Media Contact
Eliel Cruz
In response to today’s expose of systemic police impunity under Mayor Eric Adams and Commissioner Edward Caban, the Justice Committee released the following statement from Executive Director Loyda Colón (they, them):
NYPD Commissioner Caban’s retention of dozens more Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) cases than his predecessor - who bragged about how much she was downgrading discipline for police misconduct - and his other actions to delay and dismantle discipline processes make it clear that the NYPD’s systemic shielding of abusive officers has reached a crisis level under the current administration. There is no clearer evidence that the NYPD cannot police itself: the authority to discipline officers must be removed from the Police Commissioner and discipline trials must be moved out of One Police Plaza to the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, where all other NYC agencies hold discipline hearings.
The systemic refusal to discipline officers who killed, brutalize, sexually assault and in other ways abuse New Yorkers is a pillar of Mayor Adam’s police state in which violent, carceral enforcement is the primary solution for public health and social issues and officers have total impunity. It goes hand in hand with Mayor Adams’ Cop City, consistent increase of the NYPD's already bloated budget while allowing it to overspend by hundreds of millions of dollars without consequence, and devastating cuts of the CCRB, which is resulting in countless misconduct complaints falling by the wayside. It comes from the same political agenda that drives the Mayor’s slashing of funding for essential services that actually help to keep us safe, his misinformation campaign to oppose basic NYPD transparency legislation, his sham, undemocratic charter revision process and the NYPD’s failure to compile with state law to report on the number of people it’s killed. This expansion of police power and reliance on criminalization will increase inequality and poverty and is a threat to the safety and well-being of all New Yorkers.
Currently, the families of Win Rozario, Allan Feliz, Antonio Williams, Delrawn Small, Christian Emile, Andre Mayfield, Ronald Anthony Smith and too many others have filed complaints with the CCRB. Many of these families have been fighting NYPD and mayoral delays and obstruction of discipline for officers who killed their loved ones for years. Given the current administration’s refusal to discipline officers, we call on all New Yorkers and legislators to stand with the families in demanding their loved ones' killers be fired and join the fight to remove discipline authority from the Police Commissioner.
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