone had apparently gained access by cutting through a wire grid in the ceiling.

Three days later, the victim returned to the facility and saw two men pushing a cart covered with two distinctive blankets. One of the men was reportedly wearing a wine-colored Sergio Tacchini sweatsuit that had been stolen from the victim’s unit.

The victim followed the men and recorded them leaving the facility in a Chevrolet Suburban. The video was subsequently provided to police.

Investigators later learned that another storage unit—rented by a Mount Vernon firefighter—had also been burglarized.

On September 26, 2025, Lewis was a passenger in the Suburban when police stopped the vehicle. According to prosecutors, a bag inside the vehicle contained a document that had been stolen from the firefighter’s storage unit. Lewis was arrested on a burglary charge and was subsequently released without bail.

Then, in late October, police received a report of another burglary at the facility. A renter discovered that his unit had been ransacked and that a safe containing three firearms had been stolen.

The serial numbers of those firearms matched the three guns Lewis had sold to the undercover trooper six weeks earlier.

Another Gun Sale After His Arrest

Prosecutors said Lewis continued arranging firearm sales even after his September arrest.

On November 13, 2025, Lewis allegedly arranged for Alexander James, 34, to meet an undercover trooper on Washington Street in Mount Vernon. James entered the undercover vehicle and sold the trooper a Ruger SR9 pistol for $850.

James later pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a weapon and is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

DA: Investigation Helped Prevent Further Violence

Westchester County District Attorney Susan Cacace credited the coordinated investigation involving multiple law enforcement agencies.

“Every illegal firearm that remains on our streets poses a serious threat to public safety, and removing these weapons before they can be used to inflict further harm is critical to protecting our residents,” Cacace said.

She added that the investigation demonstrated the importance of cooperation between law enforcement agencies in identifying stolen firearms and those involved in their unlawful sale.

The investigation involved the New Rochelle Police Department, New York State Police, New York City Police Department, Westchester County Department of Public Safety and the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office High Technology Crime Squad.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Mathieu Reno and Leigh Wellington of the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office Trials Division.

Lewis will serve six years in state prison followed by five years of post-release supervision.

Four Hours in the Smoking Room: Labor Day, the Pullman Porters, and the Fight for Sleep By Derek H. Suite, M.D.

Derek H. Suite, M.D.
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Four Hours in the Smoking Room: Labor Day, the Pullman Porters, and the Fight for Sleep By Derek H. Suite, M.D.

The couch was in the smoking room.

Ben might lie down there after midnight, behind a curtain that did little to separate him from the rest of the room. The wash basins and toilet were nearby. Passengers dropped by to smoke, use the facilities, talk, or sit over a card game that always seemed to last longer than it needed to.

He got up the moment somebody needed something. Anything. That was the arrangement.

He made the beds in the car and carried bags. He shined shoes, answered bells, and did the work that allowed passengers to feel as if the trip was smooth and effortless. By the time they settled in for the night, he had already been moving through the car for hours.

For much of the Pullman era, a sofa behind a thin curtain in the smoking room was where men in Ben’s position slept or tried to. The room remained readily available to passengers.

He was a Pullman porter. It was 1925.

Pullman had become one of the country’s largest employers of Black men. The work had status because it offered a more dependable paycheck than many jobs available to Black families at the time. A porter wore a uniform. He traveled. The money he brought home could help pay rent, put food on the table, or send his child to school.

The job asked plenty in return.

Porters had to do it all. They made up berths, carried luggage, woke passengers at their stops, shined shoes, cleaned toilets, and handled complaints and requests throughout the trip. They paid for their own uniforms, meals, and shoe polish, and could be required to travel to the next run without passengers and without pay. Railroad workers called that deadheading. Pullman kept the better-paid conductor jobs closed to Black workers.

Passengers often called the porter George. It was George Pullman’s name, used to signify that George’s boy was serving them, carried over from an older custom of calling an enslaved person by the name of the person who owned him.

The porters had a phrase for the work: miles of smiles.

A smile mattered when tips mattered. A man who had been up most of the night still needed to be warm with a passenger in the morning, even one who had not bothered to call him by his name. He could be exhausted, frustrated, or angry. But could never let it show.

Some porters worked as much as 400 hours a month, or traveled 11,000 miles, to receive full pay. Four hundred hours over 30 days comes to more than thirteen hours a day, before accounting for the travel itself and the parts of the job that did not show up on any clock.

In 1925, The Messenger, a magazine A. Philip Randolph edited, printed demands from porters seeking an independent union. The men wanted a living wage, pay for preparation time and delays, a 240-hour basic month, and relief from the tipping system. Historical accounts of the campaign also describe a request for four to six hours of sleep at night.

The job was difficult to leave because it was still one of the best jobs many Black men could get. It was equally difficult to organize against a company that had become so central to Black employment.

The railroad did more than carry passengers. Pullman porters helped distribute the Chicago Defender across the South, moving bundles of the paper into communities where the local press did not report Black life with the same range or honesty. People could read about jobs, housing, schools, and the possibility of a life somewhere else.

On August 25, 1925, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was organized in Harlem. Randolph was not a porter. Pullman could fire a worker who became too visible in union activity. It could not fire him.

The company resisted the Brotherhood for years. Pullman’s Employee Representation Plan gave the appearance of worker representation without the independence the porters sought. Workers who openly supported the union could lose their jobs. The Brotherhood struggled through the Depression and faced reluctance from the American Federation of Labor before finally winning recognition in 1935. Its first contract with Pullman followed in 1937.

Accounts of the agreement describe higher wages, a work month reduced to roughly 240 hours, protection against arbitrary dismissal, and limits on some of the abuses carried out by service inspectors.

Twelve years had gone by.

Years ago, I worked with someone in music who spent long stretches traveling between cities. He had trouble falling asleep after arriving somewhere new. He had tried melatonin, several things from the pharmacy, and advice from friends who all seemed to have their own idea about how sleep worked.

By the time we met, he was tired enough that other people noticed the irritability before he did.

He had paid attention to much of what we discussed: wake time, meals, light, and the challenge of trying to get his body onto local time when every flight kept moving the clock around. The naps were the part he did not think much about. He would sit down in a hotel room or the back of a car and wake up an hour later. Sometimes longer. He called them cat naps.

We used a timer.

It did not stop the travel or make unfamiliar rooms feel familiar. It helped him notice the nap before it took over the afternoon. His sleep began to improve. The anxiety eased some, and he was less likely to arrive angry at everyone around him.

I also worked with a man whose father lived in another state with home caregivers. His father had difficult nights. Sometimes the caregivers called because he had become upset or confused. Other times, they asked the son to speak with him directly.

He kept the phone beside the bed.

We put it on vibrate. The ringing stopped, but he still slept as if he were waiting for it. When we tried putting the phone in another room, he lay awake worrying about the call he might miss and what could happen if he did.

For a while, he was averaging around three hours of sleep.

We worked on the things that were available to him: a regular morning wake time, early light, leaving the bed when he had been awake too long, and breathing exercises after a call or on the nights when there was no call but he had been lying there expecting one.

The caregivers needed a plan too.

What could they try before calling him? What required another level of support? What required him? He loved his father and had been carrying responsibility for a long time. It took time for him to believe that being his father’s son did not mean being the first person awake whenever something changed.

His sleep gradually moved closer to five hours. Sometimes six. His father’s condition had not changed. The distance between them remained. At night, he still found himself waiting for the vibration even when it did not come.

A Pullman porter had no caregiver plan. The passenger could ring. The door to the smoking room could open. His time to sleep was whatever remained after everyone else had been served.

Labor Day comes around with its familiar last day of summer cookouts, sales, and celebrations.

But the Pullman porters were up against things that looked a lot different inside a train car.

A passenger calling a grown man George and a sofa behind a curtain in the smoking room.

The door opened.

He got up.

