Leaked Documents Expose NYPD's Long-Running Lack Of Officer Discipline

from the having-had-it-stuck-to-him,-The-Man-retreats-uneasily dept

Buzzfeed has obtained files the NYPD never wanted the public to see. This isn't the result of a protracted public records battle, but rather the work of an anonymous whistleblower. Presumably, those further up the chain of command are already familiar with the department's disinterest in holding officers accountable, so there's no whistleblowing outlet there. Also, presumably, the Civilian Complaint Review Board's hands are tied and it cannot hand out disciplinary reports for officers never formally disciplined. So, leak it is. And what a leak it is.

Secret files obtained by BuzzFeed News reveal that from 2011 to 2015 at least 319 New York Police Department employees who committed offenses serious enough to merit firing were allowed to keep their jobs.

Many of the officers lied, cheated, stole, or assaulted New York City residents. At least fifty employees lied on official reports, under oath, or during an internal affairs investigation. Thirty-eight were found guilty by a police tribunal of excessive force, getting into a fight, or firing their gun unnecessarily. Fifty-seven were guilty of driving under the influence. Seventy-one were guilty of ticket-fixing. One officer, Jarrett Dill, threatened to kill someone. Another, Roberson Tunis, sexually harassed and inappropriately touched a fellow officer. Some were guilty of lesser offenses, like mouthing off to a supervisor.

At least two dozen of these employees worked in schools. Andrew Bailey was found guilty of touching a female student on the thigh and kissing her on the cheek while she was sitting in his car. In a school parking lot, while he was supposed to be on duty, Lester Robinson kissed a woman, removed his shirt, and began to remove his pants. And Juan Garcia, while off duty, illegally sold prescription medication to an undercover officer.

In every instance, the police commissioner, who has final authority in disciplinary decisions, assigned these officers to “dismissal probation,” a penalty with few practical consequences. The officer continues to do their job at their usual salary. They may get less overtime and won’t be promoted during that period, which usually lasts a year. When the year is over, so is the probation.

There's an NYPD Snowden out there somewhere, exposing the dirty non-secret that is the continued lack of accountability within the largest police force in the nation. New York's Finest, the NYPD calls itself, ignoring the fact that it does almost nothing to ensure it's only staffed with the finest human beings.

Sure, 319 out of 40,000 officers is only a small percentage, but there's nothing in Buzzfeed's blockbuster article that indicates what it's seen is all that's available. What it has seen is only a small part of a larger whole. These are the probation files, which don't include officers dismissed. Add that to the mix and the total rises to over 1,400 officers caught breaking laws and policies -- many of which were allowed to resign while charges were still pending, keeping their records clean and their pension plans intact.

This exposé of kid glove treatment for repeat offenders contains this PR-friendly statement from the deputy commissioner of the office charged with handling internal disciplinary issues. Kevin Richardson, speaking on behalf of the job he's failing to do, made assertions clearly contradicted by the documents in Buzzfeed's possession.

“The department is not interested in terminating officers that don't need to be terminated. We're interested in keeping employees and making our employees obey the rules and do the right thing,” he told BuzzFeed News. “But where there are failings that we realize this person should be separated from the department, this police commissioner and the prior police commissioner have shown a willingness to do that.”

From what's being reported here, "separating" someone from the department is a last resort. And when it is done, it's often done in a way that allows bad officers to move on to other police departments or sit at home collecting a pension for a job well poorly done. Richardson is in denial, but at least he's a bit more reasonable than the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

Al O’Leary, a spokesperson for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the largest police union representing NYPD officers, had a different message: “We’re not going to talk to you about anything negative as far as any of our officers.”

Well, if you won't, others will. Burying your head in the filthy sand doesn't make the problem go away. And it certainly doesn't put an entity willing to stand up for any officer, no matter how egregious their misconduct, in a better light.

Case in point: Officer Raymond Marrero. Marrero is still employed by the NYPD despite being named in four serious complaints in his first six years and racking up $900,000 of lawsuit settlements. This colorful story is just one of Marrero's many abusive escapades.

[I]n early 2009, a former police department volunteer named Louis Deluca confronted a man who, Deluca found out, had groped his brother’s 17-year-old girlfriend. The man took off with his friends, just as Marrero was pulling up. “I was telling him, 'There's some guys that groped a family member of mine,’” Deluca said. “‘They're right around the corner.’”

Marrero and his partner told Deluca to shut up, Deluca said. Incredulous, Deluca called Marrero a cunt. The officers pushed him to the ground and arrested him, according to a lawsuit Deluca later filed.

Back at the precinct, as Deluca was being taken out of the car, Marrero struck him with his police baton, opening up a gash on the top of his head. Another officer said there was so much blood, they had to clean it up with a mop. It took 12 staples at the hospital to close the wound.

