I first heard about the death of Darryl Mount Jr. in April of 2018. I had come to the Saratoga Springs City Hall to interview Mayor Meg Kelly for a statement on the recent sightings of KKK flyers downtown. A wave of outrage had swept across the Skidmore community in early February from when the flyers were first seen on the streets of Broadway. It was important to know how our college town's authority was responding to the matter.
During our conversation, Mayor Kelly mentioned that she had been working closely with the local police department--particularly with then-Police Chief Greg Veitch, to preserve the town's safety and ensure that this would not happen again. It struck me during our interview that I knew blatantly little about the city's police department as our local authority of protection. After our interview, standing on the steps of the City Hall, I googled the Saratoga Springs Police Department and fell into the story of Darryl Mount Jr.
According to multiple local news reports, 21-year-old Darryl Mount Jr. was celebrating Labor Day festivities with his girlfriend on Caroline Street on August 31, 2013, when several Saratoga Springs police officers reported that they saw him physically assault her. A police chase ensued, and the department's official report stated that when officers caught up with Mount, he was found lying unresponsive with severe injuries to his head, at the base of a 20-foot scaffold in an alley beside Northshire Bookstore. The officers at the scene claimed that he most likely fell from the structure while trying to flee. Mount never fully regained consciousness and eventually succumbed to his injuries in May 2014.
The purported sighting of assault that had initially sparked the chase was later denied by Mount's girlfriend, who repeatedly claimed that the dispute between the couple had been nothing more than a non-threatening drunken squabble and that she was uninjured. Furthermore, the police provided no video evidence or eyewitness statements to support their claim that Mount had indeed fallen from the scaffolding. No officers or people in the vicinity claimed to have seen or heard him fall.
Shortly after the incident, Mount's family and lawyers hired a forensic pathologist to challenge the department's unwavering narrative on exactly how Darryl had sustained his fatal injuries. The examination reviewed photographs from the scene, X-rays, and Albany Medical Center records and determined that Mount's injuries were inconsistent with those sustained from a fall. "The absence of any injuries to his arms and hands are inconsistent with an accidental fall, in which a conscious individual would have made an effort to reach out with his arms and hands in an attempt to protect his face and head," wrote Dr. Cyril H. Wecht in a November 2014 report. "X-rays of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis on admission (to the hospital) did not reveal any traumatic injuries. Mr. Mount's injuries are consistent with trauma sustained from a direct assault, i.e., physical beating."
Following the revelation of these findings, Mount's mother filed for a wrongful death lawsuit demanding for an investigation to be conducted. Then-Police Chief Greg Veitch and then-Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen repeatedly denied the allegations and declared that the department's internal investigation ruled out any foul play.
Over the years as the case remained unresolved, serious discrepancies between information originally spouted by Veitch and realities of the case crept in--most notably, with Veitch admitting in a sworn deposition given four years later, that no internal investigation into police misconduct had been conducted as he had previously stated. This was also admitted by Officer Tyler McIntosh, who had reportedly pursued Mount into the alley during the chase.
In the nearly seven years that have followed, local community organizers and advocates have sustained their public outrage against Mount's wrongful death. They continue to petition, campaign, and peacefully protest for a full, independent investigation into the actions of the police, coroner, city officials, and other court and law enforcement before and since the Darryl Mount case of 2013. As of today, no concrete action has been taken on the case since 2014, a lawsuit is still pending for settlement or jury trial, and none of the officers involved have been taken to task. Veitch resigned on his own accord bearing no consequences in May 2019. He has recently published his debut book on--in a case of bitter irony--famous and unresolved crimes in Saratoga Springs through the years.
Every step of Darryl Mount Jr.'s tragic death indicates oversight, lack of accountability, negligence, deception, obstruction of justice, and complete disregard for a young Black man's life. So when the Saratoga Springs Police Department released a public statement on May 29 this year, commenting on the senseless murder of George Floyd and stating that "it is a priority of the Saratoga Springs Police Department to treat everyone with respect and dignity," the unresolved case of Darryl Mount Jr. bubbled to the surface with renewed vigor. It begs the question of why an investigation was denied in the first place if indeed there was nothing to hide. It begs the question of how much longer community organizers, activists, and Mount's own family will have to shed light on this case until it can be respectfully addressed and resolved with reparations made to the family.
In light of the increased pressure for colleges across the country to divest from their corresponding local police departments, I contacted Donna Ng, Vice President of Finance and Administration, to inquire about Skidmore College's current working relationship with the Saratoga Springs Police Department. According to Ms. Ng, although the college does not fund, invest in, or have any financial relationship with the department, it is required by NYS Executive Law 129-A to have a written agreement with the department to report any violent felony offense and missing students to them. The college also notifies individuals reporting a sexual assault of their option to report the matter to law enforcement, the College, or both law enforcement and the College. Furthermore, the college informs the police department of events with controversial speakers, protests, or large-scale events on campus that risk spilling into the city.
Till today, the college administration has not released an official statement addressing the case of Darryl Mount Jr. On August 31, 2013, students were just beginning to trail back onto campus and into the town for the beginning of their fall semester. When Darryl passed away on May 13, 2014, the school year was just trailing to an end. Jessica Austin was a student at Skidmore in 2013 and 2014 and revealed that she and her friends do not recall receiving a response email from the college about the happenings at the time even though the college had gone on to address other town-related news. She only recently came across it through the re-emergence of an online petition demanding justice for his case. The change.org petition titled Justice in Saratoga Springs: #WhyDidDarrylDie has garnered over 12 000 signatures at the time of this article's publication, in just over a week.
In becoming members of the Skidmore community, we unequivocally become members of the Saratoga Springs community. Their politics become our politics; their police brutality becomes our police brutality, shared collectively amongst us temporarily adoptive residents of the town. As the number of signatures on Darryl Mount Jr.'s petition continues to soar and as the case gradually gets pulled back into the wider public eye, Skidmore College should perhaps attempt to do more to address the overwhelming sentiment of unresolved racial injustice surrounding the events of August 31, 2013.
What is next for the case of Darryl Mount Jr.? What is our role as a college institution firmly planted in the town of Saratoga Springs? What more can we be doing to hold town officials accountable for racial injustices? And how can we play a part in guaranteeing that the events of 2013 do not repeat themselves?
For more info: SaratogaForJustice@gmail.com
Sign the petition: http://chng.it/FFcytTVDdV
Sources referenced:
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/A-death-in-Saratoga-but-no-internal-probe-13174766.php
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10156661640832938&id=213770187937