Context After his prison release in July 2019, Rivera started working for nonprofits that aim to eliminate economic and racial disparities in Tompkins County's criminal justice system and volunteered to help homeless residents stay healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic. To brainstorm ideas to reform local policing in 2021, local officials picked roughly 40 people — including Rivera — to help them gather information from historically marginalized groups. Origin On March 29, 2021, The New York Post published an article that claimed local officials in upstate New York were attempting to follow an executive order by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reform policing in light of George Floyd‘s death by recruiting a “cop-killer” to work on their behalf.