A city's police oversight agency can punish officers who turn off their body cameras during an incident and can also launch an investigation without filing charges, a state appeals court has ruled.
The NYPD's union, which represents police officers and sergeants, filed a lawsuit last year challenging the civilian complaint board's new rules, saying the expanded oversight “exceeds its authority.”
“The PBA intends to seek permission to appeal this decision,” Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Hendry said of the latest ruling in favor of the CCRB.
Hendry called the review board “a rogue agency staffed by anti-police activists with a mission to eliminate all forms of effective, proactive policing in New York City.”
“Their ultimate goal is to take complete control of the NYPD and force competent police officers out of the job,” Hendry told the Post. “Unfortunately, they are successful.”
CCRB was defended in a legal challenge by the City Attorney's Office and supported by briefs from the NYCLU, Bronx Defenders, and Latino Justice Groups.
“We are pleased that the court has once again rejected the PBA's attempts to obstruct police accountability and undermine the CCRB's independent investigation into police abuses,” NYCLU Senior Staff Attorney Lupe Aguirre told the paper. Ta. “This ruling will make it harder to silence investigators and New Yorkers about police misconduct when officers encounter civilians.”
The Justice Department official added: “The CCRB had the legal authority to make decisions it deemed important to its mission.
“We are pleased that the court agreed,” the attorney said.
In 2022, the CCRB announced a number of new rules over the objections of the PBA and the Sergeants' Benevolent Association. The union sued authorities in 2023, saying the changes “blatantly disadvantage officers.”
However, the CCRB argued in court filings that the misuse of police officer body cameras makes it significantly more difficult to reach a determination of possible police misconduct. identified numerous instances in which “people took action to prevent or stop recordings of police misconduct.”
Despite police union lawyers' claims that camera misuse is punished internally, the CCRB said these officers are rarely properly disciplined.
“It stands to reason that this should be part of the definition of abuse of power, as it may constitute evidence of an attempt to cover up wrongdoing,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arlene Bruce wrote in a ruling in early January. The CCRB also judged that this was more than a committee action. To authorize members to proactively initiate investigations into police misconduct.
Bruce wrote that the union's challenge had to deal with the “heavy burden” of proving the new rules were “inherently arbitrary.”
“'Disagreement with the CCRB's rules is not a basis for this court's intervention in every case,'” the justices wrote at the time.
The lower court's decision in favor of the watchdog was unanimously upheld on appeal, marking the first CCRB rule change to survive a high court decision in recent years.
Two previous lawsuits filed against the CCRB challenging the rule changes in 2018 and 2021 were both upheld by state appellate courts.
