Law Enforcement Lookup (LELU) provides single access to data on law enforcement misconduct in New York City. LELU is an extension of the Legal Aid Society`s Cop Accountability Project (CAP), which enables organizations and communities in New York City to hold police officers accountable for civil rights violations. In 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, the Administrative Prosecutor`s Office tried 31 cases against NYPD officials. The Deputy Commissioner found public servants guilty of two-thirds of these cases; Of these, Police Chief Dermot Shea accepted the results 55% of the time, increased the sentence imposed 10% of the time, and increased or decreased the sentence 35% of the time. Minett was working as a legal observer on July 3 when police arrested a protester, according to the lawsuit. Minett tried to find the name of the protester and asked a deputy inspector which neighborhood he would take the protester to. The Assistant Inspector`s response was to handcuff Minett and place him under arrest. The entire trial took place within meters of a representative of the NYPD`s legal office, according to the lawsuit. LELU users are responsible for determining whether the returned results represent the agent in question. The various sources of misconduct hosted in LELU differ in the extent that unique identifiers are provided for each enforcement officer. If the NYPD were to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Rice, it would mean dealing with critics of a police action that Shea said was “executed almost perfectly.” But Oliver, counsel for the legal observers, said that regardless of how the department handles the charges against Rice, the CCRB`s findings are important.
“The police commissioner and his legal office have not lifted a finger since June 4, 2020 to affirm or protect the rights of legal observers,” said civil rights attorney Gideon Oliver, one of three lawyers representing the legal observers. With police leadership silent on arresting legal observers, he said, “there is a continuing danger that history will repeat itself.” Every day, the more than 850 attorneys and 750 support professionals of the New York City Department of Law work together to achieve justice while providing the city with the highest quality of legal advocacy. The Legal Department represents the city, the mayor, other elected officials and the many city authorities in all positive and defensive civil cases, as well as in juvenile criminal proceedings before the Family Court and administrative code enforcement proceedings before the criminal court. Legal counsel drafts and reviews local and state laws, real estate leases, supply contracts, and financial instruments for the sale of municipal bonds. The service also provides legal advice to municipal officials on various issues such as immigration, education and environmental policy. There is rarely a major city initiative that is not shaped by legal staff. Learn more about New York`s legal department According to the NYPD`s guidelines for sanctions related to certain charges, a public servant convicted of taking an “enforcement action involving abuse of power or authority” can be punished with the loss of 20 days of leave. Should the NYPD conclude that other circumstances mitigate or exacerbate the abuse of authority, the penalty for the charge could range from the loss of 10 days of vacation to termination. The arrests are already on federal trial by the 12 legal observers of the National Lawyers Guild, all of whom were handcuffed and arrested while trying to monitor police behavior during the protest before finally being released from the scene. But to date, the CCRB charges are the first indication that an arm of New York government has been affected by the arrest of impartial observers trained by the National Lawyers Guild to ensure police respect protesters` rights.
CCRB President Fred Davie has repeatedly called for reforms that allow the CCRB to discipline officers based on their investigations, arguing that leaving disciplinary decisions in the hands of police undermines the ministry`s concept of civilian oversight. Until recently, the Commissioner of Police overturned almost half of the CCRB`s disciplinary recommendations. In February, the CCRB and the NYPD reached an agreement to use a “disciplinary matrix” that sets out alleged sanctions for certain types of misconduct by public servants. Since then, according to the CCRB, the Commissioner has followed the CCRB`s disciplinary recommendations more frequently. A month after the mass arrest of legal observers in the Bronx, NYPD officials arrested another legal observer named Ryan Minett during a protest outside New York City Hall, according to a recent lawsuit. The only publicly acknowledged investigation into the arrest of legal observers involves Krystin Hernandez, whose violent arrest was filmed and included in a compilation of NYPD misconduct during the George Floyd protests published by the New York Times. According to city reports, the NYPD`s Office of Internal Affairs investigated the circumstances of Hernandez`s arrest and exonerated the officers involved. Hernandez is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit regarding legal observers to whom city and police officials named as defendants have yet to respond.
If counsel does not reopen Rice`s case, or if he reaches the same conclusion, his case will be referred to the committee`s administrative prosecutor`s office, which acts as a kind of prosecutor`s office and hears disciplinary cases against police officers before the NYPD deputy commissioner, who serves as a judge. The Deputy Trial Commissioner, in turn, gives the Commissioner of Police a disciplinary recommendation, which he or she may accept or modify at will. The Civilian Complaints Commission corroborated 12 allegations against Sergeant Kenneth Rice of the NYPD Legal Office following these arrests and concluded that he had abused his authority. Rice was filmed and said “legal observers can be arrested.” The council listed its findings in a letter sent to legal observers earlier this month, noting that it had recommended charges against Rice. The letter did not specify what charges were recommended, and the matter was referred to another division of the CCRB for prosecution. Yet this is the first time the CCRB has recommended charges against a lawyer in the legal office for his work at a protest, a board spokesperson told The Intercept. Rice asked the CCRB to reconsider its findings. For NYPD officers, the only stable and unique identifier for police officers is the “tax identification number,” which is not always available from all sources of misconduct records. Badge/shield numbers, districts and officer names are subject to change and cannot be considered reliable identifiers. For this reason, LELU does not attempt to link records together by creating a single “profile page” for individual law enforcement officers. The watchdog overseeing misconduct by the NYPD Police Department has recommended disciplinary action against the NYPD attorney who ordered police to arrest impartial legal observers during a protest in the Bronx in the summer of 2020.
On the evening of June 4, 2020, police surrounded about 300 protesters in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx, preventing them from leaving, and then began pushing, beating, and forcibly arresting them. In total, police arrested 263 protesters in Mott Haven, accusing many of them of violating the Covid-19 curfew in place at the time, although they arrested protesters before the 8pm curfew and then prevented them from leaving the country. The NYPD says it sends its in-house lawyers from the Legal Office to observe the protests to ensure police abide by the law when interacting with protesters, but civil rights lawyers say lawyers from the Legal Office help police violate protesters` rights. It remains to be seen what will happen to the CCRB`s recommendation to discipline Rice, the strictest action the board is authorized to take. The NYPD did not immediately respond to questions about Rice`s case, then sent the following statement Thursday night: “We understand that the CCRB case will be reopened based on new evidence and expect a different outcome.” A few hours later, the CCRB received a request from Rice to reopen the case. In order for the CCRB to resume its investigation, Rice must present new evidence that would significantly alter the committee`s findings. Demonstrators gather to protest the killing of George Floyd in the South Bronx, June 4, 2020. The cauldron of Mott Haven and the mass arrests became one of the most dramatic cases of police violence against protesters during the tumultuous summer of 2020, resulting in damning reports from Human Rights Watch and the New York Department of Investigation.
“The fact that the CCRB has substantiated these allegations against a lawyer in the NYPD`s legal office should send a message to the police department,” Oliver said. “It should show them that there`s a big problem with what Sergeant Rice did that the police department didn`t recognize or take action to address it.” Service of proceedings on individuals should continue to be effected in the manner required by applicable law. Support the work of Legal Aid today with a contribution. Minett spent five hours in a cell at a police station before being accused of working with protesters.