Civilian Complaint Review Board - Handling A Complaint

Handling A Complaint

Each complaint the agency receives is assessed by one of the Investigative Managers on a daily rotating basis, and has its merits checked for proper jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is first assessed by type of allegations. Only allegations that fall under the jurisdiction of the CCRB are investigated by the CCRB. These include Force (whether use of force was justified), Abuse of Authority (which includes racial profiling, unauthorized searches and seizures, inappropriate entry onto property, etc.), Discourtesy (using foul language, acting in a rude and unprofessional manner, flashing rude and offensive gestures, etc.) and Offensive Language, which is more specific than Discourtesy, and includes racial slurs, ethnic slurs, sexist slurs, homophobic slurs and comments of that nature. Jurisdiction is also determined by the officers involved. As many types of officers work in the City of New York (such as the MTA Police, the Port Authority Police and the New York State Police), complainants encounter all of these officers in their day-to-day lives. Only incidents involving members of the NYPD are investigated by the CCRB. Cases that do not fall within the CCRB's jurisdiction are then forwarded to the respective jurisdiction (usually, the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau, the Office of the Chief of Department or the respective organization in question, such as another police department).

The cases are then assigned to one of 142 civilian investigators, who are members of one of 8 teams (as of 2006), who then attempts to contact the civilian who initially complained. After initial assignment, there are four conclusive dispositions that result only from a full investigation, and five other "miscellaneous," or inconclusive dispositions. These are Substantiated, Unsubstantiated, Exonerated and Unfounded along with Complainant Uncooperative, Complainant Unavailable, Officers Unidentified, Miscellaneous (i.e. the MOS has retired since the incident occurred) and Mediated, respectively. If contact with the civilian complainant is not achieved after five contact attempts by telephone and two letters by mail, and the contact information is confirmed the case is automatically closed with a disposition of, "Complainant Uncooperative." If the civilian can not be located after a diligent search and/or did not provide accurate or correct contact information, the case is automatically closed as, "Complainant Unavailable." These types of cases are not considered, "full investigations," but are tallied together with the total number of complaints for statistical purposes. It should be noted that while not stated on their web page, all communications with Investigators and both civilians and Members of Service are tape recorded as well as transcribed, to ensure accuracy. Additionally, contrary to popular (and occasionally published belief, see a former CCRB Investigator's misstatements and an Officer's misunderstanding in Vice Magazine's article on the CCRB), all statements made to a CCRB Investigator on the record are considered sworn testimony, and are treated as such legally. All Investigators are Commissioners of Deeds by requirement and may depose anyone within New York City limits.

If the civilian is contacted, a statement is initially taken over the phone by the investigator to further ensure proper jurisdiction and to gain a basic understanding of the broad facts within the complaint. An in-person interview is then scheduled at the CCRB's office at 40 Rector Street, at which point, the investigator meets with the civilian and any witnesses s/he brings with them that were present at the time of the incident and interviews each person separately. The investigator then transcribes the interview, submits a, "case plan," to one of their three supervisors (each team having an Assistant Supervising Investigator, a Supervising Investigator and an Investigative Manager). Once the case plan is approved, the investigator must then begin their investigation, which involves identifying all subject and witness officers involved. If the investigator fails to identify the officers, the case is closed as, "Officers Unidentified." Once the officers are identified, which is done by obtaining a variety of NYPD documents, including SPRINTS/911 tapes to identify which officer(s) responded to the call in question, roll calls from specific commands, to see which officers were working in the area of question during the time of the incident, Command Logs from respective commands, to determine if the incident was logged and which officer logged it, Memo Books of Officers or DD5s of Detectives, to search for possible notes about the incident, along with arrest records, court records, photographs, Complaint Reports, Accident Reports, AIDED reports, Stop, Question and Possibly Frisk Reports (UF-250s), to name only a few.

Once the officer is identified, s/he is then scheduled to give a statement to the investigator and must attend, according to Patrol Guide 211.13. An officer failing to appear or lying to an investigator is, in itself, a violation that could result in severe discipline up to and including suspension and possibly termination. Each officer and their partner at the time, along with any witness officers are interviewed and questioned about the incident by the investigator. This interview is also taped and transcribed, and based upon the officers testimony, further information is obtained by the investigator, including subpoenaed medical records, further department documentation, field canvasses and their resulting information, and so on.

After all civilians and members of service are interviewed and all possible relevant documentation has been received and analyzed, the investigator then collects any relevant case law and begins their, "recommendation," which is their report, averaging about 10-12 pages, on the case in question. The report is broken down in to relatively strict (each team has their own, "style," dictated by the Team Managers and Supervisors, and even then, can and often does vary between internal team supervision), template of investigative analysis. The report includes a summary of all complaints made, an explanation of the circumstances of the case, a summation of the statements by the officers and civilians, a credibility assessment of the officers and the civilians (at which point, the investigator is supposed to weigh in criminal history of civilians and CCRB history of officers, as well as inconsistencies between accounts, motivation of the civilian and the overall possibility of an incident occurring), a summation of criminal and CCRB history of the civilians and officers respectively and finally a recommendation for disposition on each complaint, which breaks down into four main categories (beyond the technical variants mentioned in part earlier): Substantiated, meaning the officer committed the act in question and it consisted of misconduct; Unsubstantiated, meaning that there is not a preponderance of evidence either way to determine if the incident occurred as described and/or the incident consisted of misconduct; Exonerated meaning that the incident occurred but did not consist of misconduct, either because the officers actions were justified or did not actually consist of misconduct; Unfounded meaning that the incident did not occur as described and no misconduct occurred.

The recommendations are then reviewed by at least two team level supervisors who then approve or instruct the investigator to "correct" their findings, and upon approval submit the case to the Board, which is composed of 13 members of the NYC community, five of whom are appointed by the mayor, five of whom are appointed by the City Council (with each borough represented), and three appointed by the Police Commissioner. The Board is currently headed by Ernest F. Hart, Esq. Once the Board receives the complaint, either as a full board, or, more likely, as a three member sub-unit, they meet to discuss the case and then vote on the recommendations of the investigator. If the Board agrees with the investigator, the dispositions stand and the case is then closed or forwarded to the Police Commissioner in cases that involve Substantiations. All cases sent to the Police Commissioner come with recommendation of discipline made by the Board, which the Commissioner has the privilege to review and enforce or overrule. In fact, if s/he so chooses, the Commissioner can essentially dismiss the complaint once he receives it. However, it remains on an Officers' record for the length of their career, regardless of the disposition. Public meetings are held to communicate recent statistics and "snapshots," of some of the more straightforward cases are published as examples for the public's understanding and announced at the meeting.