In a deposition, Deluca said Marrero told him “You can’t disrespect us in the street like that.” Deluca received a $398,000 settlement, of which Marrero was ordered to pay $4,000.

Marrero pled guilty to several internal charges during this six-year period, including deploying excessive force and lying to department investigators. Despite this, Commissioner Ray Kelly felt Marrero still added value to the force. He was placed on probation and lost 45 vacation days, but was never terminated or asked to resign. An outside commission on police corruption reviewed these files and suggested Marrero be fired, as he "lacked the temperament necessary to be a police officer." This suggestion was ignored.

There's nothing about local laws or NYPD policies that encourage any sort of positive change. The NYPD says local laws allow it to withhold disciplinary records from the public. Disciplinary trials for officers are open to the public… so to speak. They're held without prior announcement of schedules or locations. They're presided over by a police official appointed by the NYPD Commissioner, rather than a neutral adjudicator. And if a top cop decides an accused cop should be terminated, the Commissioner can overturn the ruling. (And even if the Commissioner allowed the discipline to stay in place, there's a good chance the PBA would get the ruling overturned.)

A closed disciplinary does no favors for the public. Unsurprisingly, it does no favors for police officers, either. Bad cops become worse cops as no one's willing to engage in serious deterrence and the system itself is often used to retaliate against good cops who blow the whistle on bad behavior or sue the department for discriminatory practices. Ultimately, no one's accountable to anyone, despite everyone involved being a public servant.

This leak will likely provoke some changes within the department, but with zero oversight, the positive changes likely won't last. My money's on an internal investigation into the leak being the largest expenditure of time and effort as a result of this exposé.

Filed Under: nypd, police, police misconduct

Will Cy Vance's Anti-Encryption Pitch Change Now That The NYPD's Using iPhones?

from the or-will-encryption-only-be-an-option-for-the-protected-class? dept

For years, Manhattan DA Cy Vance has been warning us about the coming criminal apocalypse spurred on by cellphone encryption. "Evil geniuses" Apple introduced default encryption in a move likely meant to satiate lawmakers hollering about phone theft and do-nothing tech companies. In return, DA Cy Vance (and consecutive FBI directors) turned on Apple, calling device encryption a criminal's best friend.

Vance still makes annual pitches for law enforcement-friendly encryption -- something that means either backdoors or encryption so weak it can be cracked immediately. Both ideas would also be criminal-friendly, but Vance is fine with sacrificing personal security for law enforcement access. Frequently, these pitches are accompanied with piles of uncracked cellphones -- a gesture meant to wow journalists but ultimately indicative of nothing more than how much the NYPD can store in its evidence room. (How many are linked to active investigations? How many investigations continued to convictions without cellphone evidence? Were contempt charges ever considered to motivate cellphone owners into unlocking phones? So many questions. Absolutely zero answers.)

Will Vance be changing his pitch in the near future? Will he want weakened encryption safeguarding the NYPD's new tools? I guess we'll wait and see. (h/t Robyn Greene)

Announced last year, the shift will see some 36,000 Nokia handsets replaced over the coming weeks. Initially purchased in 2014 as part of a $160 million program to modernize police operations, the Nokia phones running Windows Phone will be collected, wiped and sold back to the company.

The move to iPhone 7 comes at no cost to the NYPD, as the handsets are considered upgrades under the agency's contract with AT&T.

NYPD's rollout began last month when officers patrolling the Bronx and Staten Island swapped their obsolete Nokia smartphones for Apple devices. The department is handing out about 600 iPhones per day, according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Information and Technology Jessica Tisch.

Let's get some crippled encryption for these guys. After all, their phones are manufactured by a company an FBI forensic detective called an "evil genius." Let's give malicious hackers an attack vector and street criminals more reasons to lift an iPhone off… well, anybody. By all means, let's give Vance what he wants and see if he hears anything back from his buddies in blue.

This upgrade puts Vance in a lose-lose situation. If he stops calling for weakened encryption, he's a hypocrite. If he keeps calling for it, he's an asshole. But it should drive home an important point: encryption doesn't just protect the bad guys. It protects the good guys as well.

Filed Under: cy vance, encryption, going dark, iphones, nypd

New York Police Union Sues NYPD To Block Public Release Of Body Camera Footage

from the PBA-not-interested-in-having-public-servants-serve-the-public dept

The route to equipping the NYPD with body cameras ran through a federal courtroom. As part of the remedies handed down in a civil rights lawsuit against the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program, body cameras became required equipment for officers.

NYPD officials seemed to support the plan. Not so the ostensible representative of the NYPD, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA). The NYPD's union fought the cameras much as they have fought anything with a hint of accountability. A report by the NYPD's internal oversight found officers much less concerned about body cameras and access to footage than their supposed union reps.

