Friday, 11 December 2020 12:38

Readers React to Publisher Beatty’s November 13 editorial “Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom from Harassment."

By Readers' Responses | News
Readers React to Publisher Beatty’s November 13 editorial “Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom from Harassment."

Reader responses to Publisher Chad Beatty’s November 13 editorial “Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom from Harassment." Click here for the original Editorial.

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Chad,

I couldn't agree more with your editorial, today and in fact I had sent a similar email to the Mayor and Public Works Commissioner last week. We got caught walking home from dinner lat Saturday, and someone started yelling at my 68 year old wife that "you are killing us" as we walked to our car. It is beyond disturbing that our leadership allows this repetitive violation of our civil rights, after promising to stop it after the last incident. Are we going to be another Portland--afraid to do anything about such disorder? 
Regards,
Christopher 

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Beneath the Rage is Pain and Sorrow

We were deeply troubled by Chad Beatty’s editorial in the November 13-19, 2020 edition of Saratoga Today, in which he suggested that gatherings of those protesting for the rights of Black people should be condemned, and if the police are short on staff, they should “deputize community members and let them clear the streets.” As the owner of this newspaper, he is in a powerful position to help mediate. Instead, he gave voice to those who wish it would all just go away, by force if necessary. 

 Yes, there have been several organized protest events, as in many cities across the country, attended by a cross-section of our local population. Protesters have blocked Broadway and some side streets. While some drivers and bystanders reacted angrily, others honked and shouted encouragement. Yes, protesters have used megaphones to express loud support for Black lives, for justice for Darryl Mount, for police reform. They have made some people uncomfortable and affected local businesses. But before calling on the City Council and the police to close in and put an end to the interruption of our safe, convenient lives, maybe we should ask, “Why do they block the streets? Why do they sound so angry?”

It takes courage to step out, carry a sign, shout a slogan, and expose yourself to public judgment. It takes even more to walk into traffic and sit in the street. They do it, they tell us, because after all that Black people have suffered in this country, going through channels still doesn’t work. They have no choice but to shake things up. Why so angry? Look at history. Emancipation took a bloody Civil War. A hundred years later, the Voting Rights Act rose from the beaten bodies of those who walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.  And in 2020, we witnessed the brutal fates of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and so many others who died at the hands of the police. Though it comes as a surprise to many white people, we still haven’t reached a day when Black people can put their long, painful history of oppression behind them and feel welcome in their own communities – even in Saratoga Springs. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., protest is the language of the unheard. The protesters are angry, but we must understand that beneath the rage is pain and sorrow.

How should we respond to these cries for justice in our city?  Saratoga Springs has the opportunity to be a leader in police reform. Governor Cuomo has ordered cities across the state to involve stakeholders in an effort to remove racial bias in police policies and practices. In response, Mayor Kelly appointed the Police Reform Task Force, which includes a strong and dedicated group of community members. We hope their work will help prevent future tragedies, like the death of Darryl Mount, and include serious discussions about whether some incidents now handled by the police might be better addressed by social service and mental health professionals.

We cannot allow the voices of the unheard to be stifled by chants for law and order. We must be willing to listen, accept that we have much to learn, and take constructive action. The real work has to begin in the hearts of every one of us.

Holly and Rick

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Thank you for your well-thought-out, well-written expression.  Please keep up your good work showing us citizens of Saratoga Springs what's really going on in town.

Nancy and Albert

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Dear Mr. Beatty,

Thank you so much for your editorial against the bullies terrorizing Saratoga Springs businesses and shoppers on Saturday Nov. 7th.  Your article was very well written and addressed the concerns of all those law-abiding citizens who work and patronize Saratoga Springs.  Since they now feel emboldened because of the non-action of police and government officials, it won’t be long before windows will be broken, and we will see many shut down businesses in a beautiful town.  I would like to see a follow-up as to the response of the mayor and police officials to this situation.  There are many citizens like me, sitting in the sidelines, who feel you were the only voice we had.

Thank you,
Linda 

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 Mr. Beatty,

Thank you!  Your editorial holding our cities authorities to task, for failing to act last weekend, was absolutely correct and called for!  The group demonstrating has a history of poor behavior and not allowing opposing views to express an opinion.  This same group counter protested a “Back the Blue” demonstration in early July, effectively denying the “Back the Blue” group to fully voice their opinion.  This same counter “protest in July resulted in the destruction of our communities Civil War monument, thus denying the veterans of the 77th New York Volunteers to continue to express their opinion.  Our city authorities have done nothing to prosecute the outrage of the destruction of our monument.  The authorities must have photographic IDs of last weekends “protesters”.  The authorities need not confront the entire protest, now, they can all be arrested one at a time!

Please tell me how a thriving city like Saratoga Springs, with so much going on that is terrific, needs to change the form of government?  Sure, some things might be improved, sure, some mistakes are made, however,  all in all Saratoga Springs is a success story!  Four charter revision votes in a dozen or so years, enough!

Thank you.
Michael

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 The editorial by Saratoga Today publisher and owner Chad Beatty in the November 13th edition of the paper in response to the November 7th protest that blocked the intersection of Broadway and Lake Ave was written with an understandable degree of frustration. Businesses are negatively affected when customers don’t walk through their doors on a rare 70 degree Saturday in November; going into what will no doubt be one of the longest, darkest winters in recent memory, every dollar of business is crucial for keeping their doors open. The city is also negatively affected, not only from a budgetary standpoint, in that payroll and overhead for the policing necessary to manage protests costs a great deal of taxpayer money when there is a $7 million dollar budget shortfall for 2021, but from the public image projected as a city that is out of touch with its citizenry to the extent that large protests have been a regular occurrence for the past six months. However the subtext in his editorial of encouraging vigilante groups, deputized or otherwise, to confront protests such as the one that occurred on November 7th is equally dangerous to the city and is an abuse of his soapbox as publisher of the paper. Moreover it is a near perfect mirror of the same misguided frustrations voiced by protesters that night. 

I wholly agree with Mr. Beatty that the police should have acted differently that night. The claim that this was an unplanned rally is unfounded – it was indeed planned, though perhaps not sanctioned, and if the SSPD was appropriately vigilant of the social media networks used by the grass roots groups that are advocating for change in this city they would have known that. However, violence through policing is not the answer - communication and dialogue is. Understanding that each group of purportedly oppositional groups – the protesters and the police department and their supporters - are all human beings and treating them as such, and engaging in discourse with them as such, is the avenue through which change can be achieved and the frustration fueling these protests can be redirected and used to fuel more constructive efforts.

One of the core, if not the core, issues at the heart of that protest is the matter of Darryl Mount, viewed through the lens of the Black Lives Matter movement. Who was Darryl Mount? He was a young black man that had an interaction with the police on August 31st, 2013. By the end of that interaction, which involved both police witnessing Mr. Mount shove a young woman and a foot chase after Mr. Mount tried to evade them, he ended up that bottom of a scaffolding with injuries that lead to him remaining in a coma for much of the rest of his life until his death in 2014 due to complications from those injuries. There were no witnesses to how Mr. Mount sustained the injuries he received. The Saratoga Springs Police Department reported that the injuries were sustained as a result of falling from the scaffolding, however there has been a sustained contingent of people who disagree with that assessment and allege police brutality is to blame. There are also other details to the case, including a lawsuit and outside forensic analysis instigated by Mr. Mount’s family and a reckoning over the fact that the police chief at the time, Greg Veitch, admitted under oath in 2017 that he deceived a reporter from the Saratogian in claiming that an internal investigation of the event occurred when in fact no such investigation happened.

I will not comment on which position I agree with – whether Mr. Mount fell from a scaffolding while evading police or whether he was beaten, however I will hazard the guess that most of those reading this letter have merely a cursory knowledge, if any at all, of these events. Moreover, if any of those reading this wanted to learn more about the city’s record of that incident they would find only an archived PDF of an old webpage from the city’s old website, filled with dead links and non-functional videos. Certainly if someone were trying to learn about this case it might come across that the city was trying to hide something, even if they aren’t. In fact, I’d warrant that with sufficient funding, or even the efforts of a young, eager, unpaid intern if no funding were available, all of the city’s information on the case could quickly find its way to the front of the SSPD’s website, updated and polished, in short order.

My point with this is that information, communication, and dialogue will bring a close to this chapter of unrest in the history books of the city, not instigating vigilante actions from citizens because you aren’t satisfied with how the police department is handling the matter, nor patronizing protesters because you don’t understand or agree with what they’re protesting or because they’re young and may not fit the physical description of people who you think are “supposed” to be protesting. 

