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Eliel Cruz
Under Mayor Adams, CCRB Report Shows NYPD Refusal To Discipline Abusive Cops
In response to CCRB’s 2024 semi-annual report, the Justice Committee released the following statement:
“Mayor Adams has become the police crime mayor, emboldening the NYPD and cops to routinely disregard the rights of New Yorkers and engage in violence and disrespect without consequence,” said Justice Committee’s executive director Loyda Colon (they/them). “The data released underscores what New Yorkers already know: under Eric Adams, the NYPD is increasingly a violent, rogue agency that acts with impunity and sets its own rules, regardless of the law, to shirk any pretense of accountability.
“Under Adams, there have been more cop misconduct complaints in the first six months of this year than the first half of any year since 2012, an increase from last year’s reporting which was also a ten-year high. In spite of this, CCRB was forced to close 616 complaints because of the mayor’s budget cuts.
“In addition to his budget cuts to the oversight agency, Mayor Adams has enabled the NYPD to shield even more cops from discipline by letting them rig the system: Instead of 18 months that the CCRB has to investigate and file most misconduct charges under the law, the NYPD has unilaterally reduced that time by at least 5 months by refusing to review certain cases that are filed within 2-3 months of the statutory deadline and delaying evidence from being turned over to the CCRB by at least 3 months. This is on top of the NYPD exploiting other rules in bad-faith to bury discipline cases against cops for egregious brutality.
“It’s clear that the NYPD is doing everything possible to keep its officers from facing accountability and discipline and is emboldened by the support they receive from Mayor Adams. The majority of New Yorkers filing complaints are Black and Latinx. As discriminatory and abusive policing runs rampant and CCRB complaints skyrocket, the CCRB must be able to investigate all of the complaints filed with adequate timing, funding, and power to do so. This is a crisis of police violence and New Yorkers deserve more from our city government - cops should be fired for misconduct, but Mayor Adams has given them free reign to violate our rights.”
Background
Following the NYPD’s refusal to turn over body camera footage for over 20 months until forced to by court order in the 2019 killing of Kawaski Trawick, the CCRB and NYPD entered into a new memorandum of understanding in which the NYPD agreed to turn over body camera footage and other evidence to the CCRB within 90 days. But this MOU has largely allowed the NYPD to institutionalize a 3-month delay, which essentially negates the first 3 months of the 18-month statute of limitations (SOL) that CCRB is required to meet to bring discipline charges for most incidents that don’t meet the SOL’s crime exception (which allows discipline cases to be brought after 18 months when there are penal law equivalents to the misconduct). Additionally, the NYPD is unilaterally refusing to review any charges that are brought against its officers within 60 days of the expiration of the SOL. With 90 days taken at the beginning of the SOL and at least 60 at the end, CCRB effectively has a year for its investigations, all while facing budget cuts that undermine their investigations of all complaints made by New Yorkers.
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