The City Council's Public Safety Commission held an oversight hearing for the first time, hoping to hear about the NYPD's Strategic Response Group.

The department did not show - instead submitting a written comment at the eleventh hour.

Before the meeting on Wednesday, the hearing was rescheduled multiple times because the department refused to testify.

In a written testimony, the department's director of Legislative Affairs said due to ongoing litigation about protests from the summer of 2020, the NYPD was advised not to answer any questions.

The hearing went on, and the Civilian Complaint Review Board testified that the board got more than 750 complaints against the NYPD from those 2020 protests.

A total of 320 of them were investigated and 15% of those involved an SRG officer.

Some of those victims testified today. 

Later in the day, the NYPD issued an additional statment saying, "While the 2020 protests in New York City occurred nearly three years ago under a different administration, the NYPD remains committed to publicly discussing the events of that challenging period...including the practices of the department's strategic response group.  Unfortunately, doing so at today's city council hearing was not possible, as was made clear to the council over the last two months."