Continuing to Push for Benefits, Schumer Says Albany Should Change Laws on Auxiliary Officers
Senator will lobby Legislature to give volunteer police power to arrest
Sen. Charles Schumer has tried to change how auxiliary officers are viewed under federal law. Now he is looking to push the Legislature in New York to make a change as well.
On the same day that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly testified to a closed hearing in support of federal death benefits being awarded to the families of two auxiliary police officers killed last year in Greenwich Village, Sen. Charles Schumer said a phone conversation he had with U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey gave him confidence in the effort’s success.
“He appeared sympathetic to their plight and promised to personally review their case,” Schumer said. “While there are certainly no commitments, I am optimistic that Attorney General Mukasey will do the right thing.”
Auxiliary Officers Nicholas Pekearo and Yevgeniy Marshalik were killed March 14, 2007, while chasing a man who had just killed a pizza shop employee. Though their families have received city benefits together totaling about $116,000, over $300,000 in federal money remains unpaid because the Department of Justice has argued that the officers do not fit the criteria of the Public Safety Officers Benefits program.
Since the auxiliary officers are volunteers and lack the power to arrest, they are ineligible, the Department has insisted.
But Schumer, who helped author the law which created the program, said this was precisely what he and others in Congress had been looking to address.
“It was intended that the law be used exactly in this case,” he said. “I helped write the law, so I have an interest in this.”
Importantly, Schumer noted, the decision to deny the benefits was made by Mukasey’s predecessor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, which has increased Schumer’s confidence that Mukasey might overturn the ruling.
“This was not his wrong, but it could be his right,” he said.
Sen. Hillary Clinton also joined in the lobbying of Mukasey, sending a letter to the attorney general March 27 in support of a reversal of the Justice Department decision.
"By preventing the Pekearo and Marshalik families from collecting deserved death benefits, the Bureau of Justice Assistance is devaluing the important work performed by all auxiliary officers," Clinton wrote
Meanwhile, Schumer said that he favored a change in New York law which would give auxiliary police officers the power to arrest, rather than just detain, obviating the distinction which the Department of Justice has used to avoid paying out benefits. He said the Legislature should consider making this change.
“They could change the definition of what an auxiliary police is allowed to do, and they probably should,” he said.
He added that he plans to lobby his colleagues in Albany to make this change. But alluding to the transition in governors from Eliot Spitzer to David Paterson and the looming budget deadline on March 31, he said that he would wait to do so.
“I have not. I will,” he said. “They’ve got some things on their mind right now, but I will talk to the Legislature about changing the laws.”
Photo by Andrew Schwartz.
On the same day that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly testified to a closed hearing in support of federal death benefits being awarded to the families of two auxiliary police officers killed last year in Greenwich Village, Sen. Charles Schumer said a phone conversation he had with U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey gave him confidence in the effort’s success.
“He appeared sympathetic to their plight and promised to personally review their case,” Schumer said. “While there are certainly no commitments, I am optimistic that Attorney General Mukasey will do the right thing.”
Auxiliary Officers Nicholas Pekearo and Yevgeniy Marshalik were killed March 14, 2007, while chasing a man who had just killed a pizza shop employee. Though their families have received city benefits together totaling about $116,000, over $300,000 in federal money remains unpaid because the Department of Justice has argued that the officers do not fit the criteria of the Public Safety Officers Benefits program.
Since the auxiliary officers are volunteers and lack the power to arrest, they are ineligible, the Department has insisted.
But Schumer, who helped author the law which created the program, said this was precisely what he and others in Congress had been looking to address.
“It was intended that the law be used exactly in this case,” he said. “I helped write the law, so I have an interest in this.”
Importantly, Schumer noted, the decision to deny the benefits was made by Mukasey’s predecessor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, which has increased Schumer’s confidence that Mukasey might overturn the ruling.
“This was not his wrong, but it could be his right,” he said.
Sen. Hillary Clinton also joined in the lobbying of Mukasey, sending a letter to the attorney general March 27 in support of a reversal of the Justice Department decision.
"By preventing the Pekearo and Marshalik families from collecting deserved death benefits, the Bureau of Justice Assistance is devaluing the important work performed by all auxiliary officers," Clinton wrote
Meanwhile, Schumer said that he favored a change in New York law which would give auxiliary police officers the power to arrest, rather than just detain, obviating the distinction which the Department of Justice has used to avoid paying out benefits. He said the Legislature should consider making this change.
“They could change the definition of what an auxiliary police is allowed to do, and they probably should,” he said.
He added that he plans to lobby his colleagues in Albany to make this change. But alluding to the transition in governors from Eliot Spitzer to David Paterson and the looming budget deadline on March 31, he said that he would wait to do so.
“I have not. I will,” he said. “They’ve got some things on their mind right now, but I will talk to the Legislature about changing the laws.”
Photo by Andrew Schwartz.