Source Note: Ben is a composite, drawn from the oral histories of many porters rather than from any one man. The clinical examples are also composites; identifying details have been changed. Historical information about the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, including its founding in 1925, A. Philip Randolph’s leadership, Pullman’s opposition, union recognition in 1935, and the first agreement in 1937, draws on the Library of Congress’s history of the union. The smoking-room arrangement, the sofa behind a thin curtain, passenger access to the room, and related accounts of porters’ working lives draw on Larry Tye’s oral-history-based reporting and his book Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class. Historical accounts describe work schedules reaching roughly 400 hours or 11,000 miles monthly, the Brotherhood’s 240-hour demand, and a 1937 agreement that reduced working hours and raised wages; accounts vary on the precise post-contract monthly-hour calculation. Accounts also report four to six hours of sleep or rest among the union’s 1925 campaign demands, though the sources used here do not establish that the 1937 agreement included a separate sleep guarantee; historical accounts of the Chicago Defender distribution network and the practice of calling porters “George” inform those passages.

Derek H. Suite, MD, MS, is a board-certified psychiatrist, a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and the founder of Full Circle Health, PLLC.

Dr. Suite hosts the SuiteSpot podcast and contributes monthly to Black Westchester Magazine. He writes here in his personal capacity.

John Stewart’s Green Lantern Black History Is Pissing Some White People Off

DAMON K JONES
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John Stewart’s Green Lantern Black History Is Pissing Some White People Off

Episode 3 of HBO’s Lanterns has sparked discussion, and from some of the online responses it seems that John Stewart’s Green Lantern isn’t only dealing with villains but is also facing something much more common—that discomfort which arises each time Black history is brought into a setting that some people think should stay racially neutral. The issue with that reaction is simply that John Stewart is Black, has been Black all along, and his Black identity didn’t suddenly appear because someone at Hollywood decided that Green Lantern needed a DEI makeover.

The story I observed in Episode 3 was not about Black victimhood; it was about Black strength, preparation, and resilience. I saw parents making an effort—on at least some occasions using methods which were intentionally uncomfortable to watch—to prepare their Black son for a world that they knew would not always treat him fairly. It is a reasonable debate whether or not viewers agree with all that those parents did, but to reduce the whole story to one of racial trauma overlooks what I think the episode was trying to say about discipline, survival, and overcoming fear.

John Stewart Was Never Just a Black Face in a Green Suit

John Stewart made his first appearance in Green Lantern #87 in 1971, a comic book produced by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams. At the time he was introduced, America was still grappling with the effects of the Civil Rights Movement, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the growth of the Black Power movement, urban disorder, and large-scale national discussions concerning race, policing, poverty, and political power. The social atmosphere in which John Stewart was created was not merely incidental background; it had an impact from the outset on the kind of character John Stewart became.

John wasn’t just presented as a Black version of Hal Jordan with darker skin; he questioned authority, challenged police actions, and wasn’t afraid to challenge Hal Jordan as well. The experiences he had in America had a major impact on his worldview. Since more than 50 years have passed, it comes as no surprise that a television adaptation would examine how being a Black American man influenced the wearer of the Green Lantern ring.

Episode 3 Was About Strength, Not Victimhood

In episode three of Lanterns, entitled “OutKast”, the program goes straight into John Stewart’s background by examining his family, his childhood, his fears, his race, his military experience, and the various events that shaped the man who eventually donned the Green Lantern ring. What struck me about the way people reacted was that they so quickly understood those experiences in terms of trauma and victimhood, whereas I had almost exactly the opposite interpretation.

I witnessed a Black family who were trying to prepare a Black boy to grow up as a strong Black man. Their parents knew something that generations of Black parents in America have known, namely that the world outside one’s front door won’t always extend the benefit of the doubt to your child, and therefore preparing that child for reality does not mean that you are teaching him to become a victim; on the contrary, parents sometimes teach their children about the harsh realities because they don’t want those realities to defeat them.

The difference between telling a child that the world is against him, and therefore he is powerless, and telling him that the world may present challenges, and so he must become strong enough to meet them, is tremendous. One way of looking at things can lead to a sense of helplessness while the other promotes resilience, awareness, and discipline. This distinction is being overlooked in much of the discussion about Episode 3.

Black Parents Have Always Prepared Their Children for the World

It is precisely in this area that cultural experience becomes important; black parents having difficult talks with their children about the world is not an idea that has been come up with by DEI consultants or by modern Hollywood writers. For many generations black families have taught their children that they might have to work harder, should keep their emotions under control in certain situations, need to understand how authority functions, and must be ready for circumstances that lie beyond their parents’ control.

It is possible to discuss whether all the lessons that John Stewart’s parents taught him were healthy, and there is no doubt that some of their methods went too far. Yet, to understand their motivation, we have to go beyond the surface, since their aim was not merely to make John afraid of the world; they wanted to prepare him so that the world couldn’t control him through fear, a point that is especially important when considering Green Lantern.

Fear Is Literally Part of Green Lantern Mythology

The mythology of the Green Lantern has always been based on willpower and the ability to overcome fear. The ring doesn’t just reward physical strength, and being a Green Lantern isn’t simply a matter of being the strongest person in the room. Generally speaking, a Green Lantern needs exceptional willpower and must have the ability to face great fear without letting that fear take control of his actions.

The fact that the writers link John’s early childhood to his attitude towards fear does not mean they are in any way rejecting the Green Lantern mythology; rather, they are trying to show why this man has the qualities that could eventually allow him to hold the ring. The experiences of Hal Jordan should be used to account for Hal Jordan, and the experiences of John Stewart should be used to account for John Stewart.

The mere fact that John’s story involves his experiences as a Black American does not mean that the story becomes one of victimization. On the contrary, the scenario of a man learning to overcome adversity and mastering his fear is very consistent with the basic idea of Green Lantern.

Why should everyone else have a history?

The childhood trauma of Bruce Wayne affects Batman, the working-class background of Peter Parker is important to Spider-Man, and the fact that Superman is an immigrant is significant to his story. The experience of Magneto as a survivor of the Holocaust deeply influences the way he views humanity, and the fact that Steve Rogers grew up in the Great Depression and then became a soldier in World War II is relevant to Captain America. We regard it as reasonable that a character’s personal history contributes to their development, as such history shapes their motivations, fears, strengths, and beliefs.

However, when Black history is used to explain the strength of a Black superhero, some people at once convert that history into grievance politics. It is this aspect of the reaction that I find revealing since admitting to having faced adversity does not necessarily mean that someone is a victim. The fact that Black people have overcome difficulties is not the same as Black people complaining about difficulties, and overcoming adversity is one of the earliest foundations of the superhero story.

Black Strength Is More Than Black Suffering

We often treat Black history in such a way that it can only be understood in terms of oppression. I oppose this way of looking at it since Black American history is full of suffering but also includes remarkable strength, the establishment of institutions, faith, family, entrepreneurship, military service, invention, political organizing, resistance, and survival. One cannot separate these achievements from the difficulties Black Americans faced, but recognizing those difficulties does not in any way diminish the achievements.

Our ancestors would not have survived slavery since they were weak, and Black Americans would not have established churches, businesses, schools, and communities after they were set free because they were helpless. People did not go into police dogs, fire hoses, jail cells, and violence during the Civil Rights Movement because they had a victim mentality; it took courage, faith, discipline, and a willingness to face fear to do so, which is why recognizing what Black Americans have overcome can be an expression of strength instead of victimhood.

That matches the version in John Stewart’s story; the difficulties in his early background aren’t intended to make the audience sympathize with him, but rather to account for the strength and discipline he later achieves.

John Stewart Doesn’t Need to Be Hal Jordan With a Tan

If you decide to tell John Stewart’s story, you should tell John Stewart’s story and not turn him into a Black Hal Jordan, since recognizing cultural differences could offend some members of the audience. John’s experiences must shape his worldview in the same way that Hal Jordan’s do, and he can be acknowledged as Black while, at the same time, his American identity, his military background, his profession, his family relationships, his personality and his personal choices also matter.

The aim must not be to produce a Black character whose entire personality is rooted in racism; rather, the aim should be to create a fully realized Black man whose history has contributed to his strength, since these are completely different storytelling methods. John Stewart is no less universal because of his Black identity than Bruce Wayne is. To put it plainly, the fact that his parents were murdered is important.

Black History Isn’t “Woke”

We are now at a rather odd cultural stage at which merely recognizing Black history can cause something to be called “woke”. Since the term has been used so extensively, it has sometimes made it difficult for people to distinguish between imposed political messages and real history. There is a valid distinction to be made between altering a well-established character to advance current political views and acknowledging the racial and political history associated with a character who became part of American popular culture more than fifty years ago.

