CCRB highlights ‘Week of Awareness’ a year after greenlighting racial profiling investigations
The Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) is currently promoting a “Week of Awareness” on the first anniversary of new rules on police misconduct, allowing New Yorkers to report allegations of racial profiling and bias-based policing to the independent NYPD watchdog agency.
The CCRB hopes the campaign will encourage more police misconduct victims to come forward with formal complaints. Beyond race and ethnicity, bias-based policing investigations also cover housing and immigration status.
“We also invested a lot into educating New Yorkers about their rights and what resources are available to them,” said CCRB Chair Arva Rice over email. “The City Council recognized that racial profiling still exists within the NYPD and that officers were not facing consequences for biased policing.
“People should not have to worry about being late to work because officers are stopping them due to their zip code or the color of their skin. We want New Yorkers to know the CCRB is here to hold officers accountable and root out misconduct.”
The agency also investigates body-worn camera misuse since last autumn’s changes and can self-initiate complaints when there’s evidence of misconduct without pressuring the victim to come forward. There are currently 221 open CCRB cases involving body-worn camera misuse.
Despite the CCRB’s expanding jurisdiction, the final authority to discipline officers remains with the NYPD Commissioner.
“The CCRB investigated incidents of excessive force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, offensive language and untruthful statements,” said Rice. “If an officer uses aggressive or crude language, that could constitute misconduct. If an officer does not turn on their body worn camera or refuses to give a civilian a business card when asked, that could be misconduct. The CCRB has a wide jurisdiction.
“We encourage all New Yorkers who think they have experienced misconduct to file a complaint and we will either investigate their claim or direct their complaint to the appropriate entity.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
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