New York|Under Pressure on Policing, N.Y.C. Mayor Toughens Discipline
Mayor de Blasio said the city would put all police disciplinary records online and speed up the disciplinary process against officers accused of abuse.
Under immense pressure to overhaul Police Department tactics and curb the department’s authority, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced a series of significant changes in the way the nation’s largest police force will discipline its officers.
The changes include the creation of a database next month that will track the roughly 1,100 pending cases involving allegations of police abuse and will include the officers’ names and the charges. The city will also publish all internal trial decisions and eventually make all disciplinary records, past and present, accessible online.
The mayor’s announcement follows weeks of mass demonstrations in New York City, during which the Police Department’s sometimes violent crowd-control tactics have sparked outrage and led critics to question Mr. de Blasio’s dedication to overhauling the police. His