John Stewart was around long before corporate DEI departments, Black Lives Matter, social media, and the current endless online culture wars. He took on the role of Green Lantern in 1971, a time when America was engaged in major debates concerning race and political power. If anyone thinks that simply discussing race makes John Stewart a politically charged version of the Green Lantern, then they should look at the character’s origins and consider what America was like when he was created.

Maybe We’re Looking at Black Strength Through the Wrong Lens

What perhaps the most interesting aspect of the way people reacted to Episode 3 is not what the writers showed on screen, but rather what different viewers perceived when watching it; some saw racial trauma and victimhood, while I saw preparation, resilience, and Black parents making an effort to prepare their son for the realities that they themselves had experienced. Most important of all, I observed the development of a man who realized that fear could be present without allowing it to control him, a circumstance that seems well-suited to someone destined to become a Green Lantern.

John Stewart isn’t powerful because of the bad things that happened to him, and his strength doesn’t arise from asking the audience to sympathize with him; rather, it comes from the kind of person he became despite those experiences. It was not the ring that gave him his strength, but the experiences, lessons, discipline, and preparation that occurred before he entered the ring that helped shape a man capable of bearing its great responsibility.

That is the reason why I do not view Episode 3 as another Hollywood tale concerning a Black victim; instead, I see it as a story about a Black boy who was prepared to grow up to be a strong and fearless Black man, and there is a clear distinction between those two ways of interpreting it. By automatically seeing every portrayal of Black struggle as one of victimhood, we run the risk of removing the kind of resilience needed to surmount that struggle.

Black History Is American History

People may or may not realize it, but Black history is part of American history. It can’t be treated as a minor topic that is omitted when it causes someone to feel uncomfortable, and recognizing slavery, racism, and Jim Crow does not automatically mean one is engaging in victimhood. The more significant aspect is what Black Americans achieved despite these difficulties. A people progressed from being enslaved and legally considered property to surviving emancipation, Reconstruction, racial terrorism, segregation, and Jim Crow while at the same time establishing families, churches, businesses, schools, communities, and institutions.

That is why I do not regard John Stewart’s Black history as a flaw in his character; I see it rather as something that contributes to the strength of his character. Consider a Black American superhero whose fictional background is based on the actual history of a people who, time and again, were told that they were inferior, unwanted, and incapable, yet still managed to overcome the systems created to restrict them. That is not an example of victimhood; it is a history of resilience, strength, and determination—qualities exactly those that we would expect in someone selected to hold a Green Lantern ring.

There is no superpower more suited to that history than that of a Green Lantern, since the mythology centers on the strength to overcome fear, and the experience of Black Americans is perhaps the best example of that principle in American stories. Our history is not just a matter of what was done to us; it is also about what was unable to stop us and about the things that generations of Black Americans have built in the face of what was done to them.

John Stewart being Black therefore has no effect on the Green Lantern story or on the character being any less American. The journey he undergoes can stand for a people who came from slavery, overcame racism and Jim Crow, struggled for their citizenship, established institutions, and have still kept moving forward in the face of all the obstacles put in their way. It is not something that writers should have to conceal for a Black superhero to be acceptable to audiences who prefer that his race should be no more than the color of the actor’s skin.

John Stewart doesn’t need his Black history erased to be seen as universally heroic, since his history already includes one of the most imaginable American superhero tales—it’s the story of overcoming fear and adversity and not letting circumstances dictate your destiny. Given all that Black Americans have survived and overcome in this country, it is beautifully appropriate that one of us should eventually be given one of the most powerful rings in the universe and become the Greatest Green Lantern of all.

BW NEWS BRIEF: Mount Vernon Woman Charged After Allegedly Taking Vehicle With 1-Year-Old Child Inside

AJ Woodson
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BW NEWS BRIEF: Mount Vernon Woman Charged After Allegedly Taking Vehicle With 1-Year-Old Child Inside

MOUNT VERNON, NY — The Mount Vernon Police Department arrested Tiauna Crump, 52, of Mount Vernon, following an incident in which she allegedly took a Mazda SUV without authorization while a one-year-old female child was inside the vehicle.

According to court documents, Crump was taken into custody on Tuesday, September 1, after the SUV was reportedly boxed in by a garbage truck and another vehicle near Mount Vernon Police Headquarters. The court documents state that the child’s uncle followed Crump from the area where the vehicle was allegedly taken in the Fleetwood section of Mount Vernon.

The incident reportedly began at approximately 10:45 a.m. near Birch Street and Westchester Avenue, where the child’s mother was dropping off her other daughter with the child’s uncle.

The incident reportedly began at approximately 10:45 a.m. near Birch Street and Westchester Avenue, where the child’s mother was dropping off another daughter with the child’s uncle. According to court records, the mother saw Crump get into the SUV with her one-year-old daughter inside.

The mother reportedly attempted to open one of the vehicle’s doors but was unable to do so before Crump allegedly drove away.

Court records state that the child’s uncle, David Patterson, then gave chase. According to his account to police, he pulled alongside the SUV twice in an attempt to get Crump’s attention and tell her that a young child was inside the vehicle.

The uncle told police that the first attempt occurred on Urban Street. He later pulled alongside the SUV again on Gramatan Avenue. According to court records, the uncle said that during the second encounter, Crump allegedly attempted to strike his vehicle before driving away.

The SUV then reportedly traveled onto West Lincoln Avenue and North Fifth Street, with the uncle continuing to follow.

The pursuit ended near Mount Vernon Police Headquarters, where, according to court records, the SUV was boxed in by a garbage truck and another vehicle. The uncle reportedly pulled Crump from the SUV before police took her into custody.

The child was safely recovered and was not injured.

Crump was charged with:

  • Kidnapping in the Second Degree
  • Grand Larceny in the Third Degree
  • Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Third Degree
  • Reckless Endangerment in the Second Degree
  • Endangering the Welfare of a Child

Crump was arraigned in Mount Vernon City Court Wednesday afternoon in connection with the charges. She was held without bail at the county jail and is due back in court on Wednesday, September 9th

The Mount Vernon Police Department said the investigation remains ongoing and that additional information will be released as appropriate.

Anyone with information regarding the incident is asked to contact the MVPD Detective Division at (914) 665-2510. Anonymous tips can also be submitted by texting TIP411 (847411). Begin the message with “MVPD”, followed by the information.

As with all criminal charges, Crump is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

Black Westchester will continue to follow this story as additional information becomes available.

ELOC Offers Free Computer and AI Classes for High School Students in Mount Vernon

DAMON K JONES
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ELOC Offers Free Computer and AI Classes for High School Students in Mount Vernon

MOUNT VERNON, NY — Environmental Leaders of Color (ELOC) is once again giving local high school students an opportunity to build the technology skills they will need for college, careers and an increasingly digital economy. This fall, ELOC will offer free Saturday computer classes for high school students at SUNY Westchester Community College’s Mount Vernon location.

Classes will be held Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 12 noon, beginning October 3 and continuing through December, with a graduation scheduled for December 12. The program will take place at SUNY Westchester Community College, 17 South 5th Avenue in Mount Vernon.

The program builds on ELOC’s continuing effort to make advanced technology education accessible to young people, particularly students from communities that have historically had fewer opportunities to participate in specialized computer and technology programs.

Preparing Students for the Age of Artificial Intelligence

This year’s program will place an increased emphasis on Artificial Intelligence instruction, giving students practical experience with a technology that is rapidly changing education and the workplace.

Students will learn computer basics, Microsoft Office applications including Word, Excel and PowerPoint, internet research, typing and productivity skills, résumé and career preparation, and the use of AI tools.

The AI component will introduce students to ways artificial intelligence can be used responsibly for homework and research, writing assistance, résumé and career support, digital creativity and other practical applications.

The goal is not simply to teach young people how to use a computer. It is to help them understand how emerging technology can become a tool for education, creativity, problem-solving and future economic opportunity.

ELOC has already demonstrated what young people can accomplish when given access to advanced technology education. Previous students in the organization’s Technology and the Environment program have learned skills including Python coding and developed their own projects. Mount Vernon City School District reported that students graduating from ELOC’s 2024 program used Python to create online games from scratch. 

