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False Confessions: NYC Still Struggles in Aftermath of Central Park Five


raymond-Santana-Confession-Tape

[This story is part of a series focusing on false confessions and filming interrogations published by Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. Read other stories in the series here.]

A 14-year-old Raymond Santana sat slumped in a chair, his arms crossed.

Santana sat across the table from then Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer and the police detective who had interviewed the Harlem teenager twice in the last 27 hours. Another officer handled a video camera.

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The officer switched the camera on. The time stamp read 2:30 a.m., on April 21, 1989. It was the first time a camera would be used to record any of Santana’s interviews with police, and Lederer read Santana his rights, making sure that the detectives had done the same earlier in the night.

"Yes," Santana kept mumbling in response, his voice barely audible over a growing din at the Central Park precinct station.

"Now that I've advised you of your rights," Lederer began to ask, "are you willing to tell me the truth about what happened on the night of April 19, 1989?"

Santana didn’t know it at the time, but the 30 minutes that would follow the detective’s question would seal Santana’s future and ensure his conviction in a case that featured little other evidence against him or the four other Harlem boys charged along with him.

• • •

In the United States, false confessions play a role in about one in four wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence. The confessions often come forth following hours of interrogation, resulting in a statement of guilt put on paper in front of the investigating detectives or, as in Santana's case, on videotape. Although technically a person cannot be convicted on a confession alone, it often plays a crucial role in a trial.

"Confession evidence is heavily relied upon by juries because it’s counterintuitive that one would confess to something that they didn't do," said Stephen Saloom, policy director at the Innocence Project, the New York-based nonprofit legal clinic that has tracked more than 310 DNA exonerations nationwide.

For Saloom and other reform advocates, a written or videotaped confession only tells part of the story. Capturing an interrogation from beginning to end, on the other hand, creates an undeniable record that ensures the veracity of confessions. That, Saloom said, benefits both the defendant and the prosecution.

Seventeen states – along with the District of Columbia – have already adopted some degree of videotaping requirement. Last September, the commissioner of the world's largest police force announced that it would adopt the practice.

Although New York City prosecutors have selectively taped interrogations for decades, the New York Police Department was supposed to be on track to conduct them on a regular basis in every one of its 76 precincts.

In October, The New York Times reported that only two precincts were videotaping interrogations of felony assaults and sexual assaults, the same two precincts that were part of the NYPD’s pilot program announced in 2010.

{pullquote}"It gives the prosecutor a greater sense of security because it shows more accurately than the words the defendant's state of mind."{/pullquote}

Despite its growing popularity, opponents still argue the policy will deter police officers from doing their jobs. But what goes into that job and the means used to get a confession can be just as controversial as the policy itself.

New York City is no stranger to the practice of videotaping suspects. In fact, the Bronx District Attorney's office is the first documented office to videotape confessions on a regular basis. In 1983, The New York Times wrote about how, under Mario Merola's leadership, the Bronx DA's recording policy led the way for neighboring DA's to do the same.

"It gives the prosecutor a greater sense of security because it shows more accurately than the words the defendant's state of mind," former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau told The Times.

Six years later, it was Morgenthau's office that led the investigation into 1989's Central Park jogger case.

• • •

NYPD first picked up Santana at 11 p.m. Complaints were coming into police that as many as 30 black and Latino boys were roaming through Central Park, harassing and assaulting bystanders.

Santana was soon joined at the police precinct on Central Park West and West 86th Street by Antron McCray, 15; Kevin Richardson, 14; Yusef Salaam, 15; and Korey Wise, 16. They didn’t all know each other when they were arrested, but all five were already in custody when police made a gruesome discovery in the park.

Officers found a female jogger on a path alongside a small river in the park's North Woods around 2 a.m. Near death, she was bleeding and unconscious from a brutal assault and rape. Police spent the next crucial hours trying to connect the dots between the boys they had in custody and the jogger.

Headlines across the country didn't wait until the jury's verdict to find the Santana and the four other boys guilty. In this case, the offense was clear and the case was closed: four of the five confessed. The four youngest spent at least five years in juvenile correctional facilities.

Wise, the oldest at 16 years of age, served nearly 12 years in prison as an adult. While there, Wise had a run in with Matías Reyes. Reyes, who was serving time for the 1989 rape and murder of a pregnant woman, was also linked to least seven other rapes in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Reyes apologized to Wise about an earlier fight. They talked for a while. After they spoke, Reyes turned to a correctional employee and said that someone was serving time for a crime that he committed.

Word of Reyes' admission eventually made its way back down to Manhattan, which in 2002 prompted the district attorney’s office to compare Reyes's DNA with samples collected from the Central Park crime scene, samples that never matched any of the boys. The test showed that the DNA was a match for Reyes.

The "new evidence, had it been available to the juries, would have resulted in verdicts more favorable to the defendants, not only on the charges arising from the attack on the female jogger but on the other charges as well,” Morgenthau wrote in a statement that prompted officials in late 2002 to overturn the convictions.

New city leaders had to deal with the aftermath of the exoneration. Less than a year into his first term as mayor, Michael Bloomberg released a statement on the heels of the court's decision.

"I know District Attorney Morgenthau has sought to see justice served, and I have asked Police Commissioner [Ray] Kelly to look at the District Attorney's findings to determine if any changes in police procedures are merited," Bloomberg wrote in January 2003.

• • •

Kelly took no visible steps immediately after Bloomberg released his statement in 2003. In fact, it wasn't until early 2010 — seven years after the Central Park Five’s convictions were overturned — that the NYPD said it would even explore how it might change how officers conduct interrogations.

It took another year for the NYPD to actually launch two pilot programs to videotape interrogations, one in the Bronx's 48th Precinct and another in Brooklyn's 67th Precinct. At that point, the cameras were only used for felony assault cases.

In August 2012, The Wall Street Journal followed up on the pilot program and found that progress was slow. Paul Browne, then the police department's deputy commissioner and spokesman, told The Journal that the NYPD would expand the pilot program to five precincts from the original two. That suddenly changed the following month.

Five weeks after Browne spoke to The Journal, Kelly began an hour-long speech to the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs by announcing that all precincts would adopt the videotaping of interrogations. The policy would also expand beyond just felony assaults, which Kelly said totaled around 300 interviews at the time, to include murders and sex crimes.

"We want to continue to stay ahead of the curve with the help of our recording initiative," Kelly told the audience. He was not specific about a timeline for implementation, nor has the NYPD ever made that information public.

During an unrelated press conference, Bloomberg speculated that significant progress could be made before his third and final term ends in late 2013. That gave NYPD one year to secure a $3 million grant from the New York City Police Foundation to purchase the necessary equipment to update antiquated interrogation rooms and re-train police officers.

{pullquote}A spokesman for the Police Department told The New York Times in October that the NYPD was rolling out the program as fast as it could but that only 28 of the city’s 76 precincts are even outfitted for videotaping interrogations.{/pullquote}

Almost 23 years after Raymond Santana and the other boys were taken to the Central Park precinct for questioning, Kelly and Bloomberg stood in front of the building’s glass doors on a sunny but cold late-March morning.

"Crime in Central Park is down by 80 percent compared to 20 years ago," Kelly said during the event. "This facility underscores just how seriously the City of New York and its police department take our mission of keeping this park safe."

A spokesman for the police department told The New York Times in October that the NYPD was rolling out the program as fast as it could but that only 28 of the city’s 76 precincts are even outfitted for videotaping interrogations.

Asked during a brief press conference after the ribbon cutting, Kelly said that NYPD would begin to roll out the recording program in Queens "probably" by the first week of April 2014. The other boroughs would soon follow, he added, as they continue to collect funds from the Police Foundation.

"We are assembling money, you might say," he said. "We're committed to going forward."

