Secret NYPD files show officers avoid firing for serious offences

The report from Buzzfeed News find that officer regularly receive minimal punishment for breaking rules

A police officer watching over Times Square (REUTERS)

Police in New York City have regularly been able to avoid getting fired for serious offences that merited that sort of discipline, according to a new investigation by Buzzfeed News.

From 2011 to 2015, at least 319 New York Police Department (NYPD) officers or employees managed to keep their jobs after offences as serious as lying on official reports, stealing, and assaulting residents of the city, according to internal files obtained by the news organisation.

The review revealed startling figures: At least 58 employees were found to have led on official reports, under oath, or during internal investigations; 38 were found guilty by a police tribunal of using excessive force while on duty; 71 were found to have fixed tickets; 58 drove under the influence of an intoxicating substance; and at least one officer sexually harassed and inappropriately touched a fellow officer.

Some of the cases reviewed by Buzzfeed were for lesser offences.

But, in each case identified, the police commissioner at the time assigned the officers or employees to “dismissal probation”. That punishment is pretty basic and non-intrusive: Employees continue to do their job with the same salary. They may get fewer overtime hours during probation, and may be passed over for promotions, but the probations usually last a year.

The NYPD has been able to keep these files and histories largely a secret using a law known as Civil Rights Law Section 50-a, which has allowed agencies in New York State to carry out some of the least transparent protocols in the country.

The law was passed in 1976, and was promoted by police unions that argued that a truly transparent system would allow “unverified and unsubstantiated” allegations to surface, as well as “confidential information and privileged medical records” about officers that could be used against them.

Some of the cases identified by Buzzfeed in their investigation — which only covers those years and is in no way a comprehensive look at NYPD punishment through the years — are striking in that they show repeated violence and disregard for rules for the police force that is tasked with keeping America’s largest city safe.

That includes the case of one officer who was accused of viciously beating an individual, arresting an individual under false pretenses, assaulting a third individual, and for fabricating evidence against another.

Of those, one incident involved a man saying he was thrown to the ground and repeatedly punched in the head. In another, the officer was accused of hitting a detained suspect in the head with a police baton, resulting in 12 staples and a hospital visit to close a gash in their head.

The officer reportedly cost the department roughly $900,000 in settlement fees related to just that one officer.

The NYPD says that every case is analysed differently because each case is different. The department also says that their policy is to not terminate officers when they are not in absolute need of being terminated. When circumstances arise where an officer needs to be fired, a spokesman said, the commissioner and the department have done so.