You know that thing where some people say policing is systemically rotten and others insist it's "just a few bad apples" (dude, "one bad apple spoils the bunch!"). If only there was some way to empirically resolve this dispute!

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Turns out, there is. For decades, the discipline records of #NYPD officers were a secret, thanks to state law 50-a. That was repealed after the murder of George Floyd, in response to the #BlackLivesMatter uprising.

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Now, @Propublica has organized these records in a searchable database: "The database lists active-duty officers who’ve had at least one allegation against them substantiated by the CCRB: That’s about 4000 officers out of the 36000-member force."

https://www.propublica.org/article/nypd-civilian-complaint-review-board-editors-note

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Propublica's release comes as other entities with access to the data- the @NYCLU, the CCRB and the city - have been barred from publishing the same data after a temporary restraining order following a suit by the police union (they forgot to name Propublica in the suit!).

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Propublica is not publishing the full database: they have confined themselves to SUBSTANTIATED claims that were upheld by the CCRB, a limited, anemic agency that doubtless misses countless instances of wrongdoing (they investigated 3000 cases in 2018 and substantiated 73).

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Even that subset is grotesque - and militates for forcing the NYPD to fulfill its legal obligation (routinely flouted) to cooperated with CCRB investigations: "I exonerated tons of cases that involved awful conduct...It’s kind of haunting. -Former CCRB investigator Dan Bodah

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Some stats:

* 303 officers have 5 or more substantiated allegations and are still on the job

* 5000 substantiated instances of "physical abuse"

* 2000 "frisk"s

* 600 "gun pointed"s

Image:
Teresa Shen
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tshen91/8393203038

CC BY
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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