Seven months later — and with less than eight weeks left in Bloomberg’s administration —  NYPD is still only conducting interviews in the same two precincts it launched its pilot program in. A spokesman for the police department told The New York Times in October that the NYPD was rolling out the program as fast as it could but that only 28 of the city’s 76 precincts are even outfitted for videotaping interrogations.

• • •

By the time police first questioned him, the 14-year-old Santana hadn't slept for about a day. He was told repeatedly that he could go home as soon as they sorted out his story, and that any charges stemming from the night were likely to go to family court.

Santana said that the detective didn't start taking notes until the interview turned to the rape. The other boy, he was told, said he was the rapist. That's when his and the others’ stories began to change.

"They knew we were going to confess,” Santana said. “It was just a matter of time."

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT JUVENILE JUSTICE INFORMATION EXCHANGE

Federal Appeals Court Blocks Stop-And-Frisk Ruling, Removes Judge


Updated with statements from the city, Judge Scheindlin and mayoral candidates Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota. 

A federal appeals court today froze a lower court’s ruling that the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy was unconstitutional.

A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals also ordered that the judge behind the ruling be removed from her the case, writing that the "appearance of partiality surrounding this litigation was compromised."

READ THE RULING

That judge, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, ruled in August that the NYPD’s use of the controversial policing method was "indirect racial profiling.”

"We could not be more pleased with the Court's findings," said city attorney Michael A. Cardozo in a statement today. "This ruling not only ensures that the remedies ordered by the District Court — which we believe were unjustified and deeply problematic — will be put on hold during our appeal, but it stays the liability decision on the Police Department’s compliance with the Constitution."

Scheindlin also spoke out after her expulsion from the case, justifying her decsion on particulars in the case as well as for talking to the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin in May, which the appeal court innapropriate.

"All of the interviews identified by the Second Circuit were conducted under the express condition that I would not comment on the Floyd case," Scheindlin wrote. "And I did not."

When Scheindlin's original ruling came down, the decision was hailed by police reform advocates as proof that the NYPD had engaged in policing that disproportionately targeted black and Latino men. Democratic mayoral candidates during this summer's primary also took umbrage under the ruling.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg — whose office appealed Scheindlin's ruling — defended the policy. The outgoing mayor accused the candidates of using campaign rhetoric to score political points with voters and risking the city's strides in public safety.

Bloomberg also personally took Scheindlin to task for her decision.

"Think about this judge on stop-and-frisk," he said during a radio appearance in mid-August. "What does she know about policing? Absolutely zero."

The ruling has also been featured heavily during the general election, with Republican candidate Joe Lhota defending the NYPD from Scheindlin's ruling. His Democratic rival, Bill de Blasio, made significant inroads with primary voters, however, by criticizing how stop-and-frisks have been conducted under Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

"I'm extremely disappointed in today's decision," de Blasio said in a statement. "We shouldn't have to wait for reforms that both keep our communities safe and obey the Constitution. We have to end the overuse of stop and frisk — and any delay only means a continued and unnecessary rift between our police and the people they protect."

Lhota had a different take.

"Bravo! As I have said all along, Judge Scheindlin's biased conduct corrupted the case and her decision was not based on the facts," Lhota said in a statement. "The ruling by the nation's second highest court was an unprecedented rejection of both the result of the case and the manner with which it was achieved."

The now-stayed order Scheindlin had released also called a pilot program to place body cameras on police officers and installing attorney Peter L. Zimroth as an independent monitor to oversee the department’s use of stop-and-frisk.

The next scheduled court date for the case is March 14, 2014, three months into the next administration.

De Blasio, who has maintained a commanding lead over Lhota in various polls, has already vowed to drop the appeal.

City Council Overrides Bloomberg Vetoes Of NYPD Bills


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NEW YORK — One week after a federal court ruled against the New York Police Department's use of stop-and-frisk, the City Council passed two bills that aim to systemically upend how the much debated tactic is used.

Yesterday's vote in the Council to override Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto of the bill had some observers on edge.

Originally passed in an overnight meeting in June, the bill to create an inspector general to investigate general practices and policies passed 39 to 10 at yesterday's Council meeting. A second bill to expand the city's law against racial profiling was overridden by the minimum 34 votes needed .

"Today, the City Council listened to the voices of reason and passed legally sound and responsible legislation that respects the Fourth and Fourteenth amendment rights of city residents, while providing the necessary oversight to establish better policing practices," said Brooklyn Councilmen and bill sponsors Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander in a statement after the vote.

Minutes after the vote, Bloomberg vowed to appeal the racial profiling bill, writing in a statement that it would fail to stop profiling but instead is aimed at winning votes.

On the John Gambling radio show this morning, Bloomberg again focused his attention on the profiling bill and the likelihood of it becoming law.

"We believe we have a very good case in court," he said before adding that he'd likely be out of office before a court can reach a decision. "Just looking at the calendar, the next mayor will have to decide whether or not to continue the appeal."

Bloomberg repeated his opposition to the bill. He said that he already signed a profiling bill into law in 2004. Any and all stops, he said, are based on where crime is reported and the description of suspects — not Census data.

Unless a court does intervene on the mayor's appeal, the profiling bill is slated to become law in late November, 90 days since yesterday's vote. Otherwise, the inspector general bill will be law as of Jan. 1, 2014.

The NYPD inspector general would exist under the Department of Investigation. A DOI spokeswoman declined to comment on the bill's passage.

Whoever is appointed to the job at DOI will operate separately from the independent monitor assigned by federal Judge Shira Scheindlin in her ruling against the city two weeks ago.

"Let me be clear the IG is not limited as the court's monitor is to only stop-and-frisk," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, adding that the inspector general would look into any practices that the NYPD engages in, including stop-and-frisk.

Quinn has long supported the inspector general bill, but has been criticized in recent months for her opposition to the racial profiling bill. A Democratic candidate for mayor, Quinn has spent the last few weeks confronting fellow  candidate Public Advocate Bill de Blasio on the issue.

A non-voting sponsor on both bills, de Blasio on Thursdsay accused Quinn of taking advantage of the cameras by supporting one bill and not the other. He argued again that he's the only candidate who can end the "Bloomberg era of stop-and-frisk" by supporting both bills and replacing Commissioner Ray Kelly — whom Quinn said she'd ask to remain at the department's helm.

At an impromptu campaign event before the vote, Quinn accused de Blasio of misleading primary voters by calling himself the only candidate opposed to the policy's status quo or racial profiling — a charge also levied by former comptroller and the only the only black candidate race, Bill Thompson.

Quinn also vowed that under her leadership, Kelly would have to be willing to reform stop-and-frisk to her liking, calling de Blasio a "say anything, do nothing politician talking out of both sides of his mouth."

The profiling bill, Quinn said yesterday standing in front of a group of Council members, opens the door to conflicting court opinions between the local and state courts. Many of the legislators behind her disagreed with Quinn on policy grounds, but praised her willingness to engage despite their differences of opinion.

To some legislators, that difference of opinion meant that the body needed to continue the conversation beyond the vote.

During the vote, Williams said that none of the votes against the bill came from any members of the Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus. With 27 members, its members make up a little more than half of the entire Council.

However, at least two opposing votes did come from caucus members. Queens Councilman Peter Koo voted against both bills, and Bronx Councilman Joel Rivera voted against the racial profiling bill.

The idea that one had to belong to a minority in order to understand the issue of stop-and-frisk rankled some members outside the caucus.

"I vote on things that I have a role in — things I don't have expertise in — and to say you shouldn't vote with your own judgment because you're not a person of color, I think it's offensive," said Staten Island Councilman Vincent Ignizio.

"It's indisputable that thousands of people are alive because of the efforts of this police department," Ignizio said as he defended his vote against both bills. However, he also vowed to work with his colleagues to work with those in support of the new laws.