A long-delayed camera policy finally rolled out, making it clear cameras would serve officers and prosecutors much more than they would the general public. Now, the PBA is going to court to block the release of camera footage to the public. The PBA hopes the court will read public records laws the way it does, tossing body cam footage into the gaping hole of New York public records exemptions.

The union points to a New York statute, Civil Rights Law Section 50-a, that declares "all personnel records used to evaluate performance toward continued employment or promotion" must be "confidential and not subject to inspection or review," permitting their release only with the consent of the police officer or a court order. According to the union, body camera footage should be considered such personnel records.

The exemption is already awful, distancing officers from accountability by ensuring the public cannot access anything related to disciplinary actions or internal investigations. If a court finds in favor of the PBA, footage captured by officers while performing their duties in public would suddenly become internal records the NYPD would be forbidden by state law from releasing.

This would completely subvert one of the key public benefits of body cameras. As the ACLU points out, denying access to footage to the public turns body cameras into spywear.

A win for the PBA would turn body cameras, paid for with millions of dollars in taxpayer funds, into yet another NYPD mass surveillance tool to be used against vulnerable New Yorkers. Public support for body cameras will not last if the police accountability aspect of the devices is erased and they simply become public surveillance devices.

This would be a devastating blow for holding officers responsible for their actions and would negate the potential value body cameras could add to improving police-community relations.

The PBA is taking an extreme stance on this issue, which places the union in apparent opposition of the officers it represents. The lawsuit also names the NYPD as a defendant. The department has argued body cam footage is not a "personnel record," but is documentation of an event. According to the NYPD's arguments, it retains the right to release footage at its discretion after making any redactions necessary to comply with New York privacy laws.

The NYPD is finally trying to do something to repair its relationship with the communities they serve by releasing footage of controversial incidents. No sooner does the NYPD take a small step towards transparency and accountability than Pat Lynch and the PBA arrive on the scene to sue this urge into submission. The public isn't being served by this public sector union. Considering the PBA is suing the employer of the officers it represents, it could be argued the union isn't doing much to serve its members either. This lawsuit pit officers against the public at a crucial time when taking a less antagonistic stance would be far more beneficial.

Filed Under: body cameras, nypd, public records, transparency

Court Holds NYPD In Contempt For Refusing To Hand Over Documents Related To Black Live Matter Surveillance

from the momentary-stay-of-the-judicial-backhand dept

The NYPD continues to extend a middle finger to every entity that isn't the NYPD. The department's long history of doing everything it can to thwart public records requesters has been discussed here several times. It's not on much better terms with its oversight, which it routinely ignores when directed to do something about its officers' routine rights violations and deployment of excessive force.

If it's not going to be accountable to the public -- either via FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) compliance or respecting the decisions of its oversight -- it's certainly not going to let the judicial branch push it around.

The NYPD has 30 days to turn over surveillance videos of Black Lives Matter protesters after a Manhattan judge ruled Wednesday that the department flouted his previous order to disclose the records.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Manuel Mendez, who issued the contempt of court ruling, stopped short of immediately imposing sanctions on the police. Instead, he said the NYPD could "purge" the contempt ruling by turning over more material related to the monitoring of protesters at Grand Central Terminal in November 2014 and January 2015 within a month.

This ruling arrives eight months after the NYPD made a mockery of an earlier court order on records disclosure, turning over nothing more than a few pieces of paper and short, blurry cell phone recording of Black Lives Matter protesters. According to Judge Mendez, the NYPD's efforts to comply with the FOIL request at the heart of the lawsuit have been "disingenuous" at best.

Undoubtedly, the NYPD has a large number of records related to its surveillance of protesters. It just doesn't want to release them. The NYPD has repeatedly engaged in surveillance of First Amendment activity. That's the sort of thing one should expect from a law enforcement agency that views protests and terrorism as two sides of the same coin. When that's your viewpoint, you get you a special operations unit that can do both: the Strategic Response Group, which, according to the Mayor, is capable of handling both protests or "attacks like those in Mumbai."

Mendez may have issued a ruling of contempt, but city lawyers aren't exactly springing into action to comply with the judge's February order. According to the city, it's still "weighing its options" and angsting away uselessly.

The city’s Law Department immediately cried foul, saying it is reviewing its legal options and is “deeply concerned with this ruling and the dilemma in which it places the city.”

“On the one hand, we are constrained by genuine security concerns from explaining publicly how disclosure could endanger the lives and safety of undercover officers,” a Law Department spokesman said. “On the other hand, we were not afforded an opportunity to explain those concerns to the court in a non-public setting.”

Well, I call bullshit. There's not a court in the land that won't allow in camera hearings or ex parte submissions where the government can attempt to explain its refusal to hand over evidence or documents. I'm sure Judge Mendez would have allowed it if he thought this sort of hearing was appropriate. Chances are he would have been much more amenable to the city's request for a private explanation if it had engaged in a little more good faith effort during its search for relevant documents.

