A former CCRB investigator on why it is so urgent to vote YES on NYC’s Ballot Question 2

John Teufel
Nov 4 · 4 min read

This Tuesday, November 5, is election day in New York. Like probably a lot of you, I have not been paying too much attention to who is running for what in this off-year election. But if you were thinking of staying home Tuesday, perhaps using your ignorance or lack of interest as an excuse, DO NOT. Voters on Tuesday get to weigh in on one of the most important issues facing New Yorkers: police misconduct, and the ability of the City to hold officers accountable therefore.

Ballot Question 2 — if adopted — strengthens the ability of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (“CCRB”), New York’s non-uniformed agency tasked with evaluating police misconduct, to investigate cops based on complaints made by members of the public. I was an investigator with the CCRB from 2002 to 2004, and since then have kept abreast of developments affecting its mission and resources. I wanted to write this post to explain, based on my experience, why two specific parts of Ballot Question 2 are absolutely vital to empowering the CCRB and to ensuring officers don’t escape accountability when they break the law, as happens all too often right now.

First, Ballot Question 2 enacts one change that — back when I was an investigator — we desperately wanted to see enacted: it specifically allows the CCRB to investigate false statements made by an officer during the course of an investigation. Right now, the CCRB can only note their belief that a false statement was made, and leave the rest up to the NYPD to pursue.

When I was an investigator, we saw false statements all the time. In many cases, this absolutely hampered our ability to properly investigate a case. It was incredibly demoralizing — an officer would lie to my face, a lie that I could easily disprove, and I was unable to investigate that lie and pass my investigation onto the agency’s board. Officers walked away punishment-free, even if their false statements made a case essentially impossible to resolve. The “blue line of silence” is absolutely real, and the CCRB should be empowered to fight against it.

Second, Ballot Question 2 would increase the CCRB’s budget specifically to tie the agency’s employee headcount to the amount of NYPD officers. Does this go far enough? No. But even back in the early 2000s, before police misconduct was the hot-button issue it is today, we did not have enough investigators to thoroughly examine each case assigned to us in a timely manner. There are 36,000 police officers in New York. There are 171 full-time employees of the CCRB, and only 105 of those employees actually investigate misconduct. With numbers like that, it can take investigators years to completely resolve a case. As with all investigations, delay benefits the party being investigated — witnesses go missing, evidence is misplaced, people forget things. Upping the CCRB’s investigative headcount is crucial to improving its ability to hold officers accountable.

Ballot Question 2 does some other things: it increases the board size, giving the public advocate and the City Council more representation; and it makes the process of issuing subpoenas easier. Those are both good things, if not game changers.

The biggest problem with the CCRB’s legal structure and mandate remains its inability to impose ultimate punishment on an officer, a right legally given solely to the Police Commissioner. (I wrote about this issue for the New York Daily News.) Ballot Question 2 only addresses this in a backhand way — the Commissioner must provide a written explanation when he departs from the recommended punishment of an officer. My personal belief is that this is a largely cosmetic change that won’t do anything to stop the Commissioner from disregarding the CCRB’s judgment at his whim. But it’s a good reminder as to what next year’s ballot measure needs to be: removing the ability of the Commissioner to ignore CCRB and administrative trial findings and allow officers who commit misconduct to walk away scot-free and without punishment.

On Tuesday, November 5, flip your ballot over and answer YES on Ballot Question 2, which will help New York City investigate and punish police officers who commit misconduct in the line of duty.

If you support stronger civilian oversight of the NYPD, check out the Campaign for an Elected Civilian Review Board. They are advocating for important change in our city and could use your support.

John Teufel

polite homosexual. jokes, sobriety, law, garbage moralizing. follow me on twitter: @JohnTeufelNYC

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