THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALSATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2020 Y A23
NATIONAL
An article on Wednesday about a
new philanthropic award mis-
stated Edafe Okporo’s connection
to the RDJ Refugee Shelter. He is
its director, not its founder.TRACKING AN OUTBREAK
An article on Friday about efforts
to reopen a high school in Man-
hattan during the coronavirus
pandemic misspelled the name of
a parent of a Hunter College High
School student. She is Meika
Mustrangi, not Mika Mustrungi.Errors are corrected during the press
run whenever possible, so some errors
noted here may not have appeared in
all editions.Corrections
The video begins with the Buf-
falo police arriving at the scene of
a vulgarity-laced dispute between
two sets of neighbors over where
someone parked a car. On one
side: a shirtless man and his wife,
in a pink top; on the other, a family
that lives across the street.
As the officers try to separate
them, the woman in pink contin-
ues to scream. One officer tells her
to be quiet. She refuses, and an-
other officer moves to restrain
her. Her husband rushes up and
pushes the officer.
“Dude,” the shirtless man says,
“you better get off my wife,” add-
ing an obscenity for emphasis.
The man is a New York Su-
preme Court justice, Mark J.
Grisanti, and he is not shy in citing
his connections as he speaks to
the officers, invoking his friend-
ship with the mayor and his ties to
the police.
Justice Grisanti, who is white,
was not criminally charged — and
at least one Buffalo official is ask-
ing whether the authorities let
him off easy because of his status
and race. After the video from the
June episode surfaced this week,
Justice Grisanti is also facing
scrutiny from a judicial disci-
plinary panel.
“I highly doubt that if it was an
African-American man with no
authority that this would have
ended the same way,” said Darius
G. Pridgen, the president of Buffa-
lo’s Common Council. Mr. Pridgen,
who is Black, added that he did not
take issue with the actions of the
officers at the scene, who detained
Justice Grisanti and his wife, Ma-
ria.
“What happened after that is
what’s cloudy in the minds of
many people, especially in the Af-
rican-American community,” he
said, adding: “I have heard expla-
nations. I don’t understand them.”
A lawyer for Justice Grisanti,
Leonard D. Zaccagnino, did not re-
spond to a request for comment.
The body camera footage, first
obtained through public records
requests and published by
Law360 and the television station
WKBW, captured an altercation
that Justice Grisanti says in the
video is the latest chapter in a
long-running neighborhood feud.
The officer’s attempt to hand-
cuff Ms. Grisanti follows several
warnings, the video shows. The
move sends Justice Grisanti into a
rage and prompts him to launch
into several warnings of his own.
“My daughter and my son-in-
law are both police officers,” he
says. “I’ll call them right now.”
“You arrest my wife, you're go-
ing to be sorry,” he adds, continu-
ing to pepper his threats with ob-
scenities. His speech is slurred
while he speaks. He tells the offi-
cers it is because he was punched,
but one of them says that he
“smells like cheap beer.”
“If you don’t get the cuffs off her
right now, you’re going to have a
problem,” Justice Grisanti contin-
ues. At another point, invoking
Buffalo’s mayor, he says, “Listen,
I’m good friends with Byron
Brown.”
After he has been trying to ex-
plain himself for several minutes,
he apologizes to the officer he
pushed for trying to “tackle” him.
But he then tells the officers they
should “chill out,” calling it “con-
structive criticism.”
“Let me give you some con-
structive criticism,” one of the offi-
cers responds angrily. “You want
to drop another copper’s name?”
the officer yells before putting the
judge in handcuffs.
“You want to make us look dirty,
is that what you want to do?” the
officer continues, his voice rising.
“So how am I helping you now?”
he says as he tightens the cuffs.The officer adds: “You’re drop-
ping everybody’s name with a
badge and you’re expecting spe-
cial treatment. How does that look
like to everybody in this envi-
ronment right now?”