ELOC’s technology programming has since expanded into areas including data management, cybersecurity, coding, blockchain, artificial intelligence and robotics, according to information about the organization presented by the Westchester County Board of Legislators. 

Building on ELOC’s Success

The upcoming fall classes follow another successful year for ELOC.

In August, Black Westchester covered ELOC’s 2026 Student Summer Program Showcase and Graduation, continuing the organization’s work of exposing young people to environmental education, technology and career opportunities. 

ELOC’s computer program has also shown that students can move beyond simply learning about technology and begin creating with it. At the organization’s 2025 graduation, students presented projects demonstrating practical applications of artificial intelligence while building on previous instruction in areas including Python, R and cybersecurity. 

That type of exposure matters. Young people are entering a world where understanding AI and digital technology will increasingly be part of being competitive in college and the workforce. Programs like ELOC’s can help ensure that students from Mount Vernon and surrounding communities are not merely consumers of the next generation of technology, but are prepared to become its programmers, creators, entrepreneurs and innovators.

Registration Information

The FREE Computer Classes for High School Students will meet Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to noon on October 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31; November 7, 14 and 21; and December 5, followed by the program graduation on December 12.

Classes will be held at SUNY Westchester Community College, 17 South 5th Avenue, Mount Vernon, NY 10550.

Students and parents interested in registering can use the QR code provided on the ELOC program flyer. For additional information, contact Marvin Church at 914-901-3562 ext. 702 or contactus@eloc.earth.

For families looking for opportunities that can give their children practical skills for the future, this is more than another Saturday program. It is an opportunity for high school students to gain hands-on exposure to the technology that is already reshaping the world around them.

The classes are free. The skills can last a lifetime.

Al Sharpton, AOC Is No Shirley Chisholm: That Comparison Is a Slap in the Face to Black Political Power

DAMON K JONES
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Al Sharpton, AOC Is No Shirley Chisholm: That Comparison Is a Slap in the Face to Black Political Power

There are certain instances in which Black political history should be kept from being rewritten, repackaged, or conveniently borrowed in order to justify someone else’s political agenda. The fact that Rev. Al Sharpton referred to the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm when he was introducing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the 2026 March on Washington is one such instance.

On August 28, 2026, The Hill made the comparison with the headline “Sharpton compares Ocasio-Cortez to Chisholm at voting rights march”. The report states that Sharpton told the crowd, “I know people; I was Shirley Chisholm’s youth director”, going on to say that Chisholm “had the same fire and vigor as this beloved sister of mine”, when referring to Ocasio-Cortez.

To be exact, Sharpton didn’t say that AOC was “the next Shirley Chisholm”. However, since he is a well-known black civil rights leader who had personal dealings with Chisholm and refers to her by name, her history and political spirit when he introduces another politician at a March on Washington, the symbolism is significant.

The comparison that I oppose is one which, in my view, reduces the special character of Black political history by putting the AOC side by side with Chisholm. It is a demeaning thing to do to Black women who in fact had to break down political barriers when both their race and sex were being used against them.

SHIRLEY CHISHOLM WASN’T SIMPLY A POLITICIAN WITH “FIRE AND VIGOR”

The reason why Shirley Chisholm was historically significant was not because she delivered passionate speeches. Upon her election to Congress in 1968, she became the first Black woman to be elected to the United States Congress; at that time the Civil Rights Act had only just been passed, the Voting Rights Act had been passed four years earlier, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated that same year.

Entering a political system in which a Black woman attaining congressional power was in itself a revolutionary step, Chisholm then in 1972 became the first Black candidate to seek the presidential nomination of a major American political party and the first woman to attempt to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. She faced racism, sexism, resistance from the political establishment, and opposition from those who might have been expected to support her.

The slogan ‘Unbought and Unbossed’ meant more than just being a brand.

That is the kind of history that Sharpton referred to when he introduced AOC. Hence the issue is not whether AOC has ‘fire and vigor’; the issue is why it was necessary at all to introduce her using the name and symbolism of Shirley Chisholm.

WHAT HAS AOC DONE FOR BLACK POLITICAL POWER?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a member of Congress since January 2019. She is not any longer a political newcomer, has built up a very large national following and has become one of the most well-known politicians in America’s progressive movement. Those are her legitimate achievements, but they are AOC’s achievements.

Given that Black Americans are gathering around the legacy of the March on Washington, it is entirely reasonable for them to ask Sharpton: What specific actions has Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taken to promote Black political power that justify referencing Shirley Chisholm’s legacy?

Demonstrate to us the legislation, the initiatives, the congressional priorities, and the political campaigns which specifically deal with the historical disadvantages experienced by Black Americans. Demonstrate the record regarding the strengthening of Black institutions, the expansion of Black political representation, the protection of Black homeownership, the improvement of access to capital, or other actions taken to advance Black political and economic power.

There’s also reason to look behind those numbers in AOC’s district itself. Although census data suggests the district’s median household income hovers around $67,500, a closer look reveals a substantial disparity between white and Black families. White household incomes come in at about $87,035, while black households trail at about $54,846; a difference of over $32,000 per year. Black households make up approximately 16 percent of households in Ocasio-Cortez’s district. To be clear, one elected official can’t be held solely responsible for all these figures, but they’re certainly relevant when considering a symbolic comparison between AOC and Shirley Chisholm after her tenure. It feels strange to start invoking Shirley Chisholm when black families living in the district that Ocasio-Cortez claims to represent are making over $32,000 less than their white counterparts.

Let’s make comparisons to history, sure, but first show progress on what can be measured about the black Americans you already have representation over.

Show us the receipts.

THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME I’VE QUESTIONED SHARPTON’S PLATFORM

My worries extend past the AOC. Sharpton had also publicly supported Zohran Mamdani and marched with him in Lower Manhattan. Once more, the issue I have is not whether Sharpton has the right to form coalitions with Mamdani, the AOC, or anyone else. Of course he does. What I am asking is what Black America gains from such relationships, and why Black civil-rights history is continually used as the basis for lifting up politicians who represent wider progressive coalitions.

The importance of that question to me increased after Mamdani had won; in his victory speech he stated that “New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and now, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”

Undoubtedly, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to New York City, and their history should be acknowledged. But that is not my history. My grandparents were not immigrants; I am descended from people who were enslaved in America. My ancestors did not come to this country as immigrants; instead, they were introduced into an American system of slavery which took away their freedom and control over their own labour.

It is important to consider that when politicians tell the story of who founded New York and America, where do Black Americans fit in that account? Where is the place of the enslaved Africans whose labour contributed to the building of colonial New York? And where are the generations of Black Americans whose labour, military service, sacrifices, activism, and political struggle have been responsible for shaping this city and nation?

The African Burial Ground, located just a short distance from Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, holds the remains of both free and enslaved Africans who lived in colonial New York. The fact that their graves are there serves as a tangible indication that Black history in this city extends back over many centuries.

When Mamdani describes New York as a “city built by immigrants”, I perceive a history which does not fully apply to my own experience. I am not asking people to undervalue the immigrant story; rather, I am insisting that the history of the descendants of those who were enslaved in America should not be erased in order to tell the immigrant story. It is possible to respect the role of immigrants without viewing Black Americans as just another immigrant group.

Which is why I keep coming back to Sharpton’s position. If politicians are to be given access to the symbolism, stages, institutions, and moral authority which have been created by the Black freedom struggle, then there must be an expectation of reciprocity and historical respect.

Instead of merely displaying the people who marched alongside Al Sharpton, show us what benefits they have brought to Black America.

WHAT ABOUT BLACK WOMEN WHO IN FACT CREATED POLITICAL HISTORY?

Shirley Chisholm is not the only Black woman whose political career merits recognition; in New York, Dr. Lenora Fulani made political history in 1988 by becoming the first woman and the first Black person to appear on the general-election ballot in all 50 states.

She achieved this outside the realm of America’s two-party system by establishing an independent political movement at a time when obtaining ballot access across the country was a massive organizational effort. It makes no difference whether or not one agrees with all the positions that Fulani has taken when it comes to recognizing that achievement. History does not demand ideological agreement before admitting that a barrier has been overcome.

