The New York Police Department has tossed out hundreds of civilian complaints about police misconduct this year without looking at the evidence.
The cases were fully investigated and substantiated by the city’s police oversight agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and sent to the NYPD for disciplinary action. They included officers wrongfully searching vehicles and homes, as well as using excessive force against New Yorkers.
In one instance, an officer punched a man in the groin, the oversight agency found. In another, an officer unjustifiably tackled a young man, and then another officer wrongly stopped and searched him, according to the CCRB.
The incident involving the young man was one of dozens of stop-and-frisk complaints the NYPD dismissed without review this year — a significant development given that the department is still under federal monitoring that a court imposed more than a decade ago over the controversial tactic.
It is really beyond time for citizen review boards to stop being “advisory” and to start having the authority to impose punishments directly themselves.
As it stands, such boards exist to give the appearance of doing something about police brutality, but not actually be effective at it, and that’s 1000% by design.
That’s if they exist. Mayors/governors/councils/congress keep shutting down inconvenient oversight wherever possible.