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Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. New this morning, the Civilian Complaint Review Board of the New York City Police Department is out with a comprehensive report on the findings of NYPD misconduct during the Black Lives Matter protest in the summer of 2020. The CCRB if you aren't familiar is the independent-- I said it's of the police department, it really observes the police department. It's the independent civilian agency tasked with investigating allegations of misconduct against members of the NYPD.

We have the interim chair of the CCRB, Arva Rice with us now. She's been in this role for about a year and was appointed to the temporary possession by Mayor Eric Adams. Some of those findings, the significant challenges of investigating so many cases and the state of the CCRB in 2023 under a new mayoral administration and amid the city's budget deficit can it be effective in monitoring police misconduct. In addition to serving as interim chair of the CCRB, Arva Rice is the CEO and president of the New York Urban League as some of you may know. Miss Rice, thanks so much for coming on WNYC today. Hi, there.

Arva: Hello, there. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Brian: Before we get into the new report, would you like to introduce the CCRB to the unfamiliar and say a little bit about who comprises the board and its investigative staff?

Arva: Yes, you will. You spoke about it wonderfully and well. We are the largest independent agency that addresses issues of excessive or unnecessary force, abuse of authority, including racial profiling and bias-based policing, discourtesy, or use of offensive language. Our purview has increased most recently with the city council voting for us to look at racial profiling and bias-based policing.

The entity in its current form started in 1993 with Mayor Dinkins as an All-Civilian Complaint Review Board, and the members are 15 members that are part of that board. Five are appointed by the mayor himself. Five are appointed by the city council. Then there are three that are designated by the New York City Police Department. One is appointed by our public advocate and the last is myself, the interim chair or chair, who has a joint appointment by the mayor and the city council.

Brian: Since you mentioned that origin story from 1993, I'm curious to get your take on one thing as a follow-up, if you go back that far, just know the history that far. We actually did a 1993-oriented history series on the show last month. One of the things that we referenced was the so-called police riot in 1992, that Rudy Giuliani as a candidate for mayor was one of the speakers at. The reason the police rank and file who attended that rally and then riot were so upset was that the old complaint review board was half civilian, half NYPD and the proposal at that time was to make it all civilian. As you just referenced, that proposal went through at that time. It used to be half NYPD, half civilian for the last 30 years it's been an All-Civilian Complaint Review Board. Do you think that has mattered to real police accountability in New York City?

Arva: Oh, I think it's been an amazing recommendation and change. I think it's important for there to be a civilian board, one that is obviously trained. We're all trained and looking at the reports that we receive, the investigative work that is presented before us. We are also educated by the three folks that are recommended and appointed by the NYPD. However, it's important for their voices to be one of the 15 on the board. We think that it leads to a greater police accountability, and we think it's been pivotal for the work that we've done over the last 30 years.

Brian: With all that as background, we come to the summer of 2020. George Floyd has been murdered by Derek Chauvin, a member of the Minneapolis Police Department, and New Yorkers as you and probably all our listeners know march, protest, and demonstrate. The response from the NYPD ultimately leads to hundreds of complaints of misconduct. Can you give us a breakdown of some of those numbers? How many total complaints did the CCRB get from those protests? How many different officers were named in those complaints?

Arva: Yes. As you laid out, this was a time of extreme agitation and people were wanting to express their displeasure by being able to march in the streets of New York. During that time, we received at one point over 300 complaints in a 48-hour period. In total, in the summer of 2020, we received 750 complaints that came down to 321 that involved 500 different members of service. Of the 321 complaints, we were able to fully investigate 226 of those complaints. The difference in that number is individuals where we were no longer able to find the victim in the complaint or they did not follow through on their allegations. Of the 226 fully invested complaints by the board, 88 of the complaints were considered substantiated. That means that there's a preponderance of evidence that indicated that misconduct occurred.

There were 59 complaints where officers were unidentified and we can talk a little bit more about that specific category. 50 complaints were unable to determine, and that's where there just wasn't sufficient evidence to move forward. There were 18 complaints that fell within NYPD guidelines and that's always a tough one for us. The fact is, that there are some guidelines where police officers are able to use some level, not excessive or unnecessary, but some level of force. There were 18 of those that were just determined within that guideline. There were 11 complaints that we found completely unfounded. That we did not believe that the alleged misconduct did occur. To answer your question more fully, the substantiated 269 individual allegations of misconduct were against 146 members of service or 146 police officers.