Shirley Chisholm opposed the Democratic establishment using the slogan “Unbought and Unbossed”. Lenora Fulani challenged the two-party establishment by means of independent politics. Fannie Lou Hamer stood up to the Democratic Party establishment at a time when Black Missourians were being denied meaningful representation. Barbara Jordan was the first Black woman from the South to be elected to Congress.

They didn’t need someone else’s historical identity to be linked to them; they created their own history.

Rather than always linking Black political pioneers to today’s political figures, our leaders should focus more on teaching the younger generation about the Black women who actually made these breakthroughs.

SHARPTON SHOULD KNOW BETTER

What is so frustrating about Sharpton’s comments is that he knew Chisholm; indeed, when young he had spoken publicly about working with her and about seeing the racism and sexism that she experienced during her presidential campaign.

He therefore knows better than most people the obstacles that Shirley Chisholm had to face. The historical significance of referring to her when introducing AOC at the March on Washington remains, whether or not Sharpton intended to state that the two were exactly equivalent.

Which is why he ought to have been more careful.

The fact that Shirley Chisholm was Black was not incidental to her political career; it was essential to the barriers that she overcame. She was elected at a specific time within a certain Black struggle for freedom, a period when Black political representation was still being争取d.

It is not an argument that Latino politicians cannot advocate on behalf of Black Americans or that Black Americans should not take part in coalitions. We ought to work with people from all different communities when our interests are the same. However, forming a coalition does not mean that history has to be erased.

It is entirely acceptable to celebrate AOC’s Puerto Rican heritage and all the historic political achievements she may eventually secure; in fact, that is exactly the point. AOC has her own history to establish.

STOP LENDING OUT BLACK POLITICAL HISTORY

Black America’s history is now one of the most important sources of political symbolism in the United States. Politicians from all sections of the political spectrum refer to Dr. King. Various movements make use of the language from the Civil Rights Movement. Political leaders call upon figures from Black history such as Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, and others to give current causes a moral basis.

One should take lessons from Black history, but it is one thing to learn from our history and another to apply our historical symbols to current political movements.

Our history should not be treated as a costume and our heroes不应 be used as political props; black political leaders ought to be among the first to protect that distinction.

It is particularly important when politicians gain access to platforms that are linked to the Black freedom movement because, before they borrow our heroes, our symbols, and our stages, we ought to inquire into what those politicians have actually done to advance Black political power.

MALCOLM X WARNED US ABOUT THE FOX

Malcolm X cautions Black America as to the difference between the wolf and the fox, saying that the wolf displays his teeth while the fox smiles before entering the henhouse. His warning concerning the white liberal was not an appeal to trust the conservatives, but rather a warning to Black people not to confuse political friendship with their own Black political interests.

The warning still has relevance. If Black leaders give politicians access to our events, to our civil-rights history, and to the legacy of figures such as Shirley Chisholm, we ought always to consider what Black America is getting in return. Forming a coalition is one matter; handing over our political history and our power is something else.

Is Al Sharpton letting the fox into the Black political henhouse? We shall see.

FOLLOW THE MONEY Part Two: The Rules Are Changing, This Is Your Window to Speak

Larnez Kinsey
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FOLLOW THE MONEY Part Two: The Rules Are Changing, This Is Your Window to Speak

In Part One of Follow the Money, I asked a simple question: Who has the key? Who knows where the money is, which banker to call, when the opportunity opens, who gets the email first, and who keeps finding out after the deadline like, “Oh, you didn’t hear about that?” No, we did not hear about that, friend, and that’s exactly why we’re having this conversation. While I was following the money locally through Apple Bank and Westchester, Washington was proposing changes to the Community Reinvestment Act rules themselves, and this conversation just got much bigger.

Before the government language makes your eyes glaze over, let’s start with the numbers. Once you understand what they’re attached to, they hit differently. $10 BILLION!!! The proposed threshold for an “intermediate bank” would increase to $10 billion in assets, changing how many banks are classified and regulated under CRA. 15%. For a large bank, more than $10 billion in assets, to receive CRA consideration for certain community-development grants, a recipient’s indirect costs for administering the grant generally could not exceed 15%. This is not a universal 15% cap on nonprofit overhead, but it deserves attention. $1 BILLION  

The proposed small-bank threshold would rise from $412 million to $1 billion, changing which institutions fall into that CRA category. OCTOBER 13, 2026! That’s the deadline for the public to comment on these proposed changes. Before you say, “I’m not a banker, what does this have to do with me?” remember something important: you are the public.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS CRA?

The Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, has been around since 1977. At its core, federal regulators evaluate how covered banks help meet the credit needs of their entire communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, while operating safely and soundly.

Here’s the kitchen-table version: if a bank is doing business in a community, we should be able to understand how that institution is helping meet that community’s credit needs. CRA shouldn’t be a conversation only bankers, attorneys, and regulators understand. Sometimes power isn’t hidden behind a locked door; sometimes it’s hidden behind language people were never taught. If the language makes you believe the conversation isn’t for you, you may remove yourself before anyone ever has to tell you that you can’t participate.

PAY ATTENTION TO THAT 15%

The proposed 15% provision caught my attention because infrastructure costs money. Somebody has to handle payroll, insurance, compliance, reporting, technology, data collection, and all the other things that keep a nonprofit functioning. In a grassroots organization, that “somebody” may be the same executive director who is fundraising, running programs, answering emails, and moving folding tables after the event. You cannot sustainably serve people if the organization serving them cannot sustainably operate.

That doesn’t mean anything called “overhead” deserves a blank check, because accountability matters too. The real question is whether this proposed standard could unintentionally make it easier for larger organizations with established infrastructure to qualify for bank-supported funding than smaller grassroots organizations. That’s exactly the kind of question regulators need to hear from people doing the work. Don’t just be mad at the number; explain the consequence of the number.

THIS IS WHERE YOUR POWER ENTERS THE CHAT

The rule is proposed, not final, and public comments are open until October 13. You don’t need a law degree or banking title to participate, but you do need to make your point clear. Remember four words: EXPERIENCE → EVIDENCE → IMPACT → RECOMMENDATION. Tell regulators what happened, what you can document, why it matters, and what you believe they should do about it.

Instead of writing, “This 15% rule will hurt nonprofits,” explain how it could affect your actual organization. Instead of writing, “Banks never tell us about opportunities,” describe what you tried to find, what information was or wasn’t publicly available, and what greater transparency could look like. You don’t have to speak for everybody; speak accurately about what you know. Your experience becomes more powerful when you connect it to evidence and a specific recommendation.

KEEP THE RECEIPTS AND CHANGE THE QUESTIONS

If you’ve tried to access a bank grant, business loan, technical assistance or community-development opportunity, document what happened. Keep the dates, emails, requirements, contacts and outcomes, and document successful experiences too because good systems leave receipts. Then stop asking banks only, “Do you have money for my organization?” Ask what their CRA community-development priorities are, where opportunities are publicly posted, when applications open, who handles community development, and what assistance exists for organizations or businesses that aren’t funding-ready.

And ask my favorite question: Where can I find all of this if I don’t know you personally? That question helps reveal the difference between a resource existing and a resource actually being accessible. Business owners should ask questions too. Ask what small-business lending products exist, what would make your business bankable, what you need to improve if you don’t qualify today, whether the bank works with CDFIs, and how your company can become a vendor. That is economic literacy. It isn’t simply knowing how to ask for money; it’s understanding the ecosystem where money moves and knowing how to participate in it.

YES, I’M STILL FOLLOWING THE MARKETING MONEY

Bank advertising and marketing are not automatically CRA-qualified activities, so let’s keep the categories honest. But when we examine the broader economic relationship between financial institutions and communities, I’m still asking who gets paid.

Banks want our deposits, mortgages, businesses and attention, so who receives their advertising contracts, sponsorships, vendor opportunities and professional-service dollars? And yes, I’m going to keep asking how much reaches Black-owned and Latino-owned media and businesses, because that is an economic-circulation question, even when it isn’t a CRA question.

WESTCHESTER OPENED THE DOOR. AMERICA IS THE ROOM.

This investigation started with Apple Bank and Westchester, but CRA is federal. What happens in Detroit, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, rural America or anywhere else may look completely different, and that is precisely why public participation matters.

