Almost two years ago, Officer Brad Kaczynski knelt on Hamail Waddell’s neck and back during an arrest on Jan. 1, 2023. This past Tuesday, Binghamton City Court Judge William Pelella found Waddell guilty of two misdemeanors related to the arrest. District Attorney Paul Battisti claimed “justice was served,” but it is clear to us that this decision and any deliberation of Waddell’s possible guilt is not “justice,” because  systemic police brutality continues to go unaddressed in our community’s official channels.

Currently, few external checks to police brutality, racial profiling and police misconduct exist in local law enforcement, which casts doubt on the nuance of Waddell’s verdict. Binghamton’s law enforcement agencies have continuously failed to listen to the community’s needs, and the lack of comprehensive oversight in these systems has allowed for the further institutionalization of police brutality and discrimination.

After receiving reports of racial profiling in 2015, the Binghamton Human Rights Commission proposed the Police Modernization Law, which would have increased police diversity and made racial profiling explicitly illegal in Binghamton. The law faced heavy opposition, with Police Chief Joseph Zikuski claiming it would overburden his officers. Former Mayor Rich David signed an executive order targeting police practices but promised to veto the law should it pass City Council. The order expanded data collection by directing officers to complete a demographics form for every stop and equipping officers with body cameras, but these are not proactive measures against police brutality and racial profiling. In fact, they did nothing to prevent Kaczynski from targeting and kneeling on Waddell.

Battisti claimed that “negative narratives that have been spun in our community for almost the last two years were brought to a halt with [the] verdict” as if denying the existence of police brutality and racial profiling. Police brutality is not a “narrative” to be shut down — Black individuals are still disproportionately more likely to be killed by the police and have reported being treated as “suspicious” by law enforcement. These facts were not “shut down” with two misdemeanors, especially considering that the verdict was delivered without consideration of police brutality, as Pelella touts in the first place.

There is no question that Waddell was brutalized on the night of his arrest — bodycam footage showed him pinned and immobile on the concrete, pleading for help before saying, “I can’t breathe.” In a report from the Office of the New York Attorney General, which determined excessive force was used in the arrest, it was unnecessary for Kaczynski to assault Waddell to the point of injury and fear for his life to place him in handcuffs. At the time, Mayor Jared Kraham claimed the report failed to “accurately portray the full circumstances of the incident.” With this claim, Kraham appears to ask the public to justify the use of excessive force, which is immediately not pertinent to a case in which Waddell is already incapacitated. There was no “objective reason” to use excessive force.

As several white aggressors were let go to get to Waddell that night, according to bodycam footage, Waddell was treated as the sole aggressor, and it is doubtful our legal system took this into consideration. Battisti has forgotten that deeming Waddell’s guilty verdict as “justice” is merely an extension of the injustice he faced the night of his arrest. Officers’ judgment and potential biases cannot be blindly accepted and especially cannot be considered fact, let alone the only fact, in legal proceedings. When evidence is latent with bias, especially discrimination that is not explicitly illegal, treating evidence with a lack of subjectivity is futile — it is only another way police brutality has become largely excluded from the courtroom.

The overstepping of police authority not only during arrest but also during protest and trial — a double assault — is at the crux of police brutality criticism. During a February 2023 protest against Waddell’s treatment in Johnson City, police arrested 15 people and pepper-sprayed protestors and members of the press in an all-pervasive display of moral and legal superiority. Even discourse about police brutality outside of our legal system is forcibly shut down.

From George Floyd to Rodney King, Waddell’s case is not an isolated one. Our governing bodies’ lack of accountability and their sheer reluctance to address police brutality on its head means we cannot trust them to investigate these injustices themselves. Unfortunately, former Mayor David retaliated against the attempts at police reform by effectively dissolving the Human Rights Commission, delegating authority to appoint new members entirely to the mayor. The irony in Kraham’s delegitimization of the attorney general’s report is his vetoing a law that would have reformed the commission’s appointment process, claiming “Matters of human rights and complaints of discrimination should be dealt with at the state level.” As a result, the Human Rights Commission has sat vacant since 2016.

An operating commission would allow residents to vocalize their concerns at public meetings outside of the Binghamton Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division, where cases of excessive force and misconduct are currently handled, and to protest police violence without being pepper-sprayed by, yet again, the police. It should be diverse and reflective of community needs, as originally constituted — four general representatives of the community and three representatives from community advocacy groups, like the NAACP and the Binghamton Pride Coalition. Until police misconduct is met with consequences, Battisti is wrong in purporting the “falsehood” of systemic police brutality, and receptive avenues for concern are still desperately needed in the community.

This Nov. 5, Binghamton voters will see a new referendum to amend the appointment process of the Human Rights Commission. Local Law No. 24-02 would allow four members to be appointed by the City Council and three by the mayor. We urge voters to mobilize against police brutality and the biases in this case, as law enforcement has failed to do, and vote “yes” on Proposal 2.

The staff editorial solely represents the majority view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings.