Mayor Jennings defends police actions

Posted at: 01/06/2012 5:21 PM | Updated at: 01/06/2012 5:41 PM
By: WNYT Staff

ALBANY - Mayor Jennings defended the actions of his police department during the recent Occupy Albany protests on Friday.

His comments follow Thursday night's Common Council meeting, attended by Police Chief Steven Krokoff.

Krokoff admitted he gave officers the order to use pepper spray on some protesters that they felt were becoming disorderly.

Critics have accused the officers of using excessive force. Friday, Mayor Jennings backed the police and also called for more cooperation from protesters.

?I don't have any problems with the way we've handled it and I would hope in the future they would cooperate with us much more than in the past couple of weeks, but you know we don't want confrontation," said Jennings. "We want people to come here and they have a right to protest, we?ll work with them but we?re not going to tolerate my DGS workers being abused, disrespect or some of the things that took place there."

District Attorney David Soares has said his office will investigate, but Occupy Albany members say such an investigation would not be independent.

Source: http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s2442266.shtml?cat=300

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