After Raul Pinet Jr. Died In Jail, A Coalition Set In Motion Policing Reforms
A cross-cultural coalition formed 11 years ago laid the groundwork for changes in Syracuse, N.Y.
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When Raul Pinet Jr. died in restraints at the county jail in Syracuse in 2010, the second death there in less than a year, community groups joined forces to protest and demand accountability.
Mr. Pinet’s death and those early community efforts helped lay the groundwork for change, say two community leaders who rallied then.
Neighbours called 911 when they saw Mr. Pinet wandering, disoriented and sweating profusely, one Friday night. He pleaded for help; he said he had taken crack cocaine, according to a state commission, though he also denied doing drugs. At one point, the police said, he grabbed a 7-year-old boy from a neighbour’s porch, then struggled violently with Syracuse police as they arrested him.
A little over an hour later, Mr. Pinet, 31, lay dead on the floor of the Onondaga County Justice Center, the victim of what a New York State Commission of Correction report called a homicide because of “asphyxia during restraint.”
Videos from the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team on that August night showed Onondaga County sheriff’s deputies kneeling on Mr. Pinet’s neck and back. A “spit hood” over his head was later determined to be improperly positioned. Both situations impeded his breathing, according to the commission report issued nearly two years later.
A grand jury considered the case but no one was held accountable, according to Luz Encarnacion, a Pinet family advocate. Mr. Pinet’s sisters are still upset that justice was not served for their brother, Ms. Encarnacion said.
Mr. Pinet’s widow, Tashara Pinet, sued Onondaga County, and lawyers reached an undisclosed settlement in 2019.
The death of Mr. Pinet, who was Latino, opened many community members’ eyes to racism in the community, said Ms. Encarnacion, who was then president of the Syracuse chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a national organization that works with issues affecting the Latino community.
“We were not looking at race before Mr. Pinet died; I didn’t feel it,” Ms. Encarnacion said. “We cannot feel that secure and comfortable and say, ‘Oh, this isn’t happening in our community.’”
Mr. Pinet’s death upset a community already wary of officers after the death in November 2009 of Chuniece Patterson, a 21-year-old Black jail inmate who died of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy in that same jail after complaining of abdominal pain, Ms. Encarnacion said.
Communitywide protests after the deaths of Mr. Pinet and Ms. Patterson demanded major changes in policing, according to Barrie Gewanter, who was then the executive director of the Syracuse chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union. A new cross-cultural coalition called United As One demanded accountability in the jail, which is staffed by the county sheriff’s office, and in the Syracuse Police Department, Ms. Gewanter said.
“United As One was incredibly unusual in Syracuse,” Ms. Gewanter said. “There were reps in the Black community, the Hispanic community, the disability community, the gay community, the social justice community.”
The organization demanded that a citizen review board, dormant for 18 years, be reconstituted to promote accountability in the city police department, Ms. Gewanter said. She led a jail oversight committee while serving as director of the Onondaga County human rights commission from 2015 to 2020.
Ms. Gewanter said the committee, in its early days, investigated near-deaths in the jail, addressed perceived staff bias, supported language assistance and made recommendations to improve emergency response.
Citizens groups continue to be involved. Ms. Gewanter said new voices arose from Black Lives Matter marches in Syracuse and its suburbs in 2020 after the death of George Floyd. “New leaders emerged among young people from the Black and Latino communities, especially the Black community, and you saw people who had never worked across colour lines before,” she wrote in an email. “That was wonderful, real and effective.”
Ms. Gewanter and Ms. Encarnacion say that community protests of jail policy and of policing, in general, have had an effect, though both would like to see more thorough reforms.
The Syracuse Police Department instituted a new use-of-force policy in 2019 under a new chief, Kenton Buckner, and the city is considering additional reforms, according to the Syracuse Police Reform and Reinvention Plan issued in March 2021. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo last year ordered local jurisdictions to come up with plans to improve and modernize policing in their communities.
Ms. Encarnacion said Black Lives Matter and other organizations have changed the way Americans think about policing.
As a result, she said, she believes the system will not take as much persuasion the next time someone is harmed. “We will find justice.”
