Mayor de Blasio responds to CCRB report recommending charges against 65 NYPD officers

Sixty-five NYPD officers were cited for recommended disciplinary action based on their actions during the Black Lives Matter protests.

News 12 Staff

Oct 19, 2021, 9:40 AM

Updated 1,084 days ago

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A new report from the Civilian Complaint Review Board shows hundreds of complaints and calls for discipline regarding NYPD officers, some complaints specifically citing their actions during the Black Lives Matter protests across the city.
In total, the board is recommending charges against 65 different officers.
The board received over 750 complaints relating to the officers’ behaviors over the summer. Of the 313 complaints cited in the report, 42 of them have been substantiated. The charges include abuse of authority, force and offensive language.
However, the board has also cited that 34% of the complaints could not be investigated due to being unable to identify the officers. The board attributed some of this to officers covering their names or shields and improperly using body-worn cameras.
Mayor Bill de Blasio responded saying the report means that the accountability structure is working and that in a force of 35,000 officers, less than 1% have complaints against them. He says the de-escalation training is working too.
The mayor adds there is still more work to be done and the report sends the message that even if just a small number of officers are doing the wrong thing, there will be consequences.
News 12 reached out to the NYPD for comment on the recent report and received this statement:
"Over the past fourteen months the NYPD has assisted the CCRB in their investigations by providing hundreds of hours of body-worn-camera footage as well as thousands of pages of records. The NYPD will move forward with the CCRB in the process of adjudicating these cases. Police officers are entitled to due process and may choose to go forward with an administrative trial where evidence must be presented and may be challenged. These trials are open to the public. Discipline is imposed based on a matrix of penalties that has been agreed upon between the NYPD and CCRB. Any discipline that results from a finding of guilt or a plea of guilty in an NYPD administrative trial will be made public in the NYPD’s online discipline database. The NYPD has made significant strides and continues to work toward making our discipline processes transparent. Like any citizen, police officers should be afforded a presumption of innocence until and unless proven guilty."
Once the NYPD serves the charges to the officers named, trial proceedings will begin.
To see the snapshot released of this report, click here.