Another opponent to the bills, however, was less measured in his message. Queens Councilman Eric Ulrich said that he appreciated and respected those who support the bills but couldn't stand for a bill that costs taxpayers $2 million for redundant bureaucracy instead of paying for more officers on the street.

Briefly shouted at by an audience member in the overlooking public gallery, Ulrich shouted that he would not be intimidated, calling both bills "downright dangerous."

"New Yorkers will rue the day that City Council overturned these vetoes," Ulrich said.

Many of the bill supporters agreed with Ulrich and the other Council members who defended Bloomberg's veto that NYPD needs to increase the number of police officers, but the consensus among them seems to be that the bills would help improve policing.

"I think what we all want is a city where we're safe and our civil rights are protected," Lander said, noting that the debate has been "difficult and polarizing." Like Ignizio, Lander nonetheless thanked the bills' opponents for helping to elevate the dialogue.

While emotions didn't necessarily run as high at yesterday's meeting as they did when the Council originally passed the bills, when members made multiple rounds at the mic to explain their votes, many legislators noted the personal significance of vote.

Queens Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras sat at the front of the Council to explain her vote as important not just to her as a legislator but as a mother-to-be. The councilwoman is more than 8 months pregnant.

Ferreras called upon her experiences as a Latina and her hopes as a mother as reasons for her vote, saying that she knows her son is "coming into a better New York City" for it.

"My son and I vote yes," she said.

A Hunger Strike In Memory Of A Slain Councilman


geoffrey-davis-hunger-strike

NEW YORK — A decade ago this month, City Councilman James E. Davis was shot and killed at City Hall, ending a promising political career.

Now his brother is marking the anniversary of Davis’ death with a hunger strike outside City Hall to call attention to the need to stop gun violence.

James Davis’ brother, Geoffrey, 49, said he started the nonprofit organization “Love Yourself: Stop the Violence” with his brother in August 1991. But, following his brother's death, he said he changed the name to the James E. Davis Foundation.

"Everything is symbolic," Davis said in an interview on Wednesday outside a small, dull green-gray tent where he planned to spend 10 days, living off of energy drinks, water and cranberry juice stored away in a cooler. "I said I'm going to do 10 days to represent the 10 years with a 10-point plan and 10-day prayer vigil."

Pictures of the slain councilman, one surrounded by a flower wreath, and signs with messages against gun violence are displayed around the tent where Davis is staying near the entrance to City Hall.

Davis started his hunger strike on Sunday and will end it on July 17. A vigil scheduled for the anniversary of his brother’s killing on July 23.

It was on that day of 2003 that James Davis was gunned down by a political rival, Othniel Askew, on the balcony of the Council chambers, a murder that shocked the city and lead to increased security at City Hall. Askew was able to get the handgun into the building because he was with Davis, and was able to avoid going through the metal detectors. A police officer was also in the chambers and shot and killed Askew after the incident.

Before his death, James Davis, the City Council member for Brooklyn’s 35th district, was seen as a talented politician on the rise. In 1983, he was falsely accused of grand theft auto and beaten by police. Some years later, he became a corrections officer at Rikers Island.

“I have tried to turn that experience into something positive,” Davis said in an article he wrote for Gotham Gazette a year before his untimely death. “Now as a City Council member, I bring all my experiences together to help reduce crime and improve policing in the 35th district in Brooklyn and around the city.”

Geoffrey Davis, who unsuccessfully ran for his brother’s seat after his death, praised Mayor Michael Bloomberg for forming a national organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which promotes gun control. But he also said the Council could do more, and that "New Yorkers are outraged by the gun violence."

He said he was particularly outraged because “City Hall is not putting the money in like they are supposed to,” — and argued that the Council was neglecting youth by cutting fundamental programs that are built to keep children busy.

“From after school programs to libraries, to putting conflict resolution in schools so children can learn how to resolve their problems and differences,” he said. “All those programs can save lives, and we are here to send a message to City Hall that we are just upset and tired and fed up with it.”

He said he felt a strong bond with the children who were victims of gun violence, referring to recent a case where a 14-year old girl named D’aja Robinson was shot and killed on a city bus.

“They are all our children,” he said. “When the young girl was shot in Queens, that 14-year-old child, my daughter was killed.”

This, he said, is how he gets his therapy. It helps him feel more connected to his slain brother.

“I developed my own tool of therapy,” he said. “We are going to keep going forth with the peace movement, and that connects me spiritually with my brother because we were doing it together.”

The City Council did not respond to requests for a comment. However, the Council has not been absent on the issue: It has funded an anti-gun violence initiative for the past two years based on the nationally recognized CeaseFire model. This year, the Council increased the program’s $4.8 million budget by $7,000, and added a gun buyback program and a community development program for the city’s Department of Probation.

Davis said he is just continuing the work he and his brother started in the early 1990s, and he knows his big brother would be proud of him.

"Every time I look at his picture I know he is saying, 'go Jep, go Jep,' " Davis said with a smile as he remembered his brother and his old nickname. "He said, 'Hold me down. If anything should happen to me hold me down.' I am holding him down now."

Tony Award-winning R&B singer Melba Moore is expected to stop by Davis’ tent at 1 p.m. on Monday.

And on Wednesday, July 17, the last day of his protest, the Rev. Johnny Youngblood, the pastor of Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, is scheduled to stop by for prayer and spiritual singing with some church members.

Can Empty Prisons Be Repurposed To Help Ex-Cons Reintegrate Into Society?


Fulton Correctional Facility in the Bronx

ALBANY, N.Y. — As the state's prison population shrinks and former prisons in the city go empty, some advocates for ex-convicts say they have a vision for what do with unused correctional buildings: repurpose them for re-entry programs.

One group is pushing to transform the Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan into a center for job training, educational opportunities and housing for former prisoners. The all-women facility was evacuated during Hurricane Sandy and its inmates shipped upstate.

And, in the Bronx, another group plans to transform the former Fulton Correctional Facility, an imposing, seven-story structure, into what could be the city's largest re-entry center, complete with entrepreneurship opportunities and temporary housing.

Ann Jacobs, the director of the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said she knows of no other example in the country of a former prison being reused for re-entry services. "I think this is a bold, inspiring idea that will catch on," she said.

There is a certain logic to these plans. About 60 percent of the state's prison population is from the city's five boroughs, and advocates have long argued that it makes no sense to ship them far upstate where it is almost impossible for them to keep connections with their families and reintegrate into their communities once they get out.

Although advocates were displeased that the Cuomo administration chose to shut correctional facilities in the city — Fulton and Arthur Kills Correctional Facility in 2011, and Bayview this year — they see repurposing the prisons for re-entry programs as a way to provide inmates with services they need while keeping them close to home.

The Osbourne Association, a group long involved with helping ex-convicts to readjust to life after prison, is backing the plan to transform the Fulton prison.

“It was clear to me it was doomed. I said if I was going to close a prison, Fulton just makes sense,” said Osbourne Association Executive Director Liz Gaynes, noting that Fulton was a minimum security prison and that the state had an abundance of those upstate.

Greenhope Services for Women, Inc., an organization that works with prisoners at Bayview, hopes to reuse that prison mainly for housing for former female prisoners.

Anne Elliot, of Greenhope, said the stability of long-term housing could allow former female prisoners to get an education, perhaps even a college degree. "That will really extend the opportunities available to them,” Elliot said.

It is extremely difficult for former prisoners to find housing, and ex-felons are not eligible to live in public housing.

