Plans Outlined Today For NYPD Discipline & Transparency
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this morning that steps are being taken to speed up the investigations within NYPD in cases where there’s a substantial injury to a civilian, and outlined how police disciplinary records will be made public.
The decision of whether an officer will be put on modified duty or suspended in cases where a civilian suffered physical harm at the hands of NYPD officers will be made by the police commissioner within 48 hours as a rule. The Internal Affairs Bureau will be expected to finish its full investigation about the disciplinary process in two weeks or less.
“People deserve to know that if an officer has done something wrong, that the action involving their immediate status is very quick, and that the decision about whether there will be further disciplinary action happens in a meaningful timeframe,” the Mayor said at his daily press conference. “It has never been this quick in the history of this city, and it has never been based on an open, transparent timeline like I’m discussing now.”
Regarding making public information about police discipline, step one will be that all trial decisions now will be published, effective immediately and that by July, step two, the city will “publish information on every pending case within the NYPD. Every case where charges have been filed – that is 1,100 cases – those are the ones in the pipeline now – we will publish the officer’s name, charges, the hearing date and the ultimate resolution when it occurs,” Mayor explained.
Lastly, Mayor announced there is a plan to “create a comprehensive, publicly available set of disciplinary records. This is historic because it will cover every active member of the police force— all records for every active member available in one place, online, publicly, all past trial decisions will be available. And any other formal actions that came out of those disciplinary proceedings, it’ll be online, it will be easy to use and to access.”
“This is the nation’s largest city, we have the nation’s largest police force, for the nation’s largest police force to take these actions, sends a message, not only to the people in this city, but to people all over this country, that we can do things very differently,” de Blasio said. “And transparency is not something to fear, but something to embrace because that’s where trust and faith will deepen, when people see that all this information is out in the open, just as it would be for any of us as citizens. [..] The goal is to use that transparency, to build a sense of trust again, to build a sense that we can work together, that it’s not one standard for some of us, another standard for others, but a single standard, and that is the basis for a new and better relationship.”