“It doesn’t look good,” Justice
Grisanti says, adding, “You’re
right.”
Kait Munro, a spokeswoman for
the Erie County district attorney,
John J. Flynn, responded to a re-
quest for comment by referring to
a statement issued in July after no
charges were filed. She said the
decision “was at the discretion of
the Buffalo police.”
“It was their decision to not file
any charges,” she said.
But Capt. Jeff Rinaldo, a police
spokesman, said the decision not
to charge the judge and his wife
had been made “in consultation
with” the district attorney’s office.
“As far as the officer not charging
Mr. Grisanti for being shoved, that
was the officer’s discretionary
call,” he said.
Michael DeGeorge, a spokes-
man for the mayor, said it was Mr.
Brown’s policy not to interfere in
police investigations.
As for the potential professional
repercussions facing Justice
Grisanti, Lucian Chalfen, a
spokesman for the state court sys-
tem, said court officials were
aware of the incident involving
the judge, “as is the state Commis-
sion on Judicial Conduct.”
Gina Mele, a member of the
family that was fighting with the
Grisantis when the police arrived,
said that she and her husband had
been contacted by a commissioninvestigator.
The emergence of the video ap-
pears to have already affected
Justice Grisanti’s job in one way.
On Thursday, as reported by
Law360 and confirmed by Mr.
Chalfen, he recused himself from
several lawsuits against the Buf-
falo Police Department that he
had been presiding over.
The move came after ethics ex-
perts contacted by Law 360, a le-
gal trade publication, questioned
how impartial Justice Grisanti
could be in cases involving the po-
lice given his comments.
At one point during the footage,
while trying to explain his actions
to a detective, he says, “I’m 100
percent for you guys.”
“I know you are,” the detective
replies.
“We’re all on the same page
with everything,” Justice Grisanti
adds.
The June altercation was not
his first public tussle.
In 2012, when he was a state
senator, he got into a scuffle in a
lobby bar at a Seneca Nation casi-
no in Niagara Falls. He said he had
been attacked after trying to me-
diate a dispute between two other
men, but several witnesses said
he was the aggressor. No charges
were filed.
Justice Grisanti, 55, was ap-
pointed to the state’s Court of
Claims by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
in 2015 and designated as a Su-
preme Court justice in 2018, ac-
cording to court officials. He pre-
sides over civil cases and earns
$210,900 a year.
He served two terms in the
State Senate before becoming a
judge and may be best known to
New Yorkers as one of four Re-
publican senators to vote in favor
of legalizing same-sex marriage
in 2011, giving Mr. Cuomo the mar-
gin needed to pass the law.
He had promised as a candidate
to oppose the legislation, and Mr.
Cuomo recalls in his 2014 memoir,
“All Things Possible,” the fraught
deliberations that consumed then-
Senator Grisanti up until the vote.
“He was torn and noncommit-
tal, but I could tell that he got it,”
Mr. Cuomo wrote, describing the
four Republican senators who
voted “yes” on same-sex mar-
riage as “profiles in courage” and
part of “my pantheon of political
heroes.”Buffalo Police Camera
Catches Judge Pushing
And Threatening Officer
By ED SHANAHANConduct that raises
questions about why
no charges were filed.
Jesse McKinley contributed re-
porting. Sheelagh McNeill contrib-
uted research.Contact the Newsroom
[email protected] or call
1-844-NYT-NEWS (1-844-698-6397).
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1-800-NYTIMES (1-800-698-4637).President Trump on Second
Amendment grounds. The rise
and fall of his Kenosha Guard re-
flects the current spirit of vigilan-
tism surfacing across the country.
Organizations that display
weapons have existed for dec-
ades, with hot-button issues like
immigration or Second Amend-
ment rights inspiring people who
think the Constitution is under
threat. Ever since the 2017 white
nationalist march in Charlottes-
ville, Va., armed groups have be-
come fixtures at demonstrations
around the country, though mem-
bership numbers remain opaque.