Elliot said she hopes that the Cuomo administration will consider the money the state will save by preventing recidivism by giving former female prisoners a place to live when they look at her proposal to transform Bayview. The property is estimated to be worth around $40 million. She said they have yet to approach the Cuomo administration about their plan to repurpose the prison.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

"An incarceration program is not an employment program,” Cuomo said in his 2011 State of the State Address. "If people need jobs, let's get people jobs. Don't put other people in prison to give some people jobs. Don't put other people in juvenile justice facilities to give some people jobs. That's not what this state is all about. And that has to end this session."

The comment was seen by many as a statement of purpose that Cuomo was going to shut down upstate prisons that can be the lifeblood of small towns. But when the administration announced seven prisons it intended to close in July of 2011, many observers were struck that of the 3,800 beds that would go empty, half of them were in New York City. And more city facilities have been scheduled for closure since then.

Elliot says the closing of Bayview put her organization “between a rock and a hard place,” because it was a women’s work release correctional facility located in Manhattan with direct access to the boroughs where most of New York’s inmate population comes from. Sen. Brad Hoylman of Manhattan has Bayview in his district and says the loss of the facility will hurt the rehabilitation process of female prisoners who were being kept close to home. Hoylman said he wants to see a "community based process" to decide what should be done with Bayview.

Groups that help ex-convicts readjust to life say maintaining close family connections is a prime factory in reentry and avoiding recidivism.

“People come out of prison with a strong desire to live a different life but they encounter a lot of barriers,” Jacobs said. “They usually don’t have a strong education, they are poor, housing is hard to find, they don’t have much of a job history. Having a criminal conviction can create even more barriers. They come out thinking, 'I have a scarlett letter.'”

A 2011 report by The Pew Charitable Trusts found that if New York reduced it’s recidivism rates by just 10 percent it would save $42 million a year. The current recidivism rate is slightly under the national average at about 40 percent.

The Bronx could use particular attention because it has higher rates of people incarcerated and on probation than most of the state: There are 4,700 Bronxites on parole and 10,000 on probation supervision, according to 2011 data from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The Osbourne Association envisions Fulton as a stopover for ex-inmates who need help returning to the daily routine. They will be provided with a place to sleep, counseling, medical treatment and dental visits all in one place. And Gaynes wants to make sure the community is benefiting as well: Local entrepreneurs will be able to take part in a business incubator program at Fulton as long as they promise to hire former inmates once they are up and running.

TRANSFORMING FULTON

Before being operated as a prison for 36 years, the building that housed Fulton Correctional at 1511 Fulton Ave., served as an Episcopal Church in 1906, a Jewish Center and Synagogue in 1924 and a nursing home and drug treatment center in the 1950s.

The Osbourne Association, which was founded in 1933 and provides services to over 8,000 people each year, had run programs with inmates at Fulton while it was a correctional facility. Nevertheless, the organization realizes that transforming Fulton would be a massive undertaking that will take years to execute.

Of the two efforts, the plan to transform Fulton is the furthest along, with Gaynes having reached out to local elected officials to get their support, including Bronx Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who inherited the prison as part of the state’s redistricting process.

Gaynes’ plan made sense to Rivera.  “She had a vision of repurposing Fulton for reentry programs, housing, job training, just this organic one-stop shop,” Rivera said. “So many inmates come back to the Bronx and without programs like the ones Osbourne offer they wouldn’t have the skills they need to get back into society.”

Rivera said he contacted the Cuomo administration and discussions began on how to make Gaynes’ vision a reality.

One of the project’s biggest boosters is Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

“I was excited when I heard about the proposal,” Diaz said. “I thought this is the perfect opportunity.”

Diaz said he knew that the state could have tried to sell the property to a housing developer rather than gift it to Osbourne.

“I didn’t want the state to auction it off or sell it to some developer," Diaz said. "We are turning this building into a symbol of renewal and perseverance just like the Bronx."

Gaynes said she argued the state would save more money by preventing recidivism over the long term rather than through a one-time infusion from selling the property. The organization says it is committed to spending $6 million on refurbishing Fulton, but that the overall cost is unclear.

Some of that money could come from the state. Cuomo set up a $50 million fund for areas where prisons were closed. Osbourne could tap into $6 million of that cash for capital projects. However, the organization will need to fundraise, secure grants and work with the community to develop programming that will be beneficial to the returning inmates and the local economy.

“The reconstruction could take a couple of years,” Gaynes said. “During that time we will work with the community. We’ve begun conversations with community groups, we want to get elected officials involved, businesses and we are hoping we can find an intersection among those groups.”

Gaynes said her hope is that, unlike in other areas where a reentry program would be scorned, the community around Fulton will not be put off because the program is replacing a correctional facility. But with the project just announced it is still unclear if there will be organized resistance to what Osbourne has planned.

“I think there will be an energetic process,” Jacobs said. “I know Osbourne is committed to working with the community and hosting programs. I think those types of things are always challenging to pull off.”

She said money may be the greatest challenge. “For all the talk about reentry over the past 12 years or so, there has not been much money that goes into it,” she said.

What Would A Police Inspector General Mean For The City?


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NEW YORK — The New York Police Department, which has over 34,000 officers and vast intelligence operations working to keep the biggest city in the country safe, has a number of checks in place to deter misconduct and corruption.   

They include the Internal Affairs Bureau, five district attorneys, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and the Commission to Combat Police Corruption, which the police and mayor's office say are enough to monitor the nation's largest police force.

Civil rights organizations and some elected officials disagree. They say those entities provide insufficient oversight and are calling for the establishment of an independent inspector general to review the NYPD's policies and procedures, often pointing to the CIA, FBI and 30 city agencies' own independent monitors.

The mayor's office, however, says what those agencies' monitors and what the proposed inspector general bill asks for can't be compared.

“We have more oversight than any department in America,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly at the reopening of the Central Park precinct station house yesterday. “I think it’s more than sufficient.”

Last week, election-year politics converged with the start of a federal trial to determine whether the NYPD’s policy of stopping, questioning and frisking people on the street illegally targets blacks and Hispanics. One of the outcomes was a serious debate over the idea of an inspector general to independently monitor the NYPD. 

The proposal was introduced as a measure to the City Council over a year ago but seemed to be moribund until Democratic mayoral candidate and frontrunner Christine Quinn said last week that an agreement over the bill had been reached among lawmakers. As the powerful speaker of the Council, she has the authority to bring it to a vote.

Bloomberg now finds himself battling against the public discourse surrounding the issue, calling into question whether mayoral candidates who support the proposal want to reduce crime.

“What we don’t know is what they’ll actually do to reduce crime,” he said at the reopening of the Central Park precinct station house. “We don’t even know if it’s a goal, and I believe that the people of this city have a right to know that their mayor will keep fighting to reduce crime.”

Supporters of the plan for an inspector general now have to convince New Yorkers that an unelected inspector charged with overseeing NYPD policy will rein in what critics say is a too-aggressive police force while also helping to keep crime down to historic lows.

What are the origins of the legislation? What would it mean for New Yorkers? Here’s a brief look at the main points.

Origins Of The Bill

The NYPD’s aggressive police practices — including stop-and-frisk and the widespread monitoring of Muslims, including at mosques and cafes — have come under blistering attack by advocates in communities of color. Civil rights organizations have also called into question the tactics.

A coalition of civil rights, legal and minority organizations formed a group, Communities United for Police Reform, in 2012 to demand a review of the NYPD’s approach to public safety in minority communities. They worked with City Council members Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander, both of Brooklyn, to bring about the Community Safety Act.

The legislative package calls for four key reforms: ending what its backers refer to as discriminatory profiling by the NYPD; curtailing unlawful searches; requiring officers to identify themselves and explain their actions; and creating the office of the NYPD inspector general.

That bill would establish an independent oversight of the police department’s policies, practices, and programs by an individual who has either not served in the department within the last ten years or at all. The NYPD inspector general would be appointed by the mayor and serve for a seven-year term, renewable only once.

