Discipline Recommended for 65 NYPD Cops for Response to BLM Protests
A New York City citizen oversight board recommended discipline on October 18, 2021, for 65 city police officers over their response to Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in the summer of 2020, after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020.
The Civilian Complaint Review Board (“CCRB”) also discharged another 62 investigations of New York Police Department (“NYPD”) officers, but said it faced “unprecedented challenges” posed by those who failed to wear or activate their body-worn cameras (“BWCs”) during the protests and who were caught on other officers’ BWCs “covering their names and shield” and “wearing protective equipment that did not belong to them.”
CCRB Chair Fred Davie said that thanks to the work of his investigators, “we will start to get accountability for the hundreds of New Yorkers who were mistreated last year.”
The board’s recommendations included Charges and Specifications—the most severe disciplinary measure—against 37 NYPD officers for misconduct ranging from discourtesy and offensive language to abusing their authority, making untruthful statements, and using excessive force.
Those officers will each face a police department administrative trial, resulting in suspension or even termination. For the other 28 officers, the CCRB recommended less serious discipline, such as docking days of paid vacation or requiring additional training.
Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) praised the CCRB for its work, but he sought to cast the recommendations in a positive light by pointing out that the NYPD “is a force of 35,000.”
“I want to put that in perspective,” the mayor insisted, adding that he thought the relatively small number of officers recommended for discipline showed that “de-escalation training has worked.”
The NYPD cooperated with the CCRB by providing “hundreds of hours of body-worn camera footage as well as thousands of pages of records,” the police department said.
Still, the CCRB said it could not thoroughly investigate over a third—34 percent—of the complaints it had received because it could not identify the officers involved. That’s an increase of 24 percent in the number of such cases over the previous year, the CCRB said.
Source: Spectrum News NY1
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