Federal regulations may be written in Washington, but they land inside real businesses, nonprofits and neighborhoods. Public comment gives people living with those consequences an opportunity to put their experiences into the official record.

AACCHV CRA COMMENT LAB

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Now we’re taking this article into action. On Thursday, September 10, 2026, at 6:30 PM on Zoom, the African American Chamber of Commerce Hudson Valley (AACCHV) will host the CRA Comment Lab: How and Why to Write a Meaningful Public Comment.

This isn’t another panel where experts talk at the community, and everybody leaves with a folder. It’s a lab, which means we’re working, translating the proposal into plain language and helping participants move from Experience → Evidence → Impact → Recommendation.

The goal isn’t to tell you what position to take. It’s to make sure you understand enough to speak for yourself and know how to put your experience into the federal record.

Business owners, nonprofit leaders, residents, community organizations, advocates, bankers and community-development professionals are welcome. To learn more, email Info@aacchudsonvalley.org or call 845-570-2367.

AND ABOUT THAT KEY…

In Part One, I asked, Who has the key? Let me be clear: I don’t want the key, and I don’t want AACCHV, another Chamber, nonprofit, elected official or community leader controlling it either. Changing who guards the door doesn’t create access. I want the door labeled, the requirements posted, the application public, the deadline visible, the contact information available, and the rules understandable.

I want the business owner who has never attended the right fundraiser to find the opportunity. I want the nonprofit director who doesn’t have a bank executive’s cellphone number to find it too, because access should not depend on proximity to power.

The key shouldn’t be inherited because we shouldn’t need a secret key in the first place. Economic literacy means understanding the system, while economic agency means knowing what to do with that information once you have it.

OCTOBER 13 ISN’T JUST A DEADLINE

Banks, banking associations, attorneys and policy organizations will put their perspectives into the federal record, as they should. Communities should be there too, explaining what works, what doesn’t, and what regulators may not see from Washington.

Part One started with Apple Bank and a question about where community investment actually goes. Part Two follows the rules governing how some of that money moves, because the numbers are the beginning, the questions are the point, and knowing how to use the information is where the power starts.

So follow the money, follow the access, and follow the rules. When the government opens the door and asks what the public thinks, don’t stand outside wondering whether they meant you; they did, so walk in knowing what you came to say.

Read It for Yourself / Resources

These directly support the CRA explanation, proposed changes, statistics, and October 13 deadline. 

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Two Reports Expose the Failure of NY Attorney General Letitia James

DAMON K JONES
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Two Reports Expose the Failure of NY Attorney General Letitia James

Two recent reports should make New Yorkers take a closer look at Attorney General Letitia James and her office. One report covers serious allegations from an Assistant Attorney General on her team. The other looks at the results of New York’s police accountability efforts after George Floyd’s death and questions whether promised reforms for Black communities have made a real difference. While these stories focus on different topics, together they reveal a bigger issue: New York often talks about accountability but has trouble making it happen.

For years, James has presented herself as one of New York’s strongest advocates for accountability. Her office has investigated politicians, corporations, police departments, and other powerful groups. She has often shown she is willing to use the Attorney General’s broad investigative powers. But accountability should not be something government officials expect only from others. Sooner or later, those in charge must also be open to questions about their own actions.

An Assistant Attorney General Sounds the Alarm

The first Times Union report should concern every New Yorker regardless of political affiliation. Assistant Attorney General Daniel Wiesenfeld reportedly sent an email to more than 2,000 employees inside the Attorney General’s Office making serious allegations about prosecutorial decision-making within the agency. According to the reporting, Wiesenfeld alleged that his supervisor, Investor Protection Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe, directed him to pursue matters involving Donald Trump, Truth Social, and Hewlett Packard without what Wiesenfeld considered a credible reason to target them.

These claims have not been proven, and it’s important to note that the reporting does not show that James herself gave Wiesenfeld those orders. His claims are about instructions he says came from his supervisor. Still, this does not make the accusations unimportant. An Assistant Attorney General is questioning how investigative targets were chosen in one of New York’s most powerful law enforcement agencies, and that alone deserves a thorough, independent review.

The main accusation challenges the idea of equal justice. Law enforcement should find evidence of wrongdoing first and then follow where it leads. The government should not pick a person or group to investigate and then look for reasons to justify it. This rule should not change just because Donald Trump is involved. If you take Trump out of the picture and imagine a prosecutor being told to investigate a Black-owned business or civil rights group without good reason, Black leaders would want to know who approved it, what evidence there was, and if power was misused. We should ask the same questions in this case.

The Email Raises Even More Questions

The Times Union reports that Wiesenfeld’s email was quickly deleted from the Attorney General Office’s computer system after it was sent out. Later, James’ general counsel told staff that the issue was an internal matter and that no one in the office was at risk. No matter the reason for deleting the email, removing it from inboxes does not address the serious claims it raised.

New Yorkers have a right to know who decided to delete the email, why that choice was made, and if the original message and related records were kept. More importantly, we need to find out if other prosecutors got similar instructions, how investigative targets were chosen, and what evidence supports or challenges Wiesenfeld’s claims. These questions all lead to the key issue: What did Attorney General Letitia James know, when did she learn about it, and what did she do after these claims came up?

Asking this is not the same as accusing anyone of wrongdoing. It’s the kind of question James’ own office would ask if another agency’s leaders were under investigation. The Attorney General cannot expect strict accountability from others while asking New Yorkers to accept less when her own office faces questions.

A Second Report Exposes New York’s Police-Accountability Problem

The second Times Union investigation examined what happened to New York’s promises of police reform following the murder of George Floyd. In 2020, millions of Americans marched, New York politicians held press conferences, task forces were created, and municipalities were required to develop police-reform plans. Civilian oversight became a central part of the discussion because communities were repeatedly told that police departments could not be expected to police themselves.

Years later, the Times Union looked at 173 local governments with police forces in the Capital Region and Hudson Valley to see what happened to those promises. Twenty-four towns or cities suggested creating civilian oversight boards or similar groups, and thirteen already had some kind of oversight. The investigation found that at least eight governments never set up the boards they promised. For five others, there was no public information showing if their boards were ever created.

Even in places that did set up civilian oversight, the power of these boards is very different. Some can investigate complaints on their own, while others only review cases already handled by the police. Some can suggest discipline or use subpoenas, but others have much less authority. This difference is important because just calling something a “civilian review board” does not mean it truly provides independent oversight. We should judge government by what these boards can actually do, not just by their names.

The Attorney General’s Own Police-Accountability Record Deserves Scrutiny

The Times Union’s broader examination of police reform also looked at the New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation, which investigates deaths involving police and correction officers. According to the newspaper, the office has reviewed nearly 1,400 cases. Of the 142 civilian-death investigations it had completed, 11 resulted in prosecutions, and 7 resulted in convictions.

These numbers alone do not prove that prosecutors failed. Police use-of-force cases are complicated and involve tough legal standards, including New York’s justification laws. Prosecutors also have a duty not to file charges just because people want them to. Still, these numbers should be looked at closely because Black communities were often told that independent investigations would lead to more accountability and trust in the system.

The real question is not just how many people were prosecuted. We should ask if investigations became more independent and open, if families got better explanations, if there were useful recommendations when charges could not be filed, and if those suggestions led to real changes in police policy. These results show if the reforms worked. The government should not get credit just for creating a new office or writing another report.

The Jarrel Garris Case Is a Prime Example

The handling of Jarrel Garris’ death in New Rochelle is a prime example of the gap between Attorney General Letitia James’ rhetoric on police accountability and measurable reform. After Garris, a 37-year-old Black man, was shot following an encounter that began with an allegation involving food taken from a grocery store, James’ Office of Special Investigation declined criminal charges. Yet her own office acknowledged that the encounter raised serious policy questions and recommended that New Rochelle change its training and policies for petty, nonviolent offenses. OSI specifically said officers should consider whether someone is experiencing a mental-health crisis, whether nonviolent de-escalation has been exhausted, and whether physical force is actually necessary. Her office went so far as to recognize that an officer’s decision about whether to use physical force in circumstances like these could mean the difference between life and death.