Supporters of the bill say an inspector general for the NYPD would operate much like the 14 inspector generals that operate across 30 city agencies through the Department of Investigation. The proposed police inspector general would also operate within the DOI and report to the mayor.

But the inspector general being proposed by supporters of the bill would be radically different from the other IGs under the DOI, according to DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn. 

She said in a letter to Quinn that she could not support the plan for an NYPD inspector general, saying the bill “transforms DOI wholly and completely." 

The bill calls for the NYPD IG to "conduct independent reviews of the department's policies, practices, programs and operations." Hearn called that "highly irregular." 

Notably, the police Internal Affairs Bureau is listed as an "internal inspector general" for the NYPD, according to the DOI website. Other inspector generals under the DOI focus on municipal corruption. 

The NYPD inspector general would be responsible for submitting public reports on police department reviews; offering recommendations every six months; and accepting requests from the public for reviews. The inspector general would also have subpeona power to fulfill his or her duties. 

What It Could Mean For New Yorkers

Supporters of the inspector general bill say that it would increase transparency and oversight of policing and improve public confidence in the NYPD.The Brennan Center for Justice also has said that an inspector general could be a bulwark against violations of civil liberties. 

“As the NYPD continues its important work of keeping New Yorkers safe, the inspector general would have the mandate, expertise and perspective to make sure that it does so consistent with our constitutionally guaranteed liberties,” wrote Faiza Patel and Andrew Sullivan for the Brennan Center.

If passed, the bill would also allow New Yorkers to submit both written and online requests for reviews on particular NYPD policies or practices across the five boroughs. And while the inspector general can review those policies and practices, the person appointed to the seat would not have any power to directly change them.

“The bill will give DOI no ability to make, change, or implement policy or procedure,” Quinn affirmed on Friday.

Councilman Jumaane Williams — one of the bill’s lead sponsor -— said that the inspector general bill and the rest of the Community Safety Act are not meant to hurt the Police Department but rather to help it work with the people to keep them safe.

“Think about how much resources have been put in to bring one case or to cases to court,” Williams said to a crowd at Foley Square last week, blocks away from the courthouse where a judge began hearing arguments in a class action suit against the stop-and-frisk. “The average person does not have the ability to do that when they're wrong, which is the primary reason that there’s a need for proactive oversight in the NYPD."

Oumou Bah, whose mentally unstable brother was shot and killed in his Morningside Heights apartment after he lunged at police officers at knifepoint in September, said that the city needs an inspector general.

"There is no one body that can investigate itself,” Bah said in December. “It is only fair that we have an inspector general having to deal with everything that comes with such incidents. I have realized that the conflict of interest of what’s going on right now is unbelievable.”

Concerns About Higher Crime, Redundant Oversight

Opponents of the inspector general argue that there are already a number of checks on the NYPD and its activities: the Internal Affairs Bureau; five district attorneys, two U.S. attorneys; the Civilian Complaint Review Board; and the Commission to Combat Police Corruption. All of them review complaints of police officers’ actions.

Bloomberg has said the creation of an inspector general’s office would not only replicate responsibilities given to existing oversight entities, but also create a second commissioner by default. Bloomberg, who previously called the introduction of the bill as election year politics, accused mayoral candidates of “denuding” the mayorship of its powers and discretion.

The head of New York’s detectives union agreed with Bloomberg. Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, was quoted by the Daily News as calling the bill a power play by Quinn’s Council.

“I think it’s essentially a power grab by a segment of the City Council who are looking to have the authority to appoint their own police commissioner,” he said. “Quinn is willing to hand over that authority to them in exchange for support in the election.”

Quinn doubled down against the mayor’s claims that the appointment of an inspector general would needlessly endanger New Yorkers.

“It is simply completely wrong to suggest that the inspector general legislation will do anything to compromise public safety or create confusion about who is in charge of the NYPD,” she said, calling the charge “empty rhetoric.”

Quinn came out strongly in support of the bill the day after the stop-and-frisk trial began the week of March 18. While Quinn has said that she doesn’t want to see stop-and-frisk be abandoned altogether, she thinks the program has been overused and has created a rift between the police and community members.

The speaker has argued that an inspector general is a first step to healing that rift, and that it would improve the NYPD by independently looking at its operations in a way existing bodies currently do not.

“Those are entities that look at the actions of individual police officers," Quinn said during a press event last week. "But we don't, in fact, have a monitoring mechanism to look at broader policies and practices within the department."

In October, the New York Times reported that 30 out of the city council’s 51 members signed on to the bill though. The number is up to 34 sponsors as of late March. There is also bipartisan support: Queens Councilman Dan Halloran stood apart from the Council’s four Republican members to sponsor the bill.

“He’s been a prosecutor and a defense attorney,” said Halloran spokesman Kevin Ryan said to City & State in October, “and his angle is to give police officers that are on the witness stand as much objective credibility as possible to make it easier for them to be successful.”

Despite the growing support among legislators for the bill, Bloomberg has already promised to veto it once it makes it to his desk, which supporters argue can be as early as next month.

But Quinn made her own promise last week.

"I can guarantee we will override it," she said.

2013 and Beyond

The current Council may pass and override a mayoral veto with relative ease, but the bill’s footprint will be equally felt come January 2014.

In addition to 20 open City Council seats, a new mayor would have to appoint what would likely be NYPD’s first independent inspector general.

However, not all the candidates want that responsibility.

Republican candidates Joe Lhota and John Catsimatidis have both come out against the bill, while George McDonald said he wants to read more about the proposal. Independent candidate and former Democrat Adolfo Carrión, Jr. also opposes creating an inspector general office for NYPD.

The Democratic candidates are just as split. Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former Comptroller Bill Thompson have all come out in support of the legislation. Former Brooklyn Councilman Sal Albanese, however, called the inspector general bill a “shell game” that “punts the ball to an unelected official.”

Up until Monday, Albanese was the only Democratic candidate openly opposed to the bill. After less than a week of support for creating a new inspector general office for NYPD, Comptroller John Liu called the bill “a distraction.”

Liu told the Wall Street Journal that the real issue is stop-and-frisk, which he would abolish if elected.

“The more I think about it, the less sense it makes,” Liu said to the Journal. “I don’t support it.”

Kamelia Kilawan and Cristian Salazar contributed to this report. 

This is an updated version of the story that makes important clarifications about the differences between what supporters of the NYPD inspector general bill say about it and how the mayor's office views it. It also adds an extended discussion of the difference between the proposed inspector general and other inspector generals under the Department of Investigation. 

On Gun Control, Cuomo Trades Transparency For Results


 

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ALBANY, N.Y. — The landmark package of gun control measures that Gov. Andrew Cuomo championed and signed into law yesterday was expedited through the state Legislature with little public review.

The governor used his executive powers to suspend a constitutionally mandated three-day waiting period between when a bill is introduced and voted on to get rank-and-file legislators to act quickly to pass the measures. In doing so, New York became the first state to pass gun control legislation since the school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

But Cuomo's move to accelerate passage of the legislation angered good government groups, elected officials and the National Rifle Association, all of whom blasted Cuomo for using a so-called "message of necessity" to get the job done.

During an over four-hour-long debate on the measures in the Assembly yesterday, Republican member Steve Katz called Cuomo’s push for the bill a “misguided, egotistic notion that this will advance his presidential aspirations” and asked, “Why are we being bullied into voting on this bill without proper, responsible due diligence?"

Several elected officials in New York City praised the passage of the measures. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said state leaders "have shown that it’s possible to act quickly — and in a bipartisan fashion — to enact gun laws that will make our communities safer."

Members of the New York state Senate received copies of the 78-page gun control package shortly before 11 p.m. Monday, and had little time to digest the measures before they were called to vote on them. It wasn't until yesterday that the Assembly got to pour over the measures.