Brian: Does that suggest 146 bad apples or something more systemic that may have come from command on down?

Arva: As we know, it was a specifically difficult and challenging moment in time. It was unprecedented at that moment, even though let's be clear, New Yorkers marching when they see injustice is not unusual, but to have that level of number particular against police brutality. I think that there are some things that we learned from this process. I do think that they're individuals that if they acted inappropriately, they need to be held accountable for it.

Brian: What, if anything do you learn systemically?

Arva: There's a number of different learnings from this report. Some that are very tactical. We found officers who the paperwork and reporting wasn't good. By that, I mean that there were specific documents that usually document who is at a specific location, who were the officers who were assigned to a specific march whether it was at Barclay Center, whether it was in the Bronx in Mott Haven, and some of that paperwork we found lacking. We found officers who their badge numbers were covered by either a-- it's covered intentionally or covered by some type of mourning band. Those are some of the things that we've specifically have learned and want to make sure it's corrected anytime going forward in the future.

I think that when we talk about systemically, the importance of places like the Civilian Complaint Review Board is instances like this just underscore the fact that it's important for officers to have a group of civilians who are looking at body-worn camera and footage, having conversations doing interviews, and being able to hold them accountable when there is excessive force when there is offensive language that's used or people are treated [unintelligible 00:09:09].

Brian: Excuse me, you mentioned that one specific challenge twice now. It is referenced in the report that officers' identities were obscured and you just gave us a couple of examples of how. How did your investigators at the CCRB tried to overcome that particular hurdle and how successful do you think they were?

Arva: The investigators worked very hard and diligently to overcome that. Looking as I mentioned in the official body-worn camera, there were times when we requested information on a specific incident and were initially told there was no body-worn camera footage. The investigators were diligent and found that there was some footage that was there looking at social media, looking as I mentioned at the paperwork that was there as diligently as possible, doing as many interviews as possible in order to identify the number of officers that they could. But the fact that there were still 59 complaints where the officer was unidentified is problematic. We want to make sure that if there are protests, whether small or large going forward in the future that officers are more easily identifiable. The NYPD is very well-trained and they understand the importance of paperwork. There's no reason why in a situation like this, that the paperwork should not be completed accurately.

Brian: Listeners, we have time for a few questions from you about the findings of misconduct against members of the NYPD stemming from Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer of 2020. Our special guest is Arva Rice, interim chair of the CCRB, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, CEO, and president of the New York Urban League. 211-2433-WNYC is our phone number as always 212-433-9692. Or you can tweet @BrianLehrer.

Ms. Rice, our newsroom at the time had extensive reporting about kettling peaceful protests in Mott Haven in the Bronx back in June of 2020. Kettling being confining demonstrators to a small area, and in this case using tear gas, beating some of them, and conducting mass arrests. I'm curious how the CCRB handled that particular charge and the many complaints that must have come from that particular protest.

Arva: As you mentioned, kettling is a very controversial policing practice, but there are some places in the NYPD patrol guide where it is acceptable. The CCRB's official stance on it is that we would recommend that kettling not be utilized in protest cases because as you mentioned, it's individual groups of people that are pushed all into one particular area and not able to leave. In one of the cases, it was right after the curfews have been put in place by then Mayor de Blasio. Once people are kettled, you don't know if they're trying to leave and obey the curfew or if they are part of the people that want to stay. Everybody is treated the same way.

When you start using pepper spray, if you want to use pepper spray on one person or two people in a situation where they're kettled, now everyone is experiencing the pepper spray, which is now created a medical condition. That was the other sighting in our report, is that individual civilians were not able to have medical treatment in the timeline that we thought was appropriate. As a result of the issues of kettling, everyone being treated the same way, people not being able to move out of harm's way, we thought the use of the pepper spray as well as the use of the batons on individuals that led to some physical damage. We believe that kettling should not be utilized going forward.

Brian: Who was in charge that night and did you have specific findings about them in your report?

Arva: Yes. That was one of the other issues in the findings. We thought that there was really a failure to truly establish the supervisor and the commanding officers from lower ranking officers. That we feel was a failure of the NYPD as well. Our recommendation is that that is more clearly articulated going forward so that the answer of who is in charge can be answered with conviction, and quickly and well.