If the city returns to court with nothing more than its unearned dismay, the judge will probably start issuing sanctions. As it stands now, the NYPD has the choice of producing more responsive documents or submit sworn affidavits explaining why it can't -- or won't -- turn over more documents related to its surveillance of Black Lives Matter protesters.

It's hard to imagine what sanctions will have a lasting deterrent effect on the NYPD. Everything else that's been tried hasn't produced a more accountable entity. Short of jailing some top brass, any punishment the court hands out will likely be suffered by the public, especially if it's nothing more than fines the NYPD can pay with other people's money.

Filed Under: black lives matter, contempt, foia, nypd, surveillance, transparency

New York Court Says NYPD Must Get Warrants To Deploy Stingrays

from the take-that-Big-Blue dept

Another court has decided warrants must accompany Stingray use. (via the New York Times) The ruling handed down earlier this month clarifies the distinction between the records obtained and the records requested. In this case, police used a pen register request to deploy their Stingray device. As the court points out, Stingray devices grab a lot more than just phone numbers.

A pen register or trap and trace warrant is authorized under New York's CPL Art. 705.00. According to that Article, a pen register is a device that attaches to a landline phone to identify and record "the numbers dialed or otherwise transmitted" in outgoing and incoming calls." CPL 705.00 (1). In addition, CPL 705.00 (2) defines a trap and trace as a similar device to that of the pen register that identifies the "originating number" for a call. It should be noted, however, that Article 705 does not authorize the gathering of location information using a cell phone's Global Positioning system (GPS), nor does it authorize the gathering of additional information, that might include the content of a phone's calls or text messages by the use of a pen register and/or trap and trace order.

[...]

Thus, it is improper under New York Law to authorize the obtaining of any information from a suspect's phone other that the phone numbers dialed or otherwise transmitted in outgoing and incoming calls and/or an originating phone number.

As the court notes, the addition of GPS location info changes the matrix for law enforcement paperwork. It's not enough to settle for the lower requirements of a pen register order. Tracking and tracing people involves a higher statutory burden. And that's exactly what this is: to deploy a Stingray, a team of officers must fire one up and roam all over the place until they home in on their target. This is completely distinct from showing up at a telco office asking for dialed digits.

Additionally, the court points out that while the information obtained (the phone's location) might ultimately be a third party record accessible with a subpoena, the government can't be the third party collecting the records.

[U]nlike pen register device information or that provided by the CSLI, a cell site simulator device does not involve a third party. "The question of who is recording an individual's information initially is key." See US v Lambis, supra, citing In re US for Historical Cell Site Data, 724 F.3d 600 [5th Circ. 2013] [distinguishing between "whether it is the Government collecting the information or requiring a third party to collect or store it, or whether it is a third party, of its own accord and for its own purposes, recording the information"]. The Lambis court continued: "For both pen register information and CSLI, the Government ultimately obtains the information from the service provider who is keeping a record of the information. With the cell-site simulator, the Government cuts out the middleman and obtains the information directly." US v Lambis, Id.

By its very nature, then, the use of a cell site simulator intrudes upon an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy, acting as an instrument of eavesdropping and requires a separate warrant supported by probable cause rather than a mere pen register/trap and trace order such as the one obtained in this case by the NYPD.

Presumably, the NYPD was less than forthcoming about its Stingray use. In the opening of the opinion, the court points out the location the suspect was tracked to was completely unrelated to any information the NYPD already had in hand when it took its Stingray out for a spin.

Based upon the information gathered from this order for the defendant's cell phone, Detective Brown located and arrested the defendant three days later on April 15, 2016, inside of 1540 Sterling Place, Apartment 3E in Brooklyn, an address not previously identified as of any interest to this investigation.

The decision also notes Stingray use was "conceded" by the prosecution, suggesting it fought this disclosure for as long as it could.

This is good news for residents of New York and another small step towards a unified judicial view on Stingray deployments. Better yet, it has probably resulted in audible wailing and gnashing of teeth in the upper levels of the NYPD bureaucracy.

Filed Under: imsi catchers, nypd, privacy, stingrays, warrants

NYPD Tells Judge Its $25 Million Forfeiture Database Has No Backup

from the overpriced-by-at-least-$25-million dept

The NYPD is actively opposed to transparency. It does all it can to thwart outsiders from accessing any info about the department's inner workings. This has led to numerous lawsuits from public records requesters. It has also led to a long-running lawsuit featuring the Bronx Defenders, which has been trying to gain access to civil forfeiture documents for years.

The NYPD has repeatedly claimed it simply cannot provide the records the Bronx Defenders (as well as other records requesters) have requested. Not because it doesn't want to, even though it surely doesn't. But because it can't.