Cuomo said that gun violence constituted an emergency, requiring fast action by legislators.

“It wouldn’t make a heck of a lot of sense to announce a ban three days later and generate hundreds and hundreds of sales in the assault weapons in the state when we’re trying to ban those sales,” Cuomo told reporters on Monday. “If there is an issue that fits the definition of necessity in the state of New York today, I believe it is reducing gun violence.”

Cuomo has commonly used messages of necessity  to get major packages of legislation passed, allowing him to get a deal that was negotiated behind closed doors to a vote before rank-and-file legislators, the public or interest groups have a chance to react. Most notably, in 2012, he used four messages to push through a series of back-room deals overnight that came to be known as "The Big Ugly"

"Three days of debate, everyone has an opinion, it’s entirely transparent, we never reach resolution,” Cuomo told The Associated Press in December 2011. “I get 100 percent for transparency. I get zero for results.”

Russ Haven of NYPIRG, which also criticized how the measures were passed, said the governor had reduced the use of messages of necessity since taking office. “But for big packages and deals, messages are used to get bills over the goal line to make sure members don’t get cold feet," Haven said.

Cuomo has used messages of necessity 35 times since taking office — 29 times during his first term in 2011, five times in 2012 and once so far this year.

But he isn't the only governor to rely on the practice, even though they are supposed to be used in the case of emergencies. In contrast, Gov. David Paterson issued 57 messages in 2010; Gov. Eliot Sptizer used 27 in his one full year in office; and Gov. George Pataki used 84 in 2004.

Haven said he believes the gun package could have used some debating. “This wasn’t a bill where everything had been proposed and sitting around for months,” he said. "There are some really novel pieces of this legislation that I do think should be debated.”

An alliance of good government groups including League of Women Voters, Common Cause and Citizens Union (Gotham Gazette's sister organization) issued a statement questioning the need for such quick action on the measures.

“The desire to act swiftly on this controversial issue and put some aspects of it immediately into effect should not undermine democracy’s need for an open and deliberative legislative process," the groups said. "An open process would have allowed for a full public discussion of the many new elements contained within the bill.”

The package includes measures that would require mental-health professionals to report patients who they think may harm themselves; another that would prevent public access to gun permit records; and an expanded ban on assault weapons.

The updated ban on assault weapons takes effect immediately.

Gun Control Debate Intensifies Following Conn. School Massacre


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ALBANY, N.Y. — As the country struggles to make sense of the latest school shooting, the debate over gun control is gathering momentum in the nation’s public discourse and among policymakers.

Measures aimed at strengthening gun control laws in New York State — from microstamping to requiring a judge determine whether to take away a person’s gun license after being found mentally ill — have in recent years made it through the state Assembly only to be bottled up in committee in the Senate.

There are signs it may be no easier to move gun control legislation forward during the next session in early 2013.

Jackie Hill, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, said she was concerned that the racial makeup of the coalition in power in the Senate would shape their views on gun control legislation adversely. Senate Republicans and a breakaway group of Democrats, known as the Independent Democratic Conference, have agreed to share power; only one of their members is a person of color, Democrat Malcolm Smith, of Queens.  

“This is diminishing the racial impact of minority populations that traditionally have had problems with gun violence," Hill said of the power-sharing agreement.

She urged the coalition to take up the issue of gun violence as a way to fulfill their promise to working across party lines. "If they truly are bipartisan I think these issues should get a fair hearing," she said.

The Rev. Al Sharpton led a rally Dec. 8 with black lawmakers to protest the power-sharing agreement, saying it could disenfranchise voters, especially people of color. Before the power-sharing agreement came together, political observers thought the Senate Democrats would eke out a majority in their chamber and take control. The caucus includes 15 black and Hispanic members.

Eric Soufer, a spokesman for the IDC, said state Sen. Jeffrey Klein, the leader of the conference, and Diane J. Savino, a senator from Staten Island, supported the microstamping legislation in the last session and "will continue to support it. He declined to comment on specific anti-gun violence legislation that might come up for vote next year.

While at least three members of the IDC have publicly supported gun control initiative including microstamping, the issue could be a sore subject between them and their Republican partners.

Representatives for the state Senate Republicans did not respond to requests for comment for this article on Thursday and Friday.

In recent years, groups like the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation have been pouring tens of thousands into state Senate Republicans’ campaigns in an attempt to stem the rising push for legislation that would alter the process of buyng or,  owning  guns in the state.

Republican Sen. Marty Golden of Brooklyn was forced to talk gun policy while successfully defending his seat this year. Golden told Gotham Gazette at the time that he felt New York’s gun laws were “the strongest in the nation,” though he advocated legislation that would increase penalties for those who use guns in the commission of a crime.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, however, seemed to strike a tone of urgency in dealing with the issue. “While we don’t have all the facts and our focus must be on the victims, this is yet another senseless and horrific act of violence involving guns," he said in a statement Friday. "We as a society must unify and once and for all crack down on the guns that have cost the lives of far too many innocent Americans. Let this terrible tragedy finally be the wake-up call for aggressive action."

Cuomo, while a Democrat, has allied himself with State Republicans in the past.

On Friday morning, a previously scheduled interview with state Sen. Mike Gianaris, a backer of key gun control legislation, took place even as the news broke of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., where police say a 20-year-old man gunned down 20 children and six adults.

One of the Legislature’s most passionate proponents and sponsors of gun control legislation, Gianaris heads the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. He took over the job from Klein, who will share the Senate presidency with Republican Sen. Dean Skelos. It is likely Klein will have a wide influence over which bills come to the floor and who votes for them.

“Unfortunately, these incidents are an all too common problem. People have been crying out for a solution for years,” Gianaris said. The damage of gun violence has become an all too familiar sight for Gianaris whose district has seen more than its fair share of shootings as of late. On Tuesday two 21 year-old men were shot near Ravenswood Houses in Gianaris’ district—one in the head, one in the stomach.

Authorities said the gunman in Newton, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, committed suicide after opening fire on two classrooms. Lanza's mother was also found dead by gunshot wound at her Newton home; authorities say she was the first victim of the shooter's rampage that began Friday. It is considered the second most deadly school shooting in U.S. history.

It joins a handful of other deadly rampages this year that have led public officials to call for increased gun control. The other incidents include the killing of 12 at a movie theater in Colorado during a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises"; six at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin; and two in a mall shooting in Portland, Ore.  

State Sen. Jose Serrano, a Democrat who remains a member of his conference, said he thinks the issue of “common sense gun legislation” is becoming bigger than party affiliation.

“This has become so much bigger than party affiliation. You are basically on the fringe of any party now if you are against common sense gun legislation," he said. "We have all these communities clamoring for it.”

Gianaris said gun violence was one of the major issues that Democrats and voters support that will be subverted by the power sharing agreement in the Senate. “This is the exact problem with this arraignment,” he continued. “Republicans have opposed common sense gun laws since time immemorial. The people who won on Election Day believe in these laws. We shouldn’t deny them to the people.”

But Democrats wouldn’t likely be able to pass a number of these measures on their own; upstate Democrats have been reticent to pass gun control laws. Hill said she has some hope that the new power sharing arrangement t in the Senate might allow some Republicans to vote more freely and support the bills. “I do think some Republicans could be freed up,” she said.

One member of the new coalition could play the wild card on the issue: Smith.

The senator from Queens stood with his colleague, Sen. Jose Peralta  on the steps of City Hall in late July, advocating for legislation that would allow a judge to take away a person’s gun license after being found mentally ill. The bill, S.670, was Peralta’s. Meanwhile, Smith touted a piece of legislation that would restrict the sale of high caliber magazines. Smith also spoke up about his continued support of microstamping.