But that raises an even bigger accountability question for Attorney General James: what changed after the recommendation? James’ office has repeatedly recommended better mental-health crisis training—not only after Garris, but following other fatal police encounters—and as recently as 2026 was still calling for all New York law-enforcement agencies to implement written crisis-response policies and improve training. The Attorney General does not personally control every police department’s training curriculum; statewide standards are principally developed through MPTC and DCJS. But as New York’s attorney general and the official whose Office of Special Investigation repeatedly examines these deaths, James should be asked what she did to turn her office’s recommendations into measurable statewide reform. What specific model policies did her office propose? What training standards did it push state policymakers to adopt? Which recommendations were actually implemented by departments? How did her office track compliance? And after the death of Jarrel Garris, did James ever determine whether New Rochelle implemented the very reforms her investigators recommended? Accountability cannot simply mean investigating a Black man’s death, issuing recommendations, closing the case, and waiting for the next tragedy.

Police Cannot Police Themselves, But Prosecutors Can?

This is where the two Times Union stories come together. For years, a main idea behind police reform has been that police departments should not be the only ones to judge their own officers. This idea led to civilian review boards, independent investigations, and calls for more openness. If this principle is valid, New York should apply it just as firmly when serious claims are made about prosecutors.

Who takes an independent look at claims of politically motivated prosecution? Who checks how the Attorney General’s Office chooses its investigative targets? Who decides if prosecutors started with evidence and followed it to a person, or if they picked a person first and then looked for evidence? Most importantly, who investigates the Attorney General’s Office when serious claims are made about it? New York cannot base its police reform on independent accountability and then object when people ask for the same level of review for prosecutors.

Prosecutors have a lot of power. They can issue subpoenas, look into financial records, require documents, start civil actions, and launch investigations that can damage reputations even before anything is proven in court. This power may be needed to enforce the law, but it still needs checks and balances. The more the government can affect someone’s life or reputation, the more important it is to use that power fairly.

Black Political Representation Cannot Replace Accountability.

There is another difficult part of this discussion that Black New Yorkers need to face. Letitia James is a Black woman in one of the most powerful elected law enforcement roles in the country. Her success should be recognized, but her identity should not make her office immune to tough questions. Black journalists should feel free to question Black politicians, and Black elected officials should not be shielded from criticism just because it might be uncomfortable.

For too long, Black politics has sometimes mixed up representation with real results. Having a Black leader in charge does not automatically mean an institution is accountable to Black communities. We should judge our elected officials by the same questions we ask of any public servant: What did you promise? What did you achieve? How did you use your power? Who benefited from your decisions? What were the real results, and are you willing to be held to the same standards you expect from others?

Criticizing a Black elected official is not automatically anti-Black, just as avoiding criticism is not always pro-Black. Independent Black media should examine those in power without acting as a PR team for any party or politician. Our duty is to our readers and communities, not to making politicians comfortable.

Who Polices the Prosecutors?

Together, these two stories reveal more than just questions about one Attorney General’s future. They show that New York still struggles with accountability. After 2020, communities were promised big changes in police reform, but years later, some oversight boards were never created and others have different levels of power. Meanwhile, an Assistant Attorney General has raised serious concerns about how decisions are made in the state’s top legal office.

Attorney General Letitia James has spent years calling for accountability from powerful people and organizations. Now that serious questions are being asked about her own office, she should accept the same level of scrutiny. Her office should keep all records, explain how investigations are handled, respond directly to the claims, and support a fair, independent review to find out what really happened. If the claims are false, an outside review can show that. If there was wrongdoing, New Yorkers should know who was involved and how serious it was.

Black New Yorkers especially should see why this principle is important. History shows what can happen when government agencies gain too much power without enough oversight. The power we accept when it is used against someone we dislike today could be used against our own communities in the future. That’s why accountability should not depend on party, personality, or race.

No one who holds government power should be free from real scrutiny. That includes police officers, chiefs, prosecutors, governors, mayors, and the Attorney General of New York. If New York truly believes that institutions should not oversee themselves, then it’s time to ask the question we often avoid: Who polices the prosecutors?

FOLLOW THE MONEY – Westchester’s Banking Numbers Under the Microscope, Part One: Apple Bank

Larnez Kinsey
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FOLLOW THE MONEY – Westchester’s Banking Numbers Under the Microscope, Part One: Apple Bank

Let’s skip the corporate language for a minute and go straight to the numbers. Apple Bank: $68.5 million in new qualified investments. $665,000 in qualified grants. 77.4% of the dollar value of new qualified investments directed toward affordable housing. And the percentage we are examining against its stated strategic commitment: 0.057%. Now look at the previous CRA evaluation period: $96.9 million in new qualified investments and approximately $15.7 million in qualified grants. If you live, work, or build a business in Westchester County, those numbers should make you pause.

This isn’t about creating a headline just for the sake of creating a headline. It’s about asking what those numbers mean on the ground in Mount Vernon, Yonkers, New Rochelle, White Plains, Peekskill, Ossining and communities throughout Westchester and the Hudson Valley. What does the investment look like in the neighborhoods where Black and Latino families are building businesses, raising children, creating nonprofits, producing media and trying to build generational wealth?

I’m not saying Apple Bank did something improper. I’m asking the question that every community should be able to ask: What did you commit, what did you deploy, where did it go, and could the people who needed it actually access it? The 0.057% figure also needs to be tied to the exact strategic commitment and denominator before it is presented as a final apples-to-apples measurement. The math matters. The methodology matters. The community deserves both.

Now look at the change in reported activity. $96.9 million became $68.5 million. Approximately $15.7 million in qualified grants became $665,000. That is a dramatic difference. I’m not saying Apple Bank had a $15.7 million grant budget and then only spent $665,000. The CRA evaluations don’t establish that. I am saying the reported numbers changed, and the community has every right to ask what changed and why.

Then there is the 77.4%. Apple Bank reported that 77.4% of the dollar value of its new qualified investments went toward affordable housing. Housing is absolutely part of economic stability in Westchester, where housing costs can make building wealth feel like trying to run uphill in heels. But community development is bigger than housing. It includes the small-business owner on a commercial corridor in Mount Vernon, the entrepreneur in Yonkers, the nonprofit in New Rochelle, the community organization in Peekskill, the creative building a media company, and the family-owned business trying to remain open long enough for the next generation to take over.

That brings me to the question I really want Westchester to wrestle with: Who has the key?

Community resources should not become inherited privileges. If one organization, business, nonprofit or community leader was given the key to a financial institution, grantmaker, sponsor or decision-maker, that key should not simply be passed from one connected person to another while everyone else is left trying to figure out who to call. Access should create more access. It should not create ownership of the doorway.

A new nonprofit should know where to apply. A small business owner should know who to contact. A first-generation entrepreneur should understand the requirements. A community organization should not need an inside connection just to discover that a resource exists. If the opportunity is intended for the community, the pathway should be visible to the community.

And then there is another piece of the economic equation that deserves attention: marketing.

Financial institutions want our customers, our businesses, our deposits, our mortgages and our attention. So who gets paid to reach us? What percentage of those marketing dollars goes to Black-owned and minority-owned media in Westchester and the Hudson Valley? What happens to the advertising dollars going into publications like Black Westchester Magazine, community newspapers, podcasts, radio programs, newsletters and independent digital outlets?

Community media is not simply a place to put an advertisement. It is part of the economic infrastructure of our communities. These outlets employ journalists, photographers, designers, salespeople, web developers and other professionals. They tell our stories, cover our elected officials, promote our businesses, announce our events and connect residents to information that often doesn’t receive the same attention from larger media organizations.

If a financial institution says it wants to reach Black and Latino communities, then I want to know whether its spending actually reaches the businesses and media organizations that already have relationships with those communities.

That is not asking for a favor.

That is asking about economic circulation.

Money comes into our communities. Where does it go next?

Does it stay with local businesses?

Does it support minority-owned media?

Does it create jobs?

Does it strengthen nonprofits?

Does it help entrepreneurs grow?

Does it reach organizations that don’t already have a relationship with the institution?

Those are Westchester questions.

And I want Westchester’s elected officials in this conversation.

Not to tell a private bank who must receive a loan. Not to interfere with legitimate underwriting. The role is bigger than that. Our elected leaders can help bring financial institutions, business owners, nonprofits, community organizations and residents into the same conversation about economic development.