The department has spent $25 million on a forfeiture tracking system that can't even do the one thing it's supposed to do: track forfeitures. The Property and Evidence Tracking System (PETS) is apparently so complex and so badly constructed, the NYPD can't compile the records being sought.

Oddly enough, the Bronx Defenders has pieced together enough data from the NYPD's broken PETS (along with other public records) to at least point out the glaring discrepancy between what the department publicly claims it has in its forfeiture accounts and what the database says it does.

At the hearing, the NYPD claimed that it only legally forfeited $11,653 in currency last year — that is, gone to court and actually made a case as to why the NYPD should be taking this money.

[...]

In the accounting summaries which the Bronx Defenders submitted as part of its testimony, the NYPD reports that as of December 2013, its property clerk had almost $69 million in seized cash on hand. This amount had been carried over from previous years, showing an annual accumulation of seized cash that has reached an enormous amount. The documents also show that each month, the five property clerk’s offices across the city took in tens of thousands of dollars in cash, ultimately generating over $6 million in revenue for the department.

When pressed in court, NYPD experts claim the NYPD lacks the expertise to extract the sought data from its forfeiture database. These assertions are at odds with the NYPD's self-perception: that it is fastest and smartest law enforcement agency in the US (better than the FBI, in fact) and foreign governments should be grateful its officers and analysts are showing up uninvited at scenes of overseas terrorist attacks.

Somehow, these highly-trained officers are unable to extract data from a $25 million database. Maybe it's not the lack of talent. Maybe it's the lack of desire. Maybe the NYPD has zero interest in tracking this data because it doesn't want the public to see how much it has hoovered up or make it any easier for citizens to challenge forfeitures.

The lawsuit continues, with the NYPD continuing to top itself with each round of expert testimony. As Adam Klasfield reports for Courthouse News, the NYPD's $25 million database is worth even less than previously assumed.

New York City is one power surge away from losing all of the data police have on millions of dollars in unclaimed forfeitures, a city attorney admitted to a flabbergasted judge on Tuesday.

“That’s insane,” Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arlene Bluth said repeatedly from the bench.

It is insane. There's no way around it. The assumption would be that a $25 million database has built-in redundancy. But of course it wouldn't. Not with the NYPD running it and not with its active disinterest in providing records to records requesters or having any accountability present in its forfeiture system.

And why should the NYPD fix it? From its perspective, this is fine. Data goes in and never comes out. If it all disappears because someone trips over the power cord, the NYPD suffers no negative consequences. Everything it has taken over the years defaults to the NYPD until proven otherwise by claimants. And that's going to be a lot tougher to do when the NYPD has no records related to the forfeiture.

The court is in no position to do anything about this. It can't order the NYPD to fix its system. All it can do is demand it comply with records requests and pay the legal fees of prevailing parties. But the NYPD can continue to run a useless system for the rest of whatever. The burden of proof in forfeiture cases is already shifted to claimants. A broken system places even more of a burden on those seeking return of their property, thanks to PETS being unable to confirm or deny existence of responsive records. It's GlomarDb and it makes a mockery of public records laws and due process simultaneously.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, database, foia, nypd, transparency

New York City Council Passes Bill Making NYPD's Forfeiture Process More Transparent

from the no-more-hiding-behind-clunky-software dept

For months now, the NYPD has been arguing in court it can't possibly hand over records related to its forfeitures. The problem appears to be the NYPD itself. The department spent millions on new software specifically to track the disposition of seized items. But when faced with a public records suit by the Bronx Defenders, the NYPD claimed the software can't do the one thing it's supposed to do: track the disposition of seized items.

The NYPD provides limited reporting on forfeitures, but the numbers produced have almost zero relation to reality. According to the NYPD, it only forfeited $12,000 in cash in 2015. According to numbers obtained by the Bronx Defenders, the NYPD's forfeiture office had nearly $69 million in cash on hand when queried in 2013 -- something that would take 5,750 years to amass at the rate cited by the NYPD. Not only that, but other documents showed NYPD property clerks were processing thousands of dollars every month, totaling $6 million in forfeiture transactions in 2013 alone. It seems unlikely the NYPD's forfeitures dropped to this impossibly-low level between 2013 and 2015.

But still the NYPD insists it can't make its cradle-to-grave forfeiture-tracking system produce the stats Bronx Defenders are looking for. It needs to figure out its issues soon. The city council is calling the NYPD's bluff.

Every year the NYPD seizes millions of dollars in assets from innocent New Yorkers, who often have to fight a dizzying bureaucracy to get their property back. But today the City Council is poised to pass legislation that would make the practice vastly more transparent.

The bill, which is expected to pass this afternoon, will require the NYPD to release annual reports on how much they seize from New Yorkers during stops and arrests and through the use of civil forfeiture, and account for what happens to the assets after they’re in custody.