“The blood stain of gun of violence will only grow larger until we resolve at every level of government — federal, state and local ‚— to bring common sense and sanity to our laws governing firearms availability, sales and possession,” Peralta said in a statement Saturday.

"Now is the time and gun violence is the issue for Republicans and Democrats to do everything possible to find common ground," he continued.

Peralta wants bipartisan action on S.670, S.725 (a bill that would extend the exception that exists in New York City to the gun laws that permits be renewed every five years) and S.7829 (which would require background checks for sale of ammunition of any amount.

"I propose these bills as a first step toward bipartisan action on this matter of life and death," Peralta said in a statement.  "I urge that we take this up in the Senate as soon as possible and debate and consider other ways to end the gun violence and bloodshed."

Some of those bills Democrats are proposing include one that would limit gun sales to one gun a month per customer, a bill that would force background checks on gun store employees and microstamping — a technology that puts identifying marks on bullets fired from guns with the technology. “The gun lobby is unreasonably opposed to these ideas,” Gianaris said.

These sort of bills have traditionally passed the heavily Democratic Assembly only to be bottled up in committee in the Senate. Microstamping legislation did finally make it to a vote in the chamber, only to fail. A number of state law enforcement groups support microstamping while that and other measures are opposed by the NRA and other state gun groups.

Serrano said he thinks the shooting in Newton will make gun laws a priority in the next session. “In many peoples' minds this is at near the top”,he said. “What happened today hit so close to home. It was so near by, it wasn't something in Arizona but right here in the tri-state area. I think this is going to make people say, “we can’t put this off.”

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Image courtesy Patrick Feller, used under Creative Commons license.

Some Question Whether Police Watchdog Has Enough Muscle


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NEW YORK — Even with new rules governing how it will prosecute officers in some misconduct cases, advocates and law experts question whether the city's police watchdog agency will have sufficient oversight authority over one of the country's largest police forces.

The rules set forth guidelines for how the Civilian Complaint Review Board will handle prosecutions according to the landmark memorandum of understanding between the agency and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly that was signed in April.

They were adopted at the CCRB’s public meeting yesterday, and will become law in 30 days after being published in the City Record.

The agreement emerged after the police department faced increasing criticism over its tactics aimed at containing the Occupy Wall Street protests and its “stop-and-frisk” anti-crime measures, which critics say unfairly target blacks and Latinos.  

"Stop-and-frisk" has brought a rash of complaints before the board over the past few years, though the number of such complaints actually dropped 10 percent between 2010 and 2011, according to the CCRB.

Nevertheless, the agreement between the NYPD and the CCRB has not been embraced as the final panacea to solve all the concerns about oversight of the more than 34,000-member police force.

Christopher Dunn, associate legal director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in an email yesterday that the rules adopted at yesterday's meeting were "just a cut-and-paste" of the memorandum of understanding.

In testimony at a public hearing on the rules held in Brooklyn on Nov. 28, Dunn reiterated his organization's position that the agreement does not go far enough in granting the CCRB, charged with investigating New Yorkers’ complaints about police misconduct, the powers it needs to hold police officers accountable for proven misconduct.

Like other critics, he said the NYCLU was particularly dissatisfied  that the police commissioner would still be able to block some CCRB prosecutions. "This authority subverts the whole point of authorizing the CCRB to prosecute substantiated cases and should be removed," he said in his testimony.

Editor's Note: This version corrects the timeline on the development of the CCRB's prosecutorial powers, which were upheld by an Appellate Court in 2003, not struck down by a lower court as was previously reported. It also corrects that the CCRB has subpeona powers and that the NYCLU was concerned about the removal of a provision regarding the agency's public reporting requirements. All updates are in bold. (3:51 p.m., Dec. 13)

Dunn also called for the removal of a provision in the rules that require the board to adhere to “[police] department disciplinary policies and standards.”

He said the NYCLU believes this provision will limit the CCRB’s ability to independently prosecute cases.

The NYCLU also despaired that the rule changes took out a provision regarding the CCRB’s public reporting policies. There are no rules explicitly requiring the CCRB to regularly report the status of complaints to those who first brought them to the board. The NYCLU requested a provision that would mandate the agency to periodically report to the general public about the statuses of their prosecutions.

Citizens Union, the sister organization of Gotham Gazette, also called for more public reporting of the prosecutions in its recommendations on Nov. 28.

Alex Camarda, public policy director at Citizens Union, said he was disappointed the agency chose not to amend the rules according to the recommendations aired at the public hearing.

"What is the point of holding a hearing and going through the process?" he said in an email. "It certainly doesn't provide an incentive for the public to participate."

The agency regularly issues performance and status reports on its website that include statistics on complaints, case closures and disposition of allegations.

Linda Sachs, a spokeswoman for the CCRB, declined to respond specific criticisms of the agency. "We have a track record of accountability and extensive public reporting on the agency's actions," she said.

The CCRB investigates complaints involving excessive force, abuse of authority, discourtesy and use of offensive language.

The "seed" for the agency's new powers to prosecute police misconduct grew out of pilot programs that began in 2008.

Daniel Chu, the chair of the CCRB, said in the agency's annual report for 2011 that "benefits derived from these programs emerged quickly."

"Public confidence in the fairness and transparency of the NYPD’s disciplinary process has been advanced," he wrote.

The Evolution of the CCRB

“My father tried to put in an independent police review board. It was shot down in court.  The CCRB is a compromise,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., chair of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety. “It’s working.”

The conservative Democrat, known for his tough stance on crime and ardent defense of the NYPD, said the ability of the CCRB to use their own prosecutors was “a great start.” Vallone’s father, Peter Vallone Sr., was the long-time speaker of the City Council. The current incarnation of the CCRB was established during Vallone Sr.’s tenure as speaker in 1993, when David Dinkins was mayor.

Versions of a police review board have existed since the 1950s. Violent clashes between civilians and police officers at Manhattan’s Tompkins Square Park in 1988 triggered public outcry over the heavy-handed tactics of the NYPD. The police commissioner at the time, Benjamin Ward, admitted that police had in essence incited a riot by charging protesters and even clubbing bystanders.

The riots of Tompkins Square Park provided the impetus for the creation of today’s mayoral-appointed CCRB, composed of 13 members who are, as the name of the board implies, civilians and not police officers. The City Council nominates five members and one must be selected from each borough. Three are nominated by the police commissioner and can be former law enforcement officials; five are nominated by the mayor.

The March agreement to amend the CCRB is actually a proposal left over from the Giuliani administration. Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and the CCRB agreed to give the board the ability to prosecute officers in April of 2001. But it took several years of legal wrangling before a 2003 decision by a state Appellate Court upheld the agreement granting the CCRB "the revocable authority to administratively prosecute police officers for certain enumerated offenses."

It wasn't until the beginning of the 2008 pilot project that a CCRB attorney was allowed observer status at administrative trials; in 2011, the CCRB attorney took the lead and began conducting trials for some Board cases.

Whether today’s CCRB is “working,” as Vallone asserts, is a hotly debated issue. Even less clear is whether having prosecutors from the CCRB work on cases where the CCRB has substantiated wrongdoing is enough to lend credibility to a board that, as one law professor and criminal defense attorney put it, could sometimes “have no life.”

For its part, the police officers’ union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, has criticized the memorandum of agreement and called into question — as they often do — the CCRB’s impartiality.

The PBA issued the following statement from President Patrick Lynch:

Our problem with CCRB has always been first, their predisposition that police officers are always wrong, second, their inexperienced investigators who conduct faulty investigations that arrive at improper conclusions, and now those wrong conclusions will be prosecuted at these kangaroo trials.