Currently the Police Reform Task Force is meeting on a regular basis to modernize and develop meaningful, achievable changes that can be instituted by our city’s police department. We must give them the space and time necessary to do that, and their recommendations are due by February of 2021. Meanwhile, as citizens, regardless of the color of our skin, and regardless of whether we are students of Skidmore, the high school, or matured adults, we need to educate ourselves on the reality of what happened that night in 2013, and the Commissioner of Public Safety Robin Dalton and the Saratoga Springs Police Department need to facilitate that by making the information they have on the issue of Darryl Mount more public. They should also consider issuing a mea culpa for how the event was handled by police chief Veitch at the time.

The issue of what happened to Mr. Mount will likely never be resolved. It was seven years ago and there were no witnesses to the event besides Darryl himself and the police that interacted with him. However we can, as a city, put right effort into trying to understand what the protesters were trying to tell us on November 7th, even if their delivery was misguided, timing poor, and energy aggressive; there is room for us to change, evolve, and learn from our history in this city, and it is the responsibility of both the city government and the citizens to make that happen in a constructive way. Because that is what democracy looks like.

Jake

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 Hello Chad,

I just read your excellent editorial regarding the “protest” that kept our beautiful  city hostage for 6 hours!  My husband and I retired here from Newburgh, NY to enjoy living in Saratoga - and specifically moved to live on Broadway to enjoy the dining and shopping.  We had seen a sad and steady decline in the quality of living here that will continue to decline, I’m afraid if significant change doesn’t happen.

We too witnessed the horrible event(s) over the summer with “protesters” taking over the park and streets.  When the city administration made a strong statement (that you quoted) we were relieved that finally the city would address the illegal marches and laying down on the streets to block traffic and the harassment of visitors and citizens. What is being done - nothing!! And it never will.  Same with the homeless situation - nothing has been done - it’s escalating out of control and yet if anything is done it will be too late.

Here are (2) other instances that I know of where nothing will be done.  Graffiti.  It’s a growing issue and concern throughout the city and continues to grow unchecked.  In the alley between Putnam Market and the building that houses Union, Piper, etc. the amount of graffiti is ugly and appalling.  Written in white spray paint is “f..k the (518) pigs”.  The same graffiti was painted on the wall behind The Washington (where we live) and was immediately painted over by the management.  I texted about the graffiti in the alley to the city and the relpy...we’re contacting the building owner about it!!!! Nothing was done...I believe it was finally painted over but not before many families visiting Saratoga saw it.

Another disturbing and growing issues is a “gang” of teen skateboarders and others hanging out downtown and harassing the pedestrians.  They continually ride on the sidewalks (which is illegal!) and we’re hanging out in the walkway between Kilwins and Cantina this summer...it took many calls and complaints to the police to have them “moved”...where did they go...top of (they board down it which is an accident waiting to happen) Caroline Street where they harass shop owners and people to such a disgusting extent - they are afraid to shop on Broadway!  Afraid to be on Broadway Saratoga in broad daylight!  They police were called and they were harassed too by these teens!  Again - nothing has been done!

Smaller incidents but will add up to the downfall of our city...at the start of my letter I mentioned we were from Newburgh so I’ve witnessed what will happen first-hand and I really fear for Saratoga.

Anyway - thanks for your recent articles and reading this. I needed to vent!

Take Care,
Debby

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Editor:

We are writing in response to Chad Beatty’s editorial in the November 13-19 Saratoga Today objecting to a protest held downtown on Saturday, November 7. The editorial is deeply disturbing in its initial assertions and tone. Its conclusion, articulated in the final sentence, is deeply distressing.

The assertions framing Beatty’s views are open to question.  They are not the basic truths that he implies.

The author begins by characterizing the protests as a simple matter of young people engaging in public harassment. His editorial comments do not explain the protestors’ reasons or motivations. He does not acknowledge that these non-violent protests are part of a larger protest movement across the country that aims to bring about long-needed changes to the systemic racism that pervades this country.

The editorial assumes that the protesters are somehow not “us”: “we” need to protect ourselves (and “our” women and children) from “them.” But in truth, no one was harmed by that Saturday’s action, and many members of the community sympathize with the protesters’ fundamental concerns, whether or not we take part in public protests. We recognize that racism, both conscious and unconscious bias on the basis of race, is a major problem.

Beatty also asserts that a more aggressive response by the police would make the protest go away. Arresting the protesters would get them temporarily off the street. But historically, and right now in other cities, aggressive police response tends to polarize people and result in more anger, more protests, and escalating tensions.

