More at the link.
One cop called a Black barbershop owner the n-word as he dragged the man out of his vehicle. Another explicitly told his subordinate in a meeting to target "Black males" for police stops. Another racked up a slew of abuse complaints while he rose to become one of the NYPD's top overtime earners.
These are just a handful of the hundreds of NYPD officers who have received multiple misconduct complaints from civilians—complaints that have been vetted and confirmed by investigations. Nearly all of these cops are still on the job, and most received minor discipline, if any at all.
Misbehavior is not uncommon in the department: roughly one out of every nine uniformed officers has a confirmed record of misconduct.
This information is coming to light thanks to last month's repeal of Section 50-A of New York's Civil Rights Law, a state provision that shielded police misconduct records for decades.
The records show that 3,996 of the NYPD's 36,000 uniformed officers have at least one substantiated complaint.
The most common known outcome for officers found to have been engaged in misconduct is "instruction," the least severe form of discipline, intended for those who "misunderstand a policy," according to the database. Many officers with substantiated complaints receive no penalty at all.
Pedro Serrano, a housing cop in Manhattan and an NYPD whistleblower, says department leaders have fostered a culture of impunity.
"They don't care about CCRBs. They don't care about how many times you got sued. They don't care how many times you violate people's rights. They just want your production numbers," he said, referring to arrests, summonses and other enforcement activity. "If you're a good producer and you do what you're told, you'll get promoted, you'll get to these specialized units, and you'll be forgiven for all your past sins."
Last week, a federal judge sided with the unions and blocked the release of records that contain "complaints that are unsubstantiated or unfounded, those in which the officer has been exonerated, those that are pending, non-final."
But in the CCRB's complex jargon, the term "unsubstantiated" does not mean innocence, merely the inability to prove guilt. The term "exonerated" means that the officer was found to have committed the alleged acts, but those acts were determined to be lawful, while "unfounded" complaints are determined to have no merit based on the evidence.
Transparency advocates argue that because the vast majority of complaints against the police go unadjudicated and unsubstantiated, the ability to see these records is crucial for police accountability, which is why the state law repealing 50-A was written to permit their release.
The New York Civil Liberties Union had intended to publish the entire CCRB database, containing some 81,000 records that includes all the unsubstantiated and substantiated complaints of current and former officers, but the federal judge's order has temporarily blocked the release of the database because it contains "unsubstantiated" complaints. (ProPublica's more limited dataset was obtained independently through a Freedom of Information law request.) A hearing in the case is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