Brian: One of the takeaways from some reporting from our newsroom, from our reporter, Christopher Werth I guess about your report was that the CCRB staff felt the agency should have spoken out more forcefully about the lack of NYPD cooperation in investigating these complaints as this was going on during investigations. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on whether the CCRB itself was too silent about lack of NYPD cooperation along the way.

Arva: Just to add a little bit more color to that. Some of the challenges were as I mentioned that we were trying to call in police officers for interviews and it was during the pandemic. We had some members of the CCRB who were working remotely, as was dictated by our governor at the time, but the union was not cooperative in encouraging some of our members of service to do those interviews. As I mentioned, we asked for numbers of body-worn camera footage. We were told it was not available, and at later points, we were able to receive it. I think it's always a delicate balancing act.

The CCRB and the NYPD are naturally because we're an oversight agency. We're in a challenging position, the NYPD's membership and loyalty which we understand its over 35,000 members of service. The Civilian Complaint Review Board's loyalty is to our civilians. Hindsight is always 2020. Staff members always have things to say about leadership. Is there some more speaking up the Civilian Complaint Review Board may have done along the way, perhaps, but this report we feel is the ultimate level of accountability.

Brian: Curious why this took so long as well. These protests that you're reporting on the police behavior around were from the summer of 2020, that's two and a half years ago now. Why did it take this long and is that unusual?

Arva: Well, the circumstances that we were in were unusual, as you know. We received over 300 complaints in 48 hours, which is unprecedented for the agency. We were in the middle of a pandemic. We were trying to literally find the identities of these individual people. Our usual and standard practice is to get the detail rosters that indicate who were the officers that were on duty at any particular place and time. Our standard operation procedures is to ask for body-worn camera footage. Part of the reason why you look at body-worn camera footage is to look at what happened, but also you can look at the badge numbers of the officers because they're on the footage.

The fact that we were not able to get that body-worn footage, the fact that the detailed rosters were not in place, the vehicle assignments there was accusations of whether it was bicycles or cars that were literally scattering civilians as they were peacefully protesting were difficult to track down as well because we would look for who was assigned to the car and they would be people that weren't even working that day. All of those things led to the most complicated, the most complex set of cases that we have had in our history. Those are some of the reasons why this report took a little bit longer than we had anticipated in order to be released.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Mike in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with the head of the CCRB. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I had a terrible experience with the CCRB right before the Black Lives Matter protests. I'd just like to make a suggestion. My father was a New York City police officer for 30 years, so I'm very sympathetic to the difficult job that they served. I had this terrible experience with two police officers who were really aggressive and actually arrested me and put me in a cell and were yelling at me and cursing at me the entire time. Even doing it in front of some of their co-officers. When I went to the CCRB, someone who had witnessed the thing also called in, so I even had a witness, but there was no one there to advocate or to help me navigate the system.

The person who was the moderator, the mediator, I didn't expect that person to take sides. I know that person needs to be neutral. M suggestion for the CCRB would be to have someone who can help the person who's complaining navigate the system and understand even the severity of what was done, because later after I had to go to court and the police officers didn't show up, so everything was dismissed. In the records, they falsified the records, making outrageous claims about things that I had never even done, like putting my hands on their police car to stop their progress. Things that were just completely fabricated. I think if somebody were there at the CCRB to look over what was going on, they would've given me better advice and would've been able to hold these officers more accountable for their actions.

The person who's coming in making the complaint is new to the system. They don't understand what's going on. The police officers have a lot more leverage and a lot more knowledge of how the system works. I just think if the CCRB had someone who can help the person navigate the system a little bit better, I think the officers would take it more seriously. Even in the hearing itself, the officers were dismissive and they kept threatening to walk away and leave even though they were the ones who were supposedly being held accountable. The whole thing was just really unsatisfying. I just think [unintelligible 00:19:43] [crosstalk].

Brian: Mike, let me get a response. Thank you for laying out your experience.

Mike: Yes. Sorry. [unintelligible 00:19:45]

Brian: No, you did great and that's very troubling. Ms. Rice, what would you say to Mike? One of the things that particularly jumped out at me was the imbalance and expertise. You have some guy in this case who feels he was mistreated by the police and doesn't have experience with this process, and on the other side, you have the police officers from the department that deals with it all the time and knows how to navigate those meetings. What would you say to Mike?

