In 1981, Richard Rivera murdered an off-duty police officer execution-style in a Queens bar. He now sits on a panel charged with reforming the police. The off-duty officer and dad-of-four Robert Walsh pulled his gun to try to stop a robbery. Rivera shot Walsh in the shoulder and then he walked over to him, put the gun against his head, and blew him away. Rivera was 16 at the time and he served 39 years in prison for his crime.
Rivera now sits on a panel for Ithaca and Tompkins County as part of its “Reimagining Public Safety Collaborative.’’ The group was formed after senior killer Andrew Cuomo ordered cities to submit police reform plans by April 1st, April Fool’s day.
Rivera now says:
“I live my life in a way that honors and respects [Officer Walsh’s] memory. That is advocating for people who can’t advocate for themselves.”
What chutzpah. Walsh’s 47-year-old son said:
“We’re completely shocked that the man who murdered my father is being trusted to create police reforms. My father dedicated his life to serving and protecting New Yorkers. He should be the one serving on a panel to help reimagine policing, but he’ll never get that chance.”
Placing Rivera on the police reform panel is like making a grand wizard the head of the NAACP. It just doesn’t work. Rivera committed a heinous crime and he served his time, so he deserves a second chance but not on a board charged with police reforms.
It’s a slap in the face to the officers and to Walsh’s family. Put him in an outreach program to teach kids what prison is really like and he could possibly save a lot of kids from his fate.
But this Rivera thing is just nuts, a deliberate slap in the face of police officers in general and most especially Robert Walsh’s family. It’s like putting a racist who lynched a black man on the board of a black college. I don’t care how “reformed” this person claims to be…. I don’t care how reformed he might truly be… It’s an outrage and insult.
Rivera deserves a second chance, no question. But he can get that second chance by not invoking his victim’s name and by not sitting on this panel.
If this man truly was reformed and eager to make amends, he would resign from this panel out of respect for the police and for his victim’s family. Only a cruel man would accept this position.
But this what happens when Democrats are in charge. These deliberate provocations are manufactured to divide us.
