By MY FRIEND CHRISTOPHER LYNN ESQ.
You should know that in 1993, I was appointed by then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and confirmed by the New York City Council, as a Commissioner of the newly created “Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB)” to represent the County of The Bronx.
There in the CCRB, I met Mr. Christopher Lynn, a lawyer, and openly Gay serving as the Commissioner representing Manhattan. Mr. Lynn later served as the Commissioner of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) and the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) under the Giuliani administration.
Christopher Lynn then served as my attorney during my tenure at the NY City Council in 2001 and then in the New York State Senate. He is my friend, my brother and has done a lot more for me than many of my elected colleagues and people who have benefited and been well served as a result of my political work and efforts.
Today I believe that it is important for you, my dear reader, to read an article by Christopher Lynn in Citylimit. His comments are in response to an article published on August 3, 2017 title “I am the Church, I am the State: Diaz faces younger voices in Bronx Primary”, written by La Shea Gallop, Jonah Muhammad and Jarrett Murphy. Mr. Lynn wrote the following:
“Rev. Ruben Diaz served with dedication and distinction with me, on the CCRB from 1993-to 1996. He and I spend hours and many nights going through reports and putting pins on city maps to see if there were any discernible trends indicating police brutality.
We found a problem in the 45 Precinct in the Bronx (young men not arrested but sent to city hospitals with stitches from police officers) and presented our findings to the full Board, we asked for an inquiry. They did it. When PO Livoti choked Anthony Baez to death he and I demanded that Livoti be fired.
When the CCRB failed to find cause against a police officer for the beating of an ACT UP gay activist (Christopher Hennelly) Rev. Diaz brought to the Board a video of the beating of Hennelly had it played for the full Board and demanded they reopen the investigation. They did so, immediately.
Rev. Diaz was not forced to resign from the CCRB. The “Gay Games comment, taken from an article he wrote for Impacto, was not relevant to work done on the CCRB, did not require or cause him to resign.
Rev. Diaz, apologized for the reference in a letter to NY Newsday which were publicized NY a staff member of Mark Green. The tenure of the Reverend on the CCRB, was praised by both Michael Meyers of the NY Civil Rights Coalition and Norman Siegel of the ACLU.
The fact is that after he and I were gone from the CCRB, the number of substantiated brutality cases declined.
The Rev. resigned, I believe because the interests opposed to his crusading anti brutality message began to dominate the CCRB. They were assisted by certain elected officials (Alan Hevesi and Mark Green) who tried to score points in calling him homophobic- thereby obscuring his great success at reducing police brutality (it was not their constituents who were being sent to the hospital with stitches by the police) and it perhaps for Rev. Diaz, this was to much. He never asked for thanks. Each day I served with him, I gave thanks for him being there.”
My friends these are the words of my dear, long time, friend Mr. Christopher Lynn.
I am Senator Rev. Rubén Díaz, and this is what you should know