NEWSLETTER

There are over EIGHT million people living in New York City. A lot of them of are felons, murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, gunrunners, petty criminals, muggers, drug abusers, thieves, or degenerates. Oh, and don’t forget those involved in terrorism, organized crime, and gang activity. New York has a massive criminal community that’s armed, coordinated, and at war with your property, safety, and liberty. It’s a regular militia of scumbags.

Then, in this corner, serving as the only shield between these predators and you, is the New York City Police Department. Forty-thousand strong, the NYPD represents a formidable army: Forty-thousand souls armed, organized, and trained to think of others as either victims or perpetrators.

When these two warring factions clash, paperwork flies. For every arrest a New York cop makes, there are a million negotiations and bureaucratic skirmishes. The Daily News, the Post, and Fox News at Five may inform the majority of public opinion of our cops, but they can’t lodge formal complaints, subpoena police officers, or instigate proceedings that could strip them of their badges. The Civilian Complaint Review Board, however, can.

Established in 1993 as an independent governmental agency composed entirely of civilians, the CCRB is charged with deciphering the truth about allegations of police misconduct. There are 130 badge-carrying investigators employed by the Board for this purpose. And just who are these investigators? Are they hardened experts on legality, brutality, and policing? Um, no. They are fresh-off-the-vine college kids.

AA Cop’s Eye View of the CCRB The CCRB is the single most demoralizing thing about being an NYC cop. Deep down, most cops will agree that there needs to be some procedure to file a complaint against a police officer. Every job in the universe has its bad apples. However, we resent the fact that all the investigators are civilians. The oversight boards of judges, doctors, and lawyers all include investigators who actually DO those jobs. Imagine a CCRB for doctors composed of people with no medical training. Sounds crazy, right? These crack investigators that stand in judgment of us are little kids dressed in jeans and sweatshirts with notes scribbled on a folded-up piece of paper. I was once “investigated” by a 22-year-old girl wearing shredded jeans and a nose ring. Many CCRB investigators don’t even understand basic law and are shocked when we tell them, “Yes, we did that—and it’s perfectly legal.” You’d think they would at least be up to speed on what procedures are and aren’t against the law. But here is what really angers us: A CCRB allegation is not considered “sworn testimony.” Thus, even if it’s blatantly false, the person who made the allegation can’t be brought up on any charges. Therefore, there’s no safeguard against or penalty for out-and-out lying. Anyone can say anything. All allegations, regardless of outcome, stay on our permanent records and affect our future career paths. A CCRB investigation never goes away. And if—god forbid—you’re involved in a shooting, the press is sure to say, “Officer Your-Name-Here has been the subject of several prior complaints, including two involving excessive force.” So, despite the fact that none of these charges were substantiated and the allegations came from career criminals who fought you after taking umbrage at yet another arrest, you’re painted as a problem officer. Every cop in the academy is taught the acronym FADO. It stands for “excessive Force, Abuse of authority, Discourtesy, and Offensive language.” These are the offenses that come under the purview of the CCRB. The first two are legit—we are taught to use the minimum force necessary and certainly nobody should abuse his authority. But look at the second two: How the hell do you define discourtesy? Some people say we are discourteous if we tell them to have a good day after issuing a summons. Some say we are discourteous if we DON’T talk to them after issuing a summons. And come on: Can you really “courteously” place someone under arrest? The offensive language one is also amusing: Suddenly hardened criminals are offended by the words “fuck” and “shit.” People can curse a blue streak at us and it falls under the First Amendment. We, of course, enjoy no such protection. OFFICER LEO FEARPINI

With few openings and the promise of an amazing resume-booster, CCRB positions are clamored after by recent Ivy-League grads. Unlike both the cops and the bad guys they concern themselves with, CCRBers are rich, white suburbanites with little to no knowledge of New York’s criminal underworld. Former CCRB investigator and native Oklahoman Jennifer Riley told Vice that “very few of the investigators are even from the state of New York. Their ideas about the NYPD are largely based on what they’ve seen on TV.”

