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• INSIDE THE OFFICE OF THE NYPD POLICE COMMISSIONER FREE

"On matters of police accountability, as with any issue that requires the cooperation of multiple agencies, City Hall is always in dialogue with both the NYPD and CCRB," the statement said.

INSIDE THE OFFICE OF THE NYPD POLICE COMMISSIONER FREE

Napolitano and three others at the agency who pushed for more aggressive oversight were let go last November in what the mayor's office described as a reorganization and a " step forward." (In a lawsuit, Napolitano and the others argue they were fired in retaliation for raising concerns about the agency's independence, which they say was a violation of their free speech the city is seeking to dismiss the case, arguing the concerns weren't protected speech.)Ī statement provided by City Hall spokesperson Avery Cohen noted that a recent administration proposal would consolidate police oversight agencies under the CCRB, and said edits of reports and testimony were just part of the governing process. The goal was to give a "veneer of accountability." "Every testimony, every report, every hearing was completely controlled by what City Hall wanted or didn't want," said Nicole Napolitano, who was a senior policy analyst for the agency. As one agency official informed a colleague in a text: "City Hall put the kibosh on it." When her successor was scheduled to ask a city commission for more oversight power in late 2018, the mayor's office intervened and canceled the testimony. After The New York Times revealed the changes, Wiley defended them.Ĭity Hall's grip continued after Wiley left in the summer of 2017. During Wiley's tenure, the office removed recommendations from a draft report that faulted the NYPD's use of Tasers after City Hall objected to the findings. But after de Blasio chose her to chair the agency, the CCRB shifted toward tighter mayoral control. Wiley, who was the mayor's chief legal adviser before joining the CCRB in July 2016, has made police reform a central part of her campaign platform. Some of the leading candidates in this month's mayoral primary have seen that resistance up close, including Eric Adams, a former NYPD commander who often criticized the department Scott Stringer, the city comptroller and Maya Wiley, the onetime head of the CCRB under de Blasio. Rather than seeking to slash the size of the police force, many candidates have echoed the promise de Blasio once made to institute genuine civilian oversight of a department that has long chafed at it. They too are facing both calls for racial justice and concerns about crime, which has risen in New York over the past year as it has in other cities. But the internal accounts show how City Hall worked behind the scenes to protect the NYPD from scrutiny.ĭe Blasio will leave office at the end of the year, and his administration has defended his efforts to improve police oversight, telling ProPublica that while the CCRB "was left to languish under previous administrations, it's clear this mayor took a different approach." But his record is a warning to the field of candidates vying to succeed him. New Yorkers and others have seen de Blasio's deference to the police play out on the public stage, perhaps most infamously when he defended NYPD's response to last summer's racial justice protests. When the CCRB in a draft report two years ago noted that police were withholding footage from body-worn cameras, an aide to the mayor ordered the CCRB to take out the direct reference to the department: "Let's simplify and remove the acronym 'NYPD.'" And when the civilian officials were faced with obstruction by the NYPD, the mayor's office ignored their pleas for support. It maneuvered to block some of the same policies de Blasio had advocated for years before.

The mayor's office edited reports and testimony to soften criticism of the NYPD and roll back proposals for more effective oversight. And rather than create more independence for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, he ended up asserting ever-more control over the agency, intent on avoiding conflict with the Police Department, according to internal communications obtained by ProPublica and interviews with more than two dozen current and former officials. A few months later, he again pledged change, saying in a statement, "the NYPD cannot oversee itself." New York City needed true civilian oversight.ĭescribing the city agency tasked with investigating police misconduct as "more of a lapdog than a watchdog," he proposed in 2009 to give it more independence, authority, and guaranteed funding.

Years ago, before he was mayor, Bill de Blasio laid out the essence of any effort to reform the country's largest police department. This article originally appeared on ProPublica.