Questioning the Change

From 2007 through 2011, the board substantiated an average of 200 cases annually that it referred to the police.  It received almost 6,000 complaints in 2011. Its current budget, a relatively modest $12,048,652, is billions of dollars less than the department it is tasked with policing.

Police officers can be put on trial by departmental lawyers before an administrative judge who also was a police department employee. This will still be the case even after changes to the CCRB become law. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly will also still be able to unilaterally block all prosecutions.

Jennifer Blasser, a clinical assistant professor of law and criminal defense attorney at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, said the agreement was "significant" because the CCRB previously lacked sufficient powers.

“The board would go through the whole process of fact-finding and interviewing and then it felt like it sort of died there,” she said. “If the Police Department didn’t want to pursue it, they didn’t. The accountability which the Civilian Complaint Review Board was supposed to impose on the police department in some ways was lacking because it didn’t have the power.”

One concern from a perspective of accountability, Blasser said, is that the administrative judge will still be from the NYPD.

But a seismic change in the outcomes of cases does not appear likely.

“It’s hard at this moment to say this one element [CCRB having its own prosecutors work on cases] is going to create substantive change in a culture of a police practice,” Blasser added.

Robert Gangi, director of the Police Reform Organization Project of the Urban Justice Center, was far more pessimistic than Blasser about the degree to which the rule changes would embolden the oversight agency.

“We’re very cynical about the value and effectiveness of the CCRB,” Gangi said. “An agency can’t be an effective monitor of the NYPD unless it’s outside the executive branch of government.”

The CCRB is an independent agency and has the power to issue subpeonas.

Some groups and elected officials have also called for the creation of an office of inspector general to oversee the NYPD and make policy recommendations.

Martha Rayner, a clinical associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, would like the CCRB to be armed with the type of data that the NYPD possesses with CompStat, the comprehensive crime reduction system that compiles a bevy of localized crime data. A CompStat-like system that instead helps the public understand policing practices could be beneficial, Rayner said.

Rayner does not foresee the current rule changes significantly altering the CCRB.

“This could end up just being an organizational restructuring, change without meaning,” she said. “The same systematic pressures that led to problems when the NYPD prosecutes a case may cause the same thing to happen when CCRB prosecutors pursue cases.”

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Image of police badge courtesy of GerritsenBeach.Net, used under Creative Commons license. Additional reporting by Cristian Salazar.

Council's Police Reforms Could Alter NYPD Tactics, But Face Hurdles


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NEW YORK — A set of bills that could dramatically alter the New York City Police Department’s tactics, including how officers conduct street stops, will likely undergo significant revisions before it can be brought to the City Council for a vote.

The bills, known collectively as the Community Safety Act, are the subject of a public hearing today before the City Council’s public safety committee. The Council has also scheduled public hearings on the bills in Brooklyn and Queens for later this month.

The bills would enable residents who believe they’ve been unlawfully stopped to sue the NYPD; prohibit officers from considering race, age, sex and other factors when deciding to stop someone; create an office of inspector general to oversee the department; and require officers to obtain proof that subjects consented to being searched after they were stopped.

The bills’ critics argue the departmental changes could have a chilling effect on police officers,  because they would be less likely to stop people for fear of being sued.

In June, City Council members proposed the bills in response to the drumbeat of criticism from civil rights groups over policing methods, including an increase in the practice of stopping, questioning and frisking civilians and the monitoring of Muslims by the NYPD’s intelligence unit.

Police “stop-and-frisk” practices have come under increased scrutiny over the past year, as reports in the New York Times showed a 600 percent increase in stops between 2002 and 2011. Critics argue that data shows the police tactic disproportionately targets blacks and Latinos, who make up 90 percent of the stops.

While the practice is legal because of a 1968 Supreme Court decision that held police can stop citizens if they believe they are armed and about to commit a crime, very few of those stopped under the city’s policy are actually armed — roughly one in 1,000 stops yields recoveries of weapons. Critics also question the legality of other policing methods, such as the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims.  

Crime rates have been brought down to unprecedented low levels over the past decade under the Bloomberg administration’s police department, led by Commissioner Ray Kelly. Both Kelly and the mayor have cited the low crime rate as a reason for continuing the practice of stopping, questioning and frisking civilians, even as they have acknowledged it may need to be reformed.

In recent months, all of the presumed mayoral candidates to replace Michael Bloomberg in 2013, including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, have called for reforms to the city’s stop-and-frisk practices.

But Quinn has not signed on as a sponsor of any of the CSA bills and is reserving her opinion until after today’s hearing.

“I’ll be going and participating in that hearing and will have more to say about this version [of the bills] and potential other versions in the future,” she said yesterday.

And the bills won’t budge from the public safety committee without the approval of committee chairman Peter Vallone, Jr., who is skeptical of the proposed laws.  

“It will change police work as we know it,” Vallone said of the suite of bills.

Over the last few weeks, Vallone has been openly critical of one bill in particular that would allow individual lawsuits against the NYPD. He cited potential costs to the city of more than $1 billion from a projected half-million lawsuits.

Bill sponsors say they will consider an amendment that would remove monetary damages from the remedies courts could award.

“I’m sure the mayor would take this bill to court, because he’s an adult and he understands what this bill would do to the city,” Vallone said, warning that the costs could bankrupt the city. “The city doesn’t have a billion dollars extra to pay,” he said.

Vallone said he thought many of the bill’s current sponsors had signed on without knowing the potential consequences. Vallone also noted the conspicuous absence of Quinn’s imprimatur on the bill. “She’s not on the bill and she has not come out in support of this,” Vallone said. “That’s going to be an important consideration.”

But police reform advocates expressed optimism that the speaker would support the bill package, and said the bill could become law even without the mayor’s stamp.

“I’m pretty confident that a supermajority of councilmembers support these bills,” said Udi Ofer, advocacy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

If the mayor vetoes the bills after the Council passes them, 34 members will be required to override his veto. Even the inspector general bill, which has the broadest level of support, has just 30 co-sponsors — less than the minimum necessary to thwart a mayoral veto.

Ofer said advocacy groups would be willing to consider supporting even an amended version of the current bill package, citing Council members’ concerns over possible lawsuits. The important thing was to reform the practice, he said.

“The mayor has also recognized that stop and frisk needs to be mended. Those were his words,” Ofer said. “And Commissioner [Ray] Kelly has complained that communities are not offering solutions,” he said, adding, “Well, here it is. The community safety act is promising solutions.”

The bill to create an inspector general for the NYPD has the most council support, with 30 cosponsors, but at a news conference held yesterday before the Columbus Day parade, Mayor Michael Bloomberg cautioned against it.

“I think if you want to bring crime back, let’s go politicize control of the police department,” Bloomberg said in response to reporters’ questions on the bill, which would create an office of inspector general to independently oversee the police department and submit reports on police practices to the mayor, police commissioner, City Council and public.

Currently, the NYPD oversight is handled by the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau and the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates complaints made against city police officers. Some critics claim the department’s current oversight has not been independent enough to stem incidences of police abuses.  

“If people aren’t happy with this Police Department and what Commissioner Kelly has created, and all the 55,000 people that work in the PD, I don’t know what would make you happy,” Bloomberg said, adding, “I think this Police Department is well-supervised, it’s well-led and the last thing we need is to have some politician or judge getting involved with setting policy, because you won’t be safe anymore. But today you are.”

The Council’s public safety committee hearing on the police reform bills is scheduled for 10 a.m. today, at 250 Broadway, 16th floor, in Manhattan. Hearings will be held before the civil rights committee in Brooklyn on Oct. 23 and in Queens on Oct. 24.

____

Laura Nahmias is a freelance political reporter. She can be found here on Twitter.

Image of police officers by cons.maximus, used under Creative Commons license.

An earlier version misspelled Udi Ofer's name.



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