There’s a two-year mandate for new CCRB hires, and most of them take off as soon as that time is up. According to one former employee (a young woman now studying for her master’s in an unrelated field at a prestigious grad school) most of her co-workers left the CCRB to continue their education or to find better-paying jobs. Their tenure on the board serves mostly as a conversation piece on their resume.

Supervising these transients is a team with an established agenda. Managers are often hired out of retirement from the NYPD or other law-enforcement agencies. If not former officers themselves, they are often related to policemen. Kind of a conflict of interest. Alice*, a former CCRB investigator who left the board short of her two-year commitment, says, “Because of their personal relationships with officers ‘on the job,’ supervisors almost never agree to sign their names to a substantiation. In fact, after working at the CCRB for over a year, none of my substantiations was approved. My supervisor’s brother was a high-ranking member of the NYPD. Go figure.”

Jennifer agrees with this assessment: “Of the 13 members on the board, the mayor appoints five, and five are appointed by the city council. You can be sure the city council appointees aren’t going to go against the mayoral appointees. The other three are appointed by the police commissioner, but guess what? The mayor appoints the commissioner! It all goes back to the mayor.”

But the bias on the CCRB comes from both sides. We talked to three more former CCRB employees—black New Yorkers who grew up in poor neighborhoods and often found themselves victims of what they perceived as subtle police harassment, if not direct intimidation. One of them, George*, told Vice that he joined the CCRB to “right the wrongs [he’d] experienced and to serve as a voice for those who could not speak for themselves.” That’s nice and all, but it doesn’t really embody the spirit of impartiality. George goes on, “As an investigator, you’re supposed to suspend your disbelief while interviewing the complainant. That means that you just ask questions without being confrontational about inconsistencies. On the other hand, my fellow investigators would go into interviews with cops ready to do battle.”

The CCRB’s investigations are made even more difficult (and suspect) by a lack of resources. Unlike the Internal Affairs Bureau, which has access to all police records and systems, the CCRB must file requests to see reports or other information. Jenn tells us that the NYPD went so far as to eliminate CCRB access to the arrest database, citing “privacy” concerns. “This hampered investigation in many ways,” she says. With so little physical evidence, most CCRB investigations consist of interviews with the complainants, witnesses, and officers involved in allegations. Investigators are taught to do a “credibility analysis” in which they inventory the elements of each side’s story to determine which seems more accurate and factual. But, honestly, how is a college kid with three weeks of cursory training going to penetrate the NYPD’s infamous “blue wall of silence”? They aren’t, that’s how. According to the CCRB employees we interviewed, however, the cops’ reluctance to speak was nothing compared to the lying and stonewalling practiced by the complainants.

Plenty of crazies call the CCRB to report that a cop has planted a radio dish in their head, but sometimes even legitimate victims have difficulty making their cases plain. Why would someone who has—for right or wrong—attracted police attention feel comfy speaking with a suburban baby? Put more simply, why would a black man feel comfortable talking to a white child about a complaint he is making against a white cop? According to one of our sources, “The CCRB investigators are mostly white people investigating white officers from complaints filed by blacks and Hispanics. Race is the most important issue at play.” The lack of common ground and shared experience between investigators, cops, and complainants is as big as New York City itself.

Investigators are sent to the communities and homes of the alleged victims of police misconduct. These are places where cops are forbidden from going without backup, and the CCRB is sending apple-cheeked college kids in with just a CCRB badge for protection. One such employee, a young, attractive girl from Rhode Island, told Vice about several times that she found herself in “a horseshoe-shaped housing project with a female co-worker, knocking on doors in an unlit hallway.”

Frank, another ex-CCRBer, says that the CCRB “takes all complaints—most of which are BS. I mean, the discourtesy complaints mean nothing more than that the officer used profanity. We’re supposed to care that a cop cursed?” Another CCRB vet concurs: “We’re talking about individuals who are mad at cops, mad at the system, and mad that they got caught with weed. But their anger does not equal a valid complaint.”

Still, a recent New York Post article said that the number of complaints that the CCRB received this year increased dramatically from last year. Until a serious scandal finally erupts, it seems the CCRB will truck along unimpeded.

CRAIG DERSHOWITZ
*Lots and lots of names were changed to protect the anonymity of the subjects.

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