With the approaching election
ratcheting up tensions, armed
groups that assembled via a few
clicks on the keyboard are more
visible and more widespread.
Some especially violent groups
were rooted in longstanding anti-
government extremism, like the
14 men charged with various
crimes in Michigan this month.
Starting in April, demonstra-
tions against coronavirus lock-
downs prompted makeshift vigi-
lante groups to move offline and
into the real world. This became
more pronounced amid the na-
tionwide protests after the police
killing of George Floyd in Minne-
apolis — with some armed groups
claiming to protect the protesters
while others sought to check
them.
When Mr. Trump was asked at
last month’s presidential debate
about activity by right-wing ex-
tremists, including the violence in
Kenosha, he declined to outright
condemn such groups, and told
one far-right group to “stand back
and stand by.”
Experts who study violent
groups say that many are unstruc-
tured and do not undertake basic
steps like training together. They
are usually just a fraternity with a
shared goal, like the groups in Or-
egon that patrolled back roads
amid wildfires, hunting mostly
imagined looters or arsonists.
In Kenosha, police officers were
caught on video expressing ap-
preciation to the gunmen and
handing them bottles of water,
prompting criticism that law en-
forcement officers encouraged
the armed groups.
But soon after, the sheriff tried
to distance his department. “Part
of the problem with this group is
they create confrontation,” David
Beth, the Kenosha County sheriff,
told reporters at a news confer-
ence. Asked later about any inves-
tigation, the Sheriff’s Department
said it had not referred any cases
linked to the Kenosha Guard for
prosecution, and the Police De-
partment did not respond.
Mr. Mathewson first tried to
muster the Kenosha Guard in
June after the city had small pro-
tests because of Mr. Floyd’s death.
A little more than 60 people re-
sponded. Then, on Aug. 23, video
emerged that showed a Kenosha
police officer firing seven times
toward Mr. Blake’s back. When
protests disintegrated into prop-
erty destruction, Mr. Mathewson
said, he thought law enforcement
was overwhelmed.
After two nights of demonstra-
tions, he posted an event on Face-
book called “Armed Civilians to
Protect our Lives and Property.”
He named himself commander of
the Kenosha Guard and added an
open letter to the police telling
them not to interfere.
Several hundred people volun-
teered to participate and around
4,000 expressed approval. His call
to arms spread to other platforms,
like Reddit. Infowars, the website
that traffics in conspiracy theo-
ries, amplified it, as did local right-
wing radio stations.
“You cannot rely on the govern-
ment or the police to protect you,”
Mr. Mathewson said.
Before forming the Kenosha
Guard, he had seen reports fo-
cused on armed groups deploying
in Minneapolis and in Portland,
Ore. “It was so far from me that it
did not seem real,” he said. “When
it happens in your own backyard,
your own city, it is like, ‘Jeez, what
can I do?’ ”
“I am pro-Second Amendment,
but I am not a right-wing nut job,”
he added.
Posts on Facebook amplified
the sense of siege in Kenosha by
spreading false rumors that mur-
derous gangs from Milwaukee,
Minneapolis and Chicago were
coming to ransack the city of
100,000 people.
Jennifer Rusch, 47, a hair styl-
ist, clicked on Mr. Mathewson’s
webpage to find armed men to
protect her business. “Facebook
had a lot to do with making every-
body hysterical,” she said. “Now
we know 99 percent of it was lies.”
People messaged Mr. Mathew-
son from around Wisconsin and
other states, asking where to de-
ploy. He could not handle the ava-
lanche of responses flooding his
cellphone, he said.
“People thought we had some
kind of command staff or a struc-
ture, but it was really just a gen-
eral call to arms” meant mostly
for his neighbors, Mr. Mathewson
said.Jerry Grimson, 56, a former
campaign manager for Mr. Math-
ewson during his run for al-
derman, responded by organizing
his own neighbors to come out.
