Civil Rights Advocates: NYPD Undermines Review Board

NEW YORK, NY — The New York Police Department has short-circuited a civilian oversight panel formed in the early 1990s by being blatantly dismissive of the panel’s investigations of wayward officers, according to a new study.

An analysis of the Civilian Complaint Review Board’s performance in recent years “allows for no other conclusion than this: The city’s civilian oversight system has failed,” the report says. ”It has been subverted and co-opted by the police department.”

Both police and CCRB officials called the findings released Wednesday by the New York Civil Liberties Union unfair and too reliant on outdated statistics.

“As an independent arbiter working on the sensitive issue of police misconduct, the CCRB has long received criticism from police advocates who feel it pursues officers too aggressively and from civil liberties advocates who feel it does not pursue them aggressively enough,” the CCRB said in a statement. ”By staying fair and independent, it cannot avoid these criticisms.”

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly accused the NYCLU of “distorting the facts.”

The CCRB was formed in 1993 after the city spent several years experimenting with oversight panels composed of civilians and police officers. Of the all-civilian board’s 13 current members, five are appointed by the City Council, five by the mayor and three by the police commissioner.

The report written by NYCLU Legislative Director Robert Perry says the review board saw a 60 percent increase in complaints filed between 2000 and 2005, to 6,796 from 4,251 — a volume that ”indicates that police misconduct is systemic.” At the same time, the underfunded and understaffed agency investigated less than half of the allegations and, of those, found the complaints valid only about 5 percent of the time, the report adds.

Serious cases referred to the NYPD for disciplinary action — including beatings by officers — often resulted in nothing more than a reprimand or loss of vacation time, the report claims. It also alleges that civilian investigators seeking to question accused officers or review police reports have been stonewalled.

Police brass treat the CCRB with “complete disregard,” Sheena Otto, a former agency investigator, said at a news conference. ”The system is currently broken.”

The NYCLU recommends more stringent oversight of the civilian review system by an inspector general, along with increased funding for investigators and support staff.

Police officials attribute any spike in reports of misconduct to the introduction of the city’s 311 telephone complaint hot line. They said the department actually has seen a decline in substantiated excessive force complaints — and thus a corresponding decrease in suspensions or firings.

The criticisms, coming in an era when the city has enjoyed steep declines in violent crime, are “sheer nonsense,” police spokesman Paul Browne said.