PROP Criticizes CCRB Report on Floyd Protests, NYPD Response
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 8th, 2023
NEW YORK, NY — On Tuesday, the NYPD released a response to a report published by the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) that analyzed complaints against the police department’s handling of the 2020 George Floyd protests. The Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP) released the following critical statement in response to both the CCRB report and the NYPD’s response
“During the George Floyd uprisings, New Yorkers from all parts of our city, from all walks of life, took to the streets to demand justice. As the NYPD has done often in the past, it confronted the protesters with the cruelest of ironies: having their protests against police brutality met with police brutality. The violent and aggressive actions of the police department were fully clear to anyone who saw videos of what many police officers did — and especially to those who were their victims.
Nearly three years later, one of the agencies tasked with holding police officers accountable, at least in theory, released a report documenting the investigations of NYPD actions during a two week span in May and June of 2020. The findings are unsurprising in that they confirm what we saw with our own eyes: videos taken by protesters and reporters exposing example after example of police misconduct. Misconduct, moreover, that was done with most officers knowing their actions were likely to be filmed and documented. What is surprising, however, was the unexpected realization that the joint CCRB/NYPD process for reprimanding officers is deeply flawed and inefficient.
While the CCRB substantiated allegations against 146 officers, only 30 officers so far have been disciplined. None were fired. In fact, of the 57 officers who the agency recommended for the most serious discipline (based on the discipline matrix that the NYPD agreed to two years ago), 18 weren’t disciplined because the NYPD chose not to. And the NYPD did not only let many officers off the hook, according to the CCRB report, the department obstructed the investigation process as a whole.
The CCRB wrote that “the pervasive and purposeful actions taken by officers to conceal their identities, such as wearing mourning bands over their shields or refusing to provide their name and shield to civilians, and the NYPD’s failure to track and document where officers, vehicles, and equipment were deployed, substantially contributed to 609 (43%) allegations of misconduct being closed as Officer Unidentified.”
Unfortunately, it remains the case that the CCRB is incapable of holding police officers truly accountable. New Yorkers should be shocked and concerned that the system for punishing police officers is so clearly insufficient. In addition & inadvertently revealing the problem, the NYPD issued a statement Monday in response to the report that was cavalier and insulting. Police officials not only stand by their actions in choosing to lightly discipline only a handful of officers when their abuse and excessive force was prevalent and documented, they huff and puff that the CCRB’s report was unfair to them.
If nothing changes, the NYPD will continue to deny wrongdoing, officers will continue to abuse & mistreat NYers, and the CCRB will be essentially toothless to do anything about it.”