The editorial asserts that Skidmore students are “guests” in the community and implies that they thus have no right to protest. But citizens of this country—whether Skidmore students or others—have every right to participate in democratic processes, including non-violent, active dissent.

And Beatty takes issue with the way the police handled the situation: he seems to assume the only good outcome would have been arrests.  “Start arresting these kids as soon as the roads are blocked and let’s see how long their resolve lasts,” asserts Beatty. We say that the collaborative process between the Skidmore President and City officials was effective. Wasn’t the peaceful dispersion of the crowd--with no harm inflicted on anyone--desirable?

The editorial’s tone is biased, dismissive, and menacing. It gives a few business owners’ concerns fairly lengthy treatment, while it caricatures the protest as “undesirable behavior.” It makes no attempt to represent a variety of community perspectives. It asks, “Do we want a community where women and children feel threatened?” Which women and children does this refer to? We answer: Women and children of color, and men too, do feel threatened in our community. And they are threatened. That is what the protests are about.

This editorial doesn’t just assume that the protests deserve a violent response. It menaces the protestors, saying: “Deputize community members and let them clear the streets.” We have already seen how badly that goes.

What is missing is any sense that we need “real, institutional change,”  that we should make real “efforts to foster communication, dialogue, and trust,” as President Marc Conner wrote (quoted in a recent story in the Albany Times Union). We do not need citizen militias. We do need to envision together a world in which George Floyd and others would not have been killed. A more just world.

Susan & Sarah
Residents of Saratoga Springs and Skidmore Professors emeritae

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Dear Sir:

Both the New York State and Federal Constitutions permit state and local governments to impose reasonable, time, place and manner regulations on street demonstrations.

If local officials will not enforce constitutionally qualifying ordinances, the remedy is at the ballot box As a resident of Saratoga Springs, I intend to exercise my franchise accordingly at the next election.

(For what it’s worth, I taught state and local government law for 44 years and have published extensively in that field)

Sincerely Yours, Michael

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Mr. Beatty,

Great editorial this week.  I couldn’t agree more with your article.  And the fact that not only are the businesses suffering, but the opposite page also mentions a 7 million dollar shortfall in revenue which will affect the city greatly.  That will mean less money for police at a time when we need more; and higher taxes for residents who can ill afford it during this ongoing fiscal crisis caused by the government shutdown.  Perhaps the protestors should be paying fines and damages for the lost business and the cost of overtime for law enforcement in trying to protect the citizens.  When this behavior is tolerated it emboldens the perpetrators and leads to more frequent occurrences with escalating consequences. 

Sincerely,
Melanie

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Chad,

I very much appreciated your editorial, Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom From Harassment. I'm glad that you put in print what I have been feeling since the stunt last Saturday. I happened to be driving on the east side of Lake Ave trying to get across Broadway to the West Side. I was stopped at Maple Ave and forced to re-route. A small inconvenience but I couldn't understand why Broadway was closed to traffic. When I found out later why Broadway was closed I was quite upset and you touched on most of the reasons why. Why was this allowed? 

This kind of stunt only angers me. It does not help any cause. They could have assembled in many other locations, Skidmore, The State Park and Congress Park come to mind.

Whoever organized this event was only after shock value and not real change. 

John

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Mr. Beatty,

I am disgusted to see that you used the platform of your newspaper to spout racist rhetoric.  In your article you mock and threaten protestors, who are practicing their right to peaceful protest, by encouraging citizens to “take back the streets” and then referencing deputizing citizens at the end of the article.  Businesses losing 6 hours of business does not compare to the hundreds of years of injustices that have faced Black people in our country and in our hometown.  Your inability to recognize this only shines light on your privilege and ignorance.  Educate yourself and do better. 

Melissa

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Dear Mr. Beatty,

I just want to thank you for one of the best opinions I have ever read.   Please don't let this matter drop.  We need more people to speak up if we are ever going to be living in a free and just society.  I am an old lady and all I can do is pray for peace in our cities, states and country.  I am sick and tired of all these protests and esp. the BLM protesters.  When these protests impact on the freedoms and rights of other people, something is radically wrong. 

Sorry I will step down from my soapbox and just say thank you again for the wonderful editorial.  Keep up the good work and do not let anyone intimidate your freedom of speech.

Sincerely,

Sally

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