Criminal defense attorney Ali Najmi – one of seven candidates vying for the Queens, New York, District 23 city council seat – supports the return of old-style policing in his town.
“We need to bring back beat cops who have deep relationships with people in our community,” Najmi told India-West, explaining that residents are more likely to trust members of the police force who routinely patrol the same neighborhood. Traditionally, a beat cop would reside in the neighborhood he patrols and thus would have a better understanding of the dynamics of the community.
Najmi also supports re-training the local police force in methods of de-escalating potentially violent situations and educating the community about what their rights are when confronted by police.
Residents of high-crime New York neighborhoods have increasingly been facing the New York Police Department’s “stop and frisk” procedure, in which pedestrians believed to be of high risk are randomly stopped by police and searched. Such situations have often escalated into violent incidents.
In a particularly egregious incident last summer that captured the ire of the nation, 43-year-old Eric Garner of Staten Island – about 35 miles away from Najmi’s district – was placed in a choke-hold by police who arrested him for selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. Garner, an African American, was arrested by a white police officer; he died on the scene. Choke-holds are banned by the NYPD. A medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide, but the officer involved in the incident was not indicted.
Last month, Najmi helped to organize a vigil for Garner, on the one-year anniversary of his death.
Queens District 23 is home to one of the largest communities of Indian American and other South Asian Americans in the U.S., and also has the largest concentration of South Asian American voters; approximately 38 percent of eligible voters in the district are of South Asian American descent. The Times Ledger reports that the district is 40 percent Asian, a population that is disproportionately South Asian; 30 percent white; 15 percent African-American; and 15 percent Latino.