Arva: First of all, Mike, my apologies that you went through that experience both with the police department and felt like you did not have a positive experience with the CCRB. We have received additional funding from the city council in order to create a unit that specifically looks at and targets the victims, and talks to them more about their needs and some of the things that they're looking to address. The Civilian Complaint Review Board is looking to improve in that area.

We opened this meeting talking about the conversation about our budget and our budget constraints. As I mentioned, the staff of CCRB is just over 200 people and we're responsible for overseeing a entity of over 35,000 members of service, and then obviously a city of millions. We want to make sure that any interaction that individuals have with the Civilian Complaint Review Board is not like the one that Mike mentioned, but I want to thank him for calling in and making me aware of that as we continue to make sure, as you mentioned, that individuals who are civilians can file complaints and feel that their voices are being heard.

Brian: Mike, thank you for telling your story publicly. I think it's really useful to making things as good as they can be. Has the NYPD overhauled its protest response, in particular, in the aftermath of 2020?

Arva: To my knowledge, there has not been a full-scale overhaul. We hope that this report will help to push for some of those things. I know that the advocate community, those individuals who do watch the NYPD as a matter of practice will also push for these reform efforts.

Brian: On the budget constraints you were talking about, we know that a number of city agencies are saying they've been hamstrung by budget complaints and even forced into hiring freezes. Under Mayor Adams's new proposed budget with some anticipated tougher times ahead for city finances, a number of agencies are not happy with what they see coming down the pike. I know there's going to be a big debate in city council over the budget and how much the police are funded compared to things that are meant to prevent crime in the first place. What's your take on that in general as head of the Urban League, if you can put that hat on, and in your role at the CCRB as well, as far as that agency is concerned?

Arva: Well, when it comes to the question of budget, I can keep one hat on. I believe that that we need to make sure that we invest in those things that are priorities for us. The mayor has made a concrete decision to invest in public safety. He wants to make sure that the police department remains fully funded and able to do its work. Well, we believe that the Civilian Complaint Review Board is part of public safety. As long as you have police officers, then you need to have an oversight entity in order to make sure that we don't have misuse of police authority. The Civilian Complaint Review Board is very much pushing to make sure that the cuts that have been proposed if they're not made to NYPD, they should not be made at the Civilian Complaint Review Board either.

Brian: Tina, in Central Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tina.

Tina: Hi, Brian. Thanks for letting me ask this question. I keep hearing about the report and recommendations that come out of the report, and how many officers were complained about. I haven't heard anything to my ear that says there's been any disciplinary action about this stuff, and what it sounds like to my ear is, if I was one of those cops, I'd say, "Hey, there's no bite here at all. I don't have to worry. I'm completely immune to any adverse effects from my behavior."

Brian: Miss, Rice.

Arva: Thank you Tina for that question. Just to clarify, we did substantiate the allegations with the 146 officers. The NYPD finalized those complaints for 78 of those officers and 46 have been disciplined. That is a rate of about 53%. We of course would like to have it be a higher percentage of that. Any recommendation that the Civilian Complaint Review Board makes is ultimately the final arbitrator of discipline. In New York City, it's the NYPD Police Commissioner. We were able to suggest the complaints for 78 officers and 46 have been disciplined. There are still 62 cases that are still pending. Our hope is that we will raise the rate of our recommendation beyond 53%, but I do not want you to leave this call thinking that there were no officers that were disciplined as a result of the protest.

Brian: Although what you're describing is a coin toss. Heads-

Arva: Yes, exactly.

Brian: -they get disciplined, tail-- 53%. I guess it's systemic along the lines of what you just said because the CCRB ultimately possesses only recommendation power and the decision of whether to discipline officers ultimately rests with the NYPD Commissioner, so she in this case is free to reject any CCRB finding of an officer being deserving of discipline that she wants, and certainly that's not unique to Keechant Sewell, it's certainly been the case with all the commissioners have come before her. Do you think structurally that one of the most important things to come out of this conversation is that that needs to change and recommendations for discipline of the CCRB should be binding?

Arva: It has been the standing of the Civilian Complaint Review Board since 1993 at least when Mayor Dinkins reorganized this body that the recommendation should be standing and binding, that the police department, the commissioner should not be the final arbiter of discipline because essentially it's the police policing the police. We believe that if we are to be an independent agency, that we should have that independent authority as well.

Brian: Do you feel like Mayor Adams takes the CCRB seriously or that it's a priority for him?

Arva: As we all know, Mayor Adams is a former police officer, but we also know he became a police officer because he had an unfortunate incident in a police precinct where he was at the other end of police misconduct. Mayor Adams definitely believes in a police accountability, and the Civilian Complaint Review Board is the place where we're responsible for that. Obviously, NYPD has its own internal affairs unit and has its own way of disciplining its officers when it goes beyond our purview of excessive force, and offensive language, and derogatory language. We think that the Civilian Complaint Review Board is the place for police accountability, and we believe that the mayor is supportive of our efforts.

Brian: One more call. Jed in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Arva Rice, the interim chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board in New York City. Hi, Jed.

Jed: Hi. Well, I'm so glad that this last point got raised about the problem of binding decisions because I'm an activist who works out in the movement, and also has been working on this very issue of accountability for many years. This is where the CCRB really falls completely inadequate because the binding decision-making power still lies with the police themselves. That's been shown year and again to result in such a small amount of these complaints actually resulting in misconduct, and also even if the decision is agreed on the result, the consequences is downgraded. There's even an attrition rate in injustice beyond just the complaints getting through.

Also important to be said is that the board is appointed largely by powers aligned with the police. Five by the mayor and three by the commissioner themselves, so that's an issue as well that actually filters out complaints. The good thing is there's legislation in city council to fix this and actually create a new elected civilian review board that would be empowered and have binding decision-making power and elected by the districts and community as well as an independent prosecutor to deal with the problem of the DA's conflict of interest. I really support the movement and pushing for that, and I call on the mayor and the city council to really hear the community and put the community power act on the ballot.

Brian: Jed, thank you for your call. I appreciate it. Do you want to say anything to that, Ms. Rice? Then I'm going to ask you a closing question.

Arva: Sure. Jed, thank you so much for your efforts and your advocacy. You and other New Yorkers like you are the reasons why things like 50-a got repealed. I want to thank you for your efforts. One quick response to the idea of elected Civilian Complaint Review Board. As we know, there are elections that happened where there's very small number of people who come to vote and those elections can be very much influenced by external factors.

I would put some caution around having a Civilian Complaint Review Board be an elected body just because the NYPD is a very powerful entity and the fact that the people that are appointed to the civilian complaint board are put on there by people who have been elected by their communities. Everybody in city council agrees to those five recommendations. The mayor was elected by the New York City and has those five appointments as well. I would just put those in as a little bit of caution if we think about having an elected Civilian Complaint Review Board.

Brian: Can I ask you a closing question? With your Urban League and/or your CCRB hat on this report that the CCRB issued is about police behavior during the 2020 George Floyd protests, but here we are two and a half years later and we're talking about Tyree Nichols. A lot of people are asking, has nothing changed since George Floyd if something like that could happen again? I'm curious how you see the NYPD in particular. Of course, these are national issues, but in your role, I'm asking you your view of the NYPD in particular for its level of professionalism, and if we can say non-racism in the way that it treats people it encounters.

Arva: Obviously, the case of Tyree Nichols is one that hurts my heart and soul as an African American woman, as the head of the New York Urban League, and with brothers, father, nephews, and men in my life that I care deeply about who have to receive a different set of instructions when they leave their homes than their White counterparts. That the idea of them resisting arrest can lead to their not coming home at night. It is, obviously an issue of great concern.

I believe that the majority of the New York City Police Department does their job, I mean does protect and serve, but I think that for those who believe that their job is only about policing, those are the individuals that we need to have additional oversight over and make sure that they are working in ways that they are providing that protection and that service, no matter the neighborhood, no matter the community, and no matter the color of your skin. Is there more work to be done in this area? Absolutely. It is something that, as I mentioned earlier, I do think that our mayor is committed to and making sure that New Yorkers feel safe.

Brian: You made a distinction there between policing and protecting and serving.

Arva: Absolutely. Absolutely. When we talk about the protest cases, we talk about how they were policed. Well, the fact is that there's protests, there's parades, there's rallies, there's events that happen all day every day in New York City and we do not have this level of having 300 complaints in a 48-hour period. We just want to make sure that when people are protesting, if they're at a parade, if they're at a large group gathering, that they are served and protected rather than policed

Brian: Arva Rice, interim chair of the CCRB and CEO and president of the New York Urban League. Thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate you coming on and having this conversation.

Arva: Thank you.

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