There is a black bench with a thin blue line through it that is a memorial to a fallen police officer in front of Beacon’s City Hall. The bench is in memory of former Beacon Mayor Randy Casale’s stepson, Dustin James, who died in a motorcycle accident while off-duty. At some point, there has been a call for and a decision to remove the bench. This article is the exploration of what has transpired so far.
To give context: we are in a time of a revolution. A time of an awakened civil rights movement for black lives that gained strides, but got quiet and complacent for white people. Until police videos of violence came along. The pandemic gave everyone time to think and re-evaluate. We have been through the beginning of the #MeToo movement, where women’s voices began to be heard and believed. We are in the Black Lives movement, where black and brown and mixed-race voices are being heard and believed. Monuments all around us are toppling. Monuments of white men who conquered and defined this country. Toppled by regular white and black and brown people who have wanted these personified statues of oppression down for years, but nothing happened (well, in New Orleans, they were removed), and common people have taken it into their own hands, literally, by seizing the monuments and pulling them down, or voting them down (the City Council for Charleston, S.C. just unanimously voted to remove Calhoun’s statue and construction of removal has begun).
Imagery is also in question. Flags, logos, colors. What means what, and what did it used to mean? Three weeks ago, the American stars and stripes black flag decals with a blue line through them that had been placed onto police vehicles in Cold Spring were called into question by residents of Cold Spring. This black stars and stripes flag with a thin blue line decal was used to represent the Blue Lives Matter campaign, a movement started as a counter-response to the Black Lives movement. The decals were placed onto Cold Spring’s police cars one year ago, which is past the time when proud white supremacists used the black stars and stripes flag symbol to protest in Charlottesville, VA and run over people with a van. For an article covering the vehicle decals at A Little Beacon Blog, we reached out twice to Beacon’s Mayor Lee Kyriacou, City Administrator Anthony Ruggiero and then Police Chief Kevin Junjulas for comment as to their opinions of the black stars and stripes flag, but received no response.
This black stars and stripes flag imagery however, is separate from the decades honored symbol of a fallen police officer, which is a solid black rectangle with a thin blue line. The black stars and stripes flag design is also a possible obstruction of United States flag code, which states that the flag cannot be altered in its design. The discussion for this article is on the traditional marking for the fallen officer, which is a solid black rectangle with a thin blue line running through it. This design has been inspired onto a bench which sits outside of City Hall in Beacon, with these words on it: “In Loving Memory Of Police Officer Dustin James.”
Today, there is a call to move the bench. The memorial to Dustin James. Who is Dustin James, and why is there a call to remove, or move, the memorial? As we do with many little details, A Little Beacon Blog looked into it. We were already pursuing the history of the years past federal investigation by the Department of Justice into the Beacon Police Department, when suddenly, Beacon’s former mayor, Randy Casale, broke his silence after losing the mayoral election to Mayor Lee Kyriacou, a self-imposed silence Randy enacted to give the new mayor a fresh platform.
A Little Beacon Blog has been working on starting a new podcast with known podcaster Brandon Lillard. While we were recording practice episodes and finding our voices, Randy fired up his Facebook to suddenly announce his disapproval of removing the memorialized bench in front of City Hall, the decision of which had otherwise not been in the public domain. We reached out to Randy for an interview, which he granted. The recording of our discussion will be published shortly on our new podcast so that you can hear his voice, but as local debates swirl around Dustin’s memorial, we wanted to share what of the story we knew.
Who Is Dustin James?
Dustin James is the son of Etha Grogen and Bryon James. Dustin is the stepson of Beacon’s former mayor Randy Casale, who was the life partner of Etha. Before being Beacon’s mayor for 2 terms, Randy served on the City Council for years. Randy served as Beacon’s Highway Superintendent, coached high school basketball and was involved in numerous community initiatives in Beacon.
Dustin James grew up in Beacon and had many friends. He and Etha came into Randy’s life while Dustin was 8 years old. Randy recalls bouncing him on his knee as they watched the show “Cops” together at night. “Etha would come down and want him to go to bed, and I told her it was alright, we’d stay up and watch together.” Dustin grew up wanting to be a police officer. Randy helped him pursue the police academy, and to make good choices while being a police officer.