“There was no way we were going
to let people burn down our
homes,” he said.
That night, Mr. Mathewson
stuck to the entrance of his subdi-
vision, WhiteCaps, at least seven
miles from the city center. Photo-
graphs show him wearing a baggy
red Chuck Norris T-shirt and
knee-length camouflage shorts,
with a rifle slung over his chest.
He passed the early evening sit-
ting outside on a lawn chair with
some armed neighbors and then
went to bed early. “I kind of felt a
little bad that I got this in motion,
but then I was home by 9,” he said.
While he slept, downtown Ke-
nosha boiled over.
Witnesses blamed the violent
disarray partly on the fact that
many gunmen downtown were
strangers to one another, with
some on rooftops acting as spot-
ters to call in reinforcements and
no one in command.
To Raymond K. Roberts, a real
estate investor and six-year Army
veteran who monitored the vigi-
lantes, the parade of jacked-up
pickup trucks filled with armed
men resembled Afghanistan. Henoticed that law enforcement offi-
cers largely ignored the men.
The gunmen never seemed to
realize that all of the combat
weaponry made Black residents
like himself uneasy, Mr. Roberts
said, and that the community
would have preferred to protect it-
self. “They just had this assump-
tion that we don’t exist,” he said.
As tensions surged, with pro-
testers and armed enforcers tus-
sling, the authorities say that Kyle
Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from
nearby Illinois, opened fire with a
military-style semiautomatic ri-
fle, killing two protesters and seri-
ously wounding a third. He faces
homicide charges and has become
a poster boy for the far right.
Mr. Mathewson says he re-
mains unsure which armed men
downtown responded to his call,
and he denied having any contact
with Mr. Rittenhouse.
Longtime Kenosha residents
said they were conflicted over Mr.
Mathewson, with his behavior an-
gering some and others praising
his years as an independent
watchdog. Fans noted that he had
chased down surveillance videos
that exposed bad police behavior
and, before leaving his alderman
post in 2017, pushed for police
body cameras that have still not
been bought. But critics said he
had turned himself into a nuisance
by transforming political differ-
ences into personal vendettas.
Angie Aker, a community activ-
ist, initiated a criminal complaint
against him as an accessory to the
protest deaths. “I think he invited
people in who were looking for a
reason to shoot,” she said. There is
also a federal lawsuit that names
Mr. Mathewson, along with Mr.
Rittenhouse and Facebook,
among others, for depriving the
four plaintiffs of their civil rights;
one is the partner of a victim and
the three others allege that armed
men assaulted them.
Mr. Mathewson said what he
did was covered by free speech.
After the shootings, Facebook
barred Mr. Mathewson for life, re-
moving his personal and profes-
sional pages. He said he lost 13
years of photo archives, including
videos of his daughter and son
taking their first steps and a me-
morial page for his mother.
Mr. Mathewson said that for
now, he had no plans to revive the
Kenosha Guard. His wife has had
enough of the spotlight, he said,
with his phone ringing contin-
ually.
“I am getting love and hate from
all over the country,” he said.When a Call to Action Is a Facebook Post Away
After Kevin Mathewson, left,
made an appeal on Facebook
to his neighbors in Kenosha,
Wis., to “take up arms to de-
fend out City tonight from the
evil thugs,” on Aug. 25, people
carrying rifles gathered.STEPHEN MATUREN/REUTERSLYNDON FRENCH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESJennifer Rusch, saying that Facebook stoked hysteria, sought
armed men on Mr. Mathewson’s website to protect her business.
Ray Roberts said that the police largely ignored the vigilantes.LYNDON FRENCH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESFrom Page A1LYNDON FRENCH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESFor much of Mayor Bill de Bla-
sio’s second and final term, it
seemed a foregone conclusion
that New York City had not seen
the last of his family. His wife,
Chirlane McCray, was openly toy-
ing with the idea of running for
public office.
Earlier this year, she narrowed
her sights to one office: Brooklyn
borough president.
