Black Lives Matter leaders slam de Blasio commission on police reform

Mayor de Blasio’s new commission on police reform is a “farce,” said Black Lives Matters leaders excluded from the process.

“It’s a farce because this is a media stunt ... so that they can pass the reforms that they want to pass but not the ones that are being advocated for by the people in the streets," Hawk Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter of New York, told the Daily News.

“The reason that Mayor de Blasio does not want Black Lives Matter of Greater New York at the table is because we hold him accountable,” he added.

The NYPD on Monday convened groups including the Robin Hood Foundation and the Urban League to start efforts to make the department more fair.

The commission was created in response to Gov. Cuomo’s June demand for localities to come up with proposals on reforming their police departments. Spurred by anti-police brutality protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, he gave nine months for localities to come up with plans for changing crowd management and other practices, threatening to cut state funds if they didn’t do so.

Newsome noted the irony of excluding BLM from the mayor’s commission even though the movement prompted the new steps toward reform.

“What we assume is their political response would be, ‘Well, show up and testify,’” he said. “We don’t want to show up and testify, we want to be part of the decision-making body.”

Activist Vidal Guzman, who helped lead many of the summer protests in the city, echoed the remarks.

“They should be the ones you first reach out to,” he said of victims of police violence. “This moment could have been way different.”

The mayor’s office defended the new commission.

“In the face of intense opposition, the mayor has continued to push fundamental police reform,” his spokesman Bill Neidhardt said in a statement. “The mayor has joined Black Lives Matter activists at multiple events this year and will continue to engage groups across the city to drive reform home.”