ALBANY — The Community Police Review Board voted to table a complaint involving a Black member of the Common Council who accused city police officers of racially profiling him and scaring his teenage grandson during a May 18 traffic stop.
The incident involved Councilman John Williamson, who represents the city’s First Ward, who was stopped on Clinton Avenue. Williamson did not lodge a formal complaint with the board or the police department, but widespread public attention surrounding a Facebook post Williamson made the day after the encounter prompted the department’s Office of Professional Standards to investigate and for the oversight board to review its findings.
At the board’s Aug. 13 meeting, Julia Morris, who was assigned to handle the complaint, concurred with the department’s review, which found that Williamson’s allegations were unfounded and recommended the complaint be closed. She also agreed with the department’s determination that the stop was permissible because Williamson failed to signal a turn, as well as its ruling that Williamson’s allegation that officers were “rude, sarcastic, dismissive, arrogant and nasty” during their interactions was not substantiated by body-camera footage. And she agreed with the department’s finding that an officer on the passenger side of Williamson’s sedan had not improperly touched his firearm during the encounter…