"This first-of-its-kind transparency bill will shed light on the reasons why the NYPD has seized someone's property, whether revenue is generated from property seizure, and if an individual has been able to get their property back," said Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres, the bill's primary sponsor. "The legislation will help ensure that the civil forfeiture process is used legitimately.”

The bill has indeed passed and institutes new reporting requirements for the NYPD.

This bill requires the NYPD to report on an annual basis on data relating to the property and money the department obtains possession of in the course of an arrest. The bill requires the data be broken down to include the amount of money or the property obtained and retained, the reason why the property or money is being held by the department, and whether or not the rightful owners of the property or money have failed to redeem such money or property. Additionally, the bill requires the NYPD to report on any sale or disposition of money or property seized during an arrest that was retained by the Department.

This forces the NYPD to provide information proactively. It can no longer hide behind claims of faulty software or a particularly labyrinthine public records process. It won't force the NYPD to say how the money's being spent, but will at least provide more transparency and accountability. The new data should make it slightly easier to identify abuse and could assist those fighting to reclaim their property. All it needs is the governor's signature to make it official.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, forfeiture, new york, ny city, nyc, nypd, transparency

Freedom Of Information Lawsuit Results In NYPD Agreeing To Follow FOI Law

from the lol-'law-enforcers' dept

If you need any more proof the NYPD hates transparency, you need look no further than Keegan Stephan's victory in a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) lawsuit:

If you can't see the tweet, it says:

Big win! To settle my lawsuit, NYPD has agreed to comply with critical component of NY Freedom of Information law

This is what we measure success with when it comes to FOIL and the NYPD: a victory is the department AGREEING TO FOLLOW THE LAW.

Stephan has been seeking information on the department's use of a sound cannon for crowd control. The NYPD, of course, had no interest in releasing these records. Central to the settlement is the department agreeing to accept FOI requests by email, something it's supposed to have been doing for more than a decade.

The man, Keegan Stephan, said in the suit that the department failed to justify withholding the records he requested and that a “policy and practice” not to accept or respond to Freedom of Information requests by email violated a 2006 provision of New York State law. Mr. Stephan also argued that by not allowing email requests, the police had increased “the time, effort, and expense involved” in obtaining records.

The department's settlement contains no admission of wrongdoing -- something common to government lawsuit settlements. This means it will accept zero responsibility for a decade-long run of FOI statute violations.

The "new" email request system will aid more New Yorkers in having their requests ignored by the NYPD. The NYPD's future use of email for FOI responses will ensure requesters are informed of denials in a much speedier fashion. The portal the NYPD is setting up on its website will provide instructions for requesters, as well as information on how to challenge denials and non-responses. If nothing else, the NYPD will be forced to follow the letter of the law a bit more closely, but it will take far more than a steady stream of FOI lawsuits for it to approach the law's spirit.

The NYPD has made a opacity a cottage industry. It has been dubbed the least responsive government agency in the US, worse than the CIA, FBI and NSA. It has developed an in-house classification system that allows pretty much anyone to designate almost any document "top secret" for almost any reason, and reached its nadir when it refused to release a copy of its FOIL response guidelines to a FOIL requester.

But this is an ugly victory -- one that should subject the department to a steady stream of ridicule. It takes a lawsuit to make a law enforcement agency follow the law. That's just depressing.

Filed Under: foia, freedom of information, new york, nypd, open records, transparency

Oversight Board Finds NYPD Officers Still Violating Citizens' Right To Film Police

from the NYPD:-any-and-all-cameras-should-be-aimed-at-'civilians' dept

The New York Civilian Complaint Review Board has just released a report [PDF] indicating NYPD officers are slow learners when it comes to recognizing citizens' right to record police officers. It's not that these officers have never been told. They have. The NYPD's "Finest Order" was handed down in 2014, telling officers citizens had a First Amendment right to film police. It's a response to a 2012 order by the Washington DC PD and a First Amendment lawsuit filed that year. It followed this up with internal policy changes two years later. And yet, problems persist.

In the three-year period from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2016, the CCRB closed 257 complaints in which civilians reported that officers had interfered with their ability to record police activity. This police interference included, but was not limited to, officers instructing civilians to stop recording, searching civilians‘ phones for recordings of activity, deleting such footage, and damaging recording devices.

In fact, those with the most time on the job seem to have the greatest difficulty following instructions and policy changes.

Eighty-four percent of the officers named in interference-related allegations (180 subject officers) had more than two years on the force at the time the alleged incidents occurred. Of those, 53 percent (113 subject officers) had between three and 10 years on the force when they were alleged to have interfered with civilian recordings and the remaining 31 percent (67 subject officers) had more than 10 years on the force.