According to Dustin’s obituary: “Dustin was a Police Officer with the Walden Police Department where he started his career 10 years ago as a dispatcher and was recently promoted to Investigator. He was also a part-time police officer with the Village of Montgomery. Dustin started his career dispatching in the Town of Fishkill. Throughout his career, he received numerous awards for his achievements. He was the President of the Walden PBA and a member of the Warthogs. Dustin also organized Walden's National Night Out for several years.”
Dustin was a motorcycle rider, and while off-duty when a woman ran a stop sign, ending Dustin’s life on Tuesday, April 17, 2017. Dustin was 31 years old and married to Maryellen James. The Highlands Current wrote about it at the time.
“I always told Dustin to be a good cop, and to not turn into one of them,” Randy recalled during our interview. “I never knew if he was until his funeral. When I saw how many people were at his funeral.” According to friends of Dustin, and confirmed by Randy, some people who Dustin arrested were even at his funeral.
Dustin’s friends took to creating a bench to memorialize him. They built the bench that sits in front of City Hall today that is black with a blue line running through it. The traditional symbol of a fallen officer, and a symbol of support for the family the officer leaves behind.
“I’ve Never Seen Or Heard Of This Bench Before”
Right. Neither had we. When interviewing Terry Nelson 3 weeks ago for his story about attending the first big Black Lives Matter protest in Beacon as an African American, he mentioned this bench with the blue line through it. Being new to this symbol entirely, and fresh off reporting about the consideration of the removal of the black flag decal (different symbol) from the police cars in Cold Spring (the black flag stickers have since been removed), a knee jerk reaction could be to feel negative emotions about the blue line. Three weeks ago, Terry said that the City Council had been discussing removing the bench for a period of time, and that no one had brought it up to Randy yet.
There was no ceremony or public discussion in City Council for the installation of the memorial, which according to Randy, is normal for memorialized benches. “It was placed like every other bench was placed. Someone calls and asks can we donate a bench in honor of someone, and the administration usually says yes.”
So What Is Happening Now?
Randy first learned of proposed removal of the bench from his friends who are police officers across the river. Mayor Kryiacou texted (or emailed) Randy to tell him that the bench was being moved. There was no discussion in any public City Council meeting or police related community workshop.
To date, according to Randy, the only person who has spoken to him in person about the memorial is Councilperson George Mansfield.
After Randy published his disapproval of the removal of the bench on his Facebook on June 18th, his Facebook friends went back and forth in Comments, with a majority in strong support of leaving the memorial in place. For those friends who did not know who Dustin was or why the memorial was placed there, or why the bench was being removed, things got confusing. Beacon, and politics in general, has been a place where names aren’t always mentioned, but topics are alluded to. It can get confusing to cover and figure things out.
On June 22, 2020, A well known community leader, Brooke Simmons, who is from a mixed-race family, wrote an open letter to the administration, protesting the move of the memorial, advocating for it to stay in place. Brooke is on the board of I Am Beacon and was on the founding committee for Beacon Speaks Out, a coalition that Randy formed after the killings of Eric Garner (2014) and Freddie Gray in 2015. While the City of Beacon’s police department was under federal investigation (which closed in 2016 under Randy’s administration), Randy wanted to get ahead of the racial divide and bring the community together at the local level - to an actual table in a room - to discuss. He brought together the then Police Chief Doug Solomon (Beacon’s recently retired Chief Kevin Junjulas was the Captain at the time), religious leaders, the City Administrator Anthony, and others. Not all parties were eager to come to the table. Randy strong-armed them. Brooke and her brother Reuben Simmons were part of the organization of that group.
Brooke started a Change.org petition to keep the memorial in place, and emailed her open letter all City Council members: Air Nonken Rhodes, Amber Grant, Jodi McCredo, George Mansfield, Terry Nelson, Dan Aymar-Blair, and Mayor Kyriacou. She also CCed media publications, including A Little Beacon Blog. The letter read:
