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New NYPD Database Offers "Narrow" Glimpse At Police Disciplinary Records
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Mar 9, 2021
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John Minchillo/AP/Shutterstock
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Mar 9, 2021
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The NYPD released its first set of internal police disciplinary records on Monday, publishing an online database that critics say falls short of the sweeping transparency initiative that Mayor Bill de Blasio promised last year.
The release comes almost nine months after racial justice protests pushed state lawmakers to repeal a controversial statute, known as 50-a, that had for decades allowed police departments across New York to shield misconduct records from public view.
After an appeals court shot down the police unions' effort to block the disclosures, the NYPD vowed last week to publish a new online dashboard for active officers — akin to a "baseball card," according to one department official, that would list an officer’s rank, promotions, training history, departmental commendations and disciplinary history.
“Not just the bad things, not just the discipline, but also who they are, how much training have they had, some context, which is important,” Benjamin Tucker, the NYPD's first deputy commissioner, told reporters.
But critics of the department charge that the database that launched on Monday is aimed at bolstering the NYPD's reputation, rather than providing the public with useful information about police officers who abuse their position and violate public trust.
"This is a very narrow set of cases that leaves out an enormous amount of important information about officer misconduct," Chris Dunn, the legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, told Gothamist. "This is a union friendly release." NYCLU senior policy counsel Michael Sisitzky called it "fake transparency" in a tweet on Monday.
Unlike the database released by the Civilian Complaint Review Board last week, the NYPD profiles focus solely on cases in which an officer was found or pled guilty to department charges. They exclude pending cases and any charges brought before 2014, as well as those in which an officer was not disciplined, or may have faced a lesser punishment, such as mandated training.
Michael Raso, a lieutenant who racked up a department-leading eight complaints that were substantiated by the CCRB, shows up in the database as having no "applicable" disciplinary history. Sergeant David Grieco, one of the NYPD's most sued cops, and the subject of a years-long internal investigation, is also listed as having no previous disciplinary history. The database lists a combined 169 departmental awards and commendations for the two officers.
(It also buggy, and often recognizes an officer's last name, while returning an empty result for that person's full name.)
"This isn't transparency, it's a PR tool for the NYPD and a gift to racist and toxic police unions," Lumumba Bandele, a spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform, said in a statement. "The de Blasio administration prioritized going back decades to include commendations and arrests by cops while including only a sliver of misconduct and discipline information from a handful of years — all to shield abusive officers and the NYPD from transparency."
The release also includes a separate library of trial decisions handed down by administrative judges — and sometimes overruled by the police commissioner — since 2017.
In a tweet, the Police Benevolent Association, which sued to stop the release of the records, criticized those unsatisfied with the disclosures, claiming that the "anti-cop lobby got exactly what they wanted."
Following the repeal of 50-a last summer, de Blasio promised a "massive effort" to create a database that included "all records for every active member available in one place, online publicly.” The department has said it plans to add additional documents stretching back before 2014.
A spokesperson for the NYPD did not immediately respond to Gothamist's inquiries. Bill Neidhardt, the mayor's press secretary, said the database would be updated with more information in the coming months. "The de Blasio Administration fought for this court decision and we intend to see it through," Neidhardt said.
But civil liberties advocates said they had little faith in the assurance.
"The mayor has never taken a progressive position about disclosure of police disciplinary information," Dunn told Gothamist.
"They’re making a choice not to release the full data," he added. "Given the mayor’s newfound claimed commitment to transparency, one has to wonder why they’re making that choice."
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mayor bill de blasio
nypd
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50-a
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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