Imagine a Westchester where residents don’t have to know somebody who knows somebody to find out where the opportunities are. Imagine a centralized community resource system where nonprofits and businesses can see available grants, loans, CRA opportunities, sponsorships, contracts and educational programs. Imagine banks regularly explaining their programs directly to the communities they serve. Imagine minority-owned media being included in the economic-development conversation instead of being remembered only when somebody needs a press release published.

That is the kind of conversation I want to have.

The African American Chamber of Commerce Hudson Valley can be part of that bridge. If you’re a business owner, nonprofit leader, or community member trying to understand financial resources, business opportunities, or financial literacy, reach out to the Chamber at 845-570-2367 or connect with @AACCHV.

I also want bankers, elected officials, nonprofit leaders, business owners and media organizations to reach out. I’m not presenting myself as the person who has every answer. I’m presenting myself as someone willing to ask the questions and bring the right people into the room.

Westchester doesn’t need another conversation where everybody agrees that economic opportunity matters and then goes home.

We need the people with capital talking to the people building businesses.

We need the people with programs talking to the people who need them.

We need the people making decisions talking to the people affected by those decisions.

And we need to stop treating access like a family heirloom.

The key should not be inherited.

It should be visible.

The rules should be clear.

The opportunity should be real.

Apple Bank is where I’m starting.

Bank of America. Citizens. TD Bank. Trustco Bank. Wells Fargo. You’re next.

The questions will remain the same: What did you commit? What did you report? Where did it go? Who benefited? Who didn’t? Who received the contracts? Who received the sponsorships? Who received the marketing dollars? And could the people who needed the opportunity actually find the door?

This isn’t about attacking banks.

It’s about accountability.

It’s about economic power.

It’s about Westchester deciding that community investment should be something we can actually see, understand and participate in.

So if you’ve tried to access resources and couldn’t figure out where to start, reach out.

If you’re a business owner who has successfully accessed capital, tell us what worked.

If you’re a nonprofit that keeps getting told about opportunities after the deadline, tell us.

If you’re a banker who believes there is a better way to connect with Westchester communities, come to the table.

If you’re an elected official who wants to help build that table, let’s talk.

And if you’re a minority-owned media organization that wants a seat in the conversation about the dollars being spent to reach our communities, I want to hear from you too.

This is only Part One.

A is for Apple.

The numbers are the beginning.

The questions are the point.

Let’s follow the money. Let’s follow the access. And let’s build the bridge right here in Westchester.

THE BANKS: READ THEIR OWN COMMITMENTS 

PUBLIC STRATEGIC / COMMUNITY COMMITMENTS

Blacks In Law Enforcement Organization Questions Syracuse Policing Policies Under Mayor Sharon Owens

Black Westchester
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Blacks In Law Enforcement Organization Questions Syracuse Policing Policies Under Mayor Sharon Owens

BLEA Says Changes to Police Residency and Civilian Review Raise Questions About Community Policing and Accountability

Blacks In Law Enforcement of America (BLEA) is raising concerns about policing policy in Syracuse under Mayor Sharon Owens, arguing that recent decisions involving police residency and the city’s Citizen Review Board deserve greater scrutiny from residents, elected officials and advocates of community policing.

Owens made history when she became Syracuse’s first Black mayor. But BLEA says that historic representation should not prevent Black organizations from examining policies that could affect police accountability and the relationship between officers and the communities they serve.

At the center of the organization’s concerns are two issues: Syracuse’s temporary suspension of its five-year residency requirement for newly hired police officers and the controversy surrounding the investigative authority of the city’s Citizen Review Board.

Syracuse Moves Away From Police Residency

Syracuse has temporarily suspended its residency requirement for new police officers as officials attempt to address recruitment and staffing challenges. Under the previous policy, newly hired officers were required to establish residency in Syracuse and remain city residents for their first five years of employment.

Police Chief Mark Rusin has argued that expanding the pool of potential applicants could help the department address staffing shortages. Mayor Owens has also acknowledged that she fundamentally believes residency is beneficial for new officers but has supported temporarily relaxing the requirement because of current recruitment challenges.

BLEA says those concerns are legitimate but argues that the discussion cannot end with recruitment numbers.

Residency has historically been viewed by some community-policing advocates as a way of strengthening an officer’s connection to the municipality being policed. Officers who live within the city may become homeowners and taxpayers, send their children to local schools, shop at neighborhood businesses and experience many of the same quality-of-life issues as other residents.

Residency does not guarantee better policing, just as living outside a city does not make someone a bad police officer. The larger question, according to BLEA, is what Syracuse intends to do to preserve strong police-community relationships if residency is no longer required.

Questions Surround Syracuse Citizen Review Board

The second issue involves Syracuse’s Citizen Review Board, which provides civilians with an avenue for complaints involving alleged police misconduct.

Independent CRB investigations stopped in April after city attorneys interpreted an appellate court decision involving Rochester’s Police Accountability Board as limiting the investigative authority of Syracuse’s board. The Owens administration followed that legal interpretation.

The distinction is important: Mayor Owens did not abolish the Citizen Review Board. However, the legal position supported by her administration resulted in the board temporarily being unable to conduct independent investigations, one of its most consequential functions.

Members of the CRB and Syracuse Common Council subsequently challenged that interpretation. In August, the board moved to resume investigations, with CRB leadership arguing that responsibilities established by city law could not simply be suspended through a legal opinion from the administration.

For BLEA, the controversy raises a broader question about whether residents will continue to have meaningful independent civilian participation in the police-accountability process.

Jones: Accountability Cannot Depend on Political Party

Damon K. Jones, New York Representative for Blacks In Law Enforcement of America and a 33-year law-enforcement veteran, said police staffing and recruitment are genuine challenges but should not be addressed at the expense of policies intended to strengthen public trust.

“After 33 years in law enforcement, I understand the challenges police departments face with recruitment and staffing. But we cannot solve one problem by weakening the principles that help create trust between police and the communities they serve,” Jones said. “For Syracuse’s first Black mayor to move away from residency while her administration supported stopping independent CRB investigations should concern us. Accountability cannot depend on whether a Democrat or Republican occupies City Hall.”

The organization’s position also raises a politically uncomfortable question: Would these policies receive the same response if they were implemented by a Republican mayor?

BLEA argues that Black communities cannot demand civilian oversight, police accountability and stronger community relationships when Republicans are in power but become less critical when similar policies are implemented under a Black Democratic administration.

What Did National Police Reform Recommend?

BLEA points to recommendations developed during the Obama administration as evidence that its concerns are not anti-police.

President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended that law-enforcement agencies consider residency incentive programs, including Resident Officer Programs, as part of broader efforts to strengthen trust and legitimacy.

The Task Force did not call for mandatory residency requirements nationwide, an important distinction. But it did recognize encouraging officers to live in the communities they serve as one potential strategy for strengthening police-community relationships.

The Task Force also addressed civilian oversight, stating that some form of civilian oversight of law enforcement is important to strengthening trust with the community, while leaving individual communities to determine the structure most appropriate for them.

That makes the Syracuse debate more complicated than a simple argument between being pro-police and anti-police. Recruitment, adequate staffing, civilian accountability and community relationships are all legitimate components of professional policing.

Representation Cannot Replace Accountability

Owens’ election remains historically significant for Syracuse. But BLEA argues that Black political representation must come with the same level of scrutiny applied to any other administration.

The organization’s criticism is not that Syracuse should ignore its staffing problems or disregard legitimate court decisions. Instead, BLEA is asking what safeguards will replace policies that were intended to strengthen connections between police officers and residents.

If Syracuse suspends residency to attract more officers, what will the department do to ensure those officers develop meaningful relationships with city neighborhoods? If courts limit certain forms of civilian oversight, what legally sustainable mechanism will guarantee residents an independent voice when allegations of misconduct arise?

Those are questions that transcend political party.

BLEA says supporting good police officers and demanding meaningful accountability are not contradictory positions. Professional officers benefit from credible accountability because unchecked misconduct damages public confidence in every officer wearing the badge.

As BLEA stated in its release, “The badge should never be protected by politics, and accountability should never depend on political party.”

For Syracuse’s first Black mayor, that may ultimately be the larger test: not simply making history by occupying City Hall, but demonstrating that recruitment, public safety, community policing and police accountability can exist together.

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