But that was before New York
City was shaken by protests
against discriminatory policing
and battered by the coronavirus,
and the resulting fallout — a rise
in shootings and homicides, huge
revenue shortfalls and shuttered
schools and businesses — has
vexed Mr. de Blasio, all but ce-
menting his unpopularity with
voters.
Ms. McCray has also invited
scrutiny through her leadership of
ThriveNYC, a nearly $1 billion
mental health initiative that has
been criticized as wasteful, overly
ambitious and lacking any tools to
measure its success.
With the viability of a political
campaign suddenly in doubt, Ms.
McCray said on Thursday that she
would not be running for office
next year and planned instead to
focus on the city’s recovery during
Mr. de Blasio’s final year as mayor.
To many, the announcement felt
like the beginning of the end of the
de Blasio era in New York.
“We have a horrible economic
downturn, the pandemic, and
schools are in flux,” said Robert
Cornegy Jr., a councilman from
Brooklyn who is running for the
borough’s presidency. “That’s not
helpful to the case for electing the
mayor’s wife.”
Until recently, it seemed as if
Ms. McCray was expanding her
visibility in the administration.
There was a $9 million effort in
Brooklyn to help new mothers. Mr
de Blasio named her to head a
commission to create more di-
verse monuments. She was also a
co-leader of a commission on ra-
cial justice that Mr. de Blasio cre-
ated in the wake of the health and
economic disparities further ex-
posed by the pandemic.
Recently, Ms. McCray launched
a podcast about mental health
with BRIC, a media and arts insti-
tution in Downtown Brooklyn.
“I became more comfortable
being out front in my role as first
lady,” Ms. McCray said in an inter-
view Friday about her activities
and decision to explore a run for
borough president.
Ms. McCray said she is proud of
the work that ThriveNYC hasdone, and she said she saw the
role of borough president as a way
of continuing that.
“I spoke to a couple of dozen
people about the fact that I was se-
riously considering running, and I
was pleasantly surprised to find
that there was a lot of support,”
she said. “Of course you can’t
judge by what people say, you
have to judge by what they do.”
But the pandemic seemed to
damage the mayor’s political capi-
tal. The mayor and Ms. McCray
had been calling labor and ecu-
menical leaders recently about
her candidacy, and the response
was unenthusiastic, according to
several people familiar with the
conversations.
“Her prospects of success were
tied to the work that the mayor
was doing,” said Antonio Reynoso,
a councilman from Brooklyn who
is also running for borough presi-
dent. “In some ways, the election
would have been a referendum on
him.”
The pandemic had recently
eroded one of Mr. de Blasio’s long-
est and strongest alliances: his
ties to the Orthodox Jewish com-
munity in Brooklyn, which he rep-
resented when he was a council-
man.
Some members of the commu-
nity have criticized Mr. de Blasioand Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as
singling out their community for
closing schools and businesses to
help prevent an uptick in corona-
virus infections
David G. Greenfield, a former
member of the City Council who is
now chief executive of the Metro-
politan Council on Jewish Poverty,
said he recently received a call
from a candidate for Brooklyn
borough president who wondered
if Ms. McCray would control the
Orthodox Jewish vote.
“I said that may have been the
case six months ago, but now the
mayor’s relationship with the Or-
thodox community is at the lowest
point it has been at since his time
in public office,” Mr. Greenfield
said. “I wouldn’t say it’s the end of
his administration, but its the be-
ginning of the end.”
Bill Neidhardt, a spokesman for
Mr. de Blasio, said the mayor’s
“multiracial, working-class coali-
tion in Brooklyn” is still intact.
“Despite what some elite prog-
nosticators have said, that base is
still there and it still strongly
backs the mayor,” Mr. Neidhardt
said. “It would have backed the
first lady as well.”New York City’s First Lady Drops Plan to Seek Office
By JEFFERY C. MAYSMore National news
appears on Page A28.