The NYPD "Finest Message" on recording distinctly notes what officers aren't supposed to do when encountering a citizen photographer:

Recognizing the affirmative right to record police action, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should a Member of the Service:

Threaten, intimidate, or otherwise discourage an observer from recording the police officer’s activities, assuming the observer is at a safe distance;

Intentionally block or obstruct cameras or other recording devices when there is no legitimate law enforcement reason to do so; or

Delete any pictures or videos from the observer’s camera, or order observer to delete such pictures or recordings.

But these orders were violated repeatedly. The most common excuse for violations was the officer didn't remember doing it or denied the violation had occurred.

NYPD officers who violate citizens' First Amendment rights do this in several ways. Intimidation is one tactic used to shut down recordings:

The CCRB also received multiple complaints of police officers pointing flashlights at civilians‘ recording devices to impede their ability to record. In one such case, the CCRB substantiated an interference allegation by a civilian and his wife who were walking down the street when they observed a police officer making an arrest. The civilian began taking photos of the arrest on his iPad and was instructed by the officer to stop taking photographs and to step back. The civilian stepped back but maintained that he had a First Amendment right to photograph the arrest. The officer then shone a flashlight at the iPad. The CCRB substantiated an interference allegation against the officer based on photographic evidence and the consistent testimony of the civilian witnesses.

In a similar 2015 case, an officer stopped a group of individuals suspected of fighting and gun possession. When a third party civilian began to record the stop, an officer turned and pointed a flashlight towards the civilian‘s camera for nearly three and a half minutes. In that case, the interfering officer never issued any commands toward the recording civilian and the Board substantiated the interference allegation.

[...]

Other forms of intimidation were more severe. In a 2015 case, a civilian called 911 after he was assaulted at a bar. Officers responded and the civilian became angry when officers could not find the assailant. After a heated verbal exchange, the responding officers told the civilian that he would be arrested if he did not leave the location. The officers then went back to their marked police vehicle to prepare their complaint paperwork, at which time the civilian stood in front of the vehicle and attempted to take a photograph of the officers‘ license plate. At that point, the officer in the driver‘s seat drove the vehicle toward the civilian and stopped within inches of his body before driving away. Finding that the video evidence proved that the officer intentionally drove the police vehicle towards the civilian in a threatening manner and with the intention of preventing him from taking a photo of the license plate, the CCRB substantiated allegations against the officer for interfering with the civilian‘s recording, and for threatening him with the use of physical force.

NYPD officers also illegally seized and searched cellphones while being filmed by citizens. Multiple confirmed allegations show officers took phones with the intent of accessing, if not deleting, recorded footage. The CCRB notes it's very difficult to substantiate claims of deleted footage thanks to the inherent nature of the violation. It's tough to prove a recording existed prior to an alleged deletion when recordings that survive officers' deletion attempts usually absolves them of attempted deletion allegations.

But searches/seizures with the intent of deleting recordings is actually the more subtle of the NYPD's anti-photography tactics.

Substantiated instances of damage or destruction of recording devices can be proven by video evidence from sources other than the recording civilian. In one incident, surveillance cameras captured officers physically grabbing a civilian‘s body as he began recording their stop and questioning of a woman on a sidewalk. After officers arrested the civilian, placed him in their patrol car, and began driving away, surveillance video captured one officer throwing his cell phone out of the car window. The phone landed on the sidewalk. The civilian was charged with Obstructing Governmental Administration, Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Arrest, but these charges were all eventually dismissed.

Some cops do this repeatedly:

In a 2014 incident, the officer‘s interference and destruction of a cell phone occurred simultaneously. The complainant sat in his car with two friends when officers approached him, told him the car smelled like marijuana, and asked him if he had been smoking it. When the complainant said no, officers removed the occupants from the car, frisked and searched them all, and then allowed them to return to the car. When an officer walked to the vehicle to return the complainant‘s identification, the complainant alleged that the officer saw his phone resting on his arm, assumed he was recording, grabbed his phone from his hand, and threw the phone to the ground, stomping on it. The officer then forcefully arrested the complainant. The CCRB found that the officer lacked credibility given three prior complaints of the same officer destroying civilian cell phones, and substantiated misconduct.

But the worse thing some NYPD officers do is shut down recordings with bullshit arrests, because it's always best to follow up a First Amendment violation with a severe curtailment of literal freedom:

In a 2014 incident, for example, a civilian began audio-recording an officer‘s stop of the civilian‘s friends. The officer grabbed the audio-recorder from the civilian‘s shirt pocket, then issued him a summons for possession of a box cutter under a section of the New York City Administrative Code that prohibits minors from possessing box cutters. The complainant was over 50 years old and clearly could not be mistaken for a minor and the CCRB substantiated the improper issuance of a summons.

The CCRB recommends more training, which is really all it can do. Officers have had close to three years to adjust to the constraints of the 2014 Finest Message, but it appears several officers still make up their own rules during encounters with citizen photographers. It's unrealistic to expect the number of violations to hit zero, but some disciplinary changes need to be made if these policies are going to have much effect on officer behavior. Otherwise, the same officers will keep deploying the same tactics and hoping citizens don't complain or the CCRB doesn't have enough to work with to substantiate the allegations.

Filed Under: filming police, freedom of expression, new york, nypd

Judge Smacks NYPD For Its 'Gotcha' Tactics In Forfeiture Public Records Lawsuit

from the you're-the-worst dept

New York's court system is finally pushing back against the NYPD's refusal to provide better accounting of its forfeiture programs. Late last year, the NYPD informed people requesting information on seizures it had no way of compiling this data for them. Its $12 million software -- meant to provide "cradle-to-grave" tracking of seized property -- apparently couldn't handle routine inquiries about seizure totals.

When the NYPD did decide to talk about its forfeiture operations, it used incomplete and misleading numbers. It claimed to have forfeited only around $12,000 in 2015, something miles away from the $69 million estimate of seized cash-on-hand others had cobbled together using info the NYPD had managed to turn over. According to numbers the NYPD said its software couldn't compile, the department had generated $6 million in revenue in 2015 alone.

The Bronx Defenders, a group of public defenders, has been trying for nearly four years to force the NYPD to turn over documents related to its forfeiture programs. The NYPD has a few of these, including an unofficial program that turns personal belongings into "evidence" upon arrest and forces those with dismissed charges or acquittals to jump through a number of time-consuming and expensive hoops to reclaim their belongings -- which include things like cellphones, cash, credit cards, and prescription medication.

The NYPD's refusal to cooperate with the Bronx Defenders' FOIL request has led to a lawsuit. The city moved to have it dismissed, but Judge Arlene Bluth doesn't see much merit in the NYPD's arguments. Or actions.

Displeased by what she described as the New York City Police Department’s “troublesome” litigation tactics, a judge advanced a lawsuit that asks what happens to millions of unclaimed dollars seized in civil forfeitures.

[...]

Rejecting a motion to dismiss the case in Manhattan Supreme Court, Judge Arlene Bluth accused the NYPD and its former Commissioner Bill Bratton on Friday of playing games to avoid disclosures.

In the dismissal of the city's motion, the judge criticizes the NYPD for its constant claims its software can't provide the information the plaintiffs are seeking. The plaintiffs have pointed out they don't need aggregate data. They're willing to take raw data, copies of original documents, or whatever else might allow them to get a better handle on the forfeiture programs the NYPD doesn't want to discuss. The NYPD, however, keeps pointing at its expensive (but apparently worthless) PETS (Property and Evidence Tracking System) software and shrugging.

The judge points out [PDF] that the NYPD has pushed the Bronx Defenders into a catch-22 in hopes of keeping this information from being made public.

Respondents have effectively changed their argument from stating that no responsive documents exist to insisting that producing the information would be too burdensome. This argument directly relates to a troubling assertion by petitioner that respondents refused to confer with petitioner about the way in which these records are kept. 21 NYCR 1401.2(b)(2) requires the records access officer to "assist persons seeking records to identify the records sought, if necessary, and when appropriate, indicate the manner in which the records are filed, retrieved or generated to assist persons in reasonably describing records." It is obvious that it would be necessary to assist a petitioner seeking records from a database under the complete control of the agency and a database not available for public use.

Otherwise, petitioner is forced to make requests without any knowledge of the capabilities of the database. That is what has occurred here. Respondents do not directly contest this point in their reply to the cross-motion and simply assert that they have no duty to solicit additional information about the requests. While that might be true, there is a difference between soliciting more information and assisting the requestor in reasonably describing the records sought especially, where, as here, the records are kept on a specialized database.

In other words, the NYPD is claiming requesters must know all the nuances and intricacies of a database they're never allowed to access. If they don't, then the NYPD is under no obligation to assist them in any way. This is a common government tactic and not solely limited to the NYPD, although this agency has been referred to as worse than the FBI, CIA, and NSA when it comes to FOI responsiveness.

Judge Bluth goes on to state the NYPD's actions have been, at best, disingenuous.

The record before this Court shows that respondents have only now, more than two years after petitioner's FOIL request, attempted to describe the ways in which these records are kept. This type of "gotcha" litigation tactic is especially troublesome in a FOIL proceeding where petitioner does not have access to the database containing the requested information. Respondents' claims about the burdensome nature of producing individual invoices clearly demonstrates the purpose of assisting a requestor--it is consistent with the spirit of FOIL to let a requestor know how records are kept so that the petitioner can conform requests to receive the information sought and try to avoid unduly burdening an agency.

The NYPD has long shown it has no interest in following the letter of FOIL law, much less its spirit. For requesters, this means the path to responsive documents often leads through home team courtrooms. It's a trip not many are willing to make and the NYPD knows it.

Filed Under: foia, forfeiture, nypd, public records