The New York State Association of Chiefs of Police missed the mark in inviting former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke to headline the 2018 Law Enforcement Vendor Exposition. New Yorkers are increasingly asking for community policing, police accountability and humane treatment of inmates yet this choice sends the opposite message.

Between 2015 and 2016, at least four people died in the county jail Clarke oversaw. Last year, criminal charges were recommended against seven members of his staff in the dehydration death of an inmate. Other investigations of assault or inhumane treatment by Clarke and his staff continue.

Nor has Clarke been evenhanded and forthright as a public figure. He has used violent rhetoric about the media and made anti-Muslim comments. He has railed against the Black Lives Matter movement while saying nothing about violent right-wing extremists who have perpetrated more than 70 percent of extremism-related murders in the last 10 years. Clarke plagiarized portions of his master's thesis on homeland security and was forced by the Naval Postgraduate School to revise it or lose his degree. Is this man an exemplar of fairness, integrity and ethical standards that we should be holding up as a role model for our police force? Absolutely not.

Although listening to those with whom we disagree is a worthy endeavor, Clarke's own intolerance and abuse of power betray that ideal. New Yorkers should not provide a platform to a law enforcement official who does not support fair application and enforcement of the law.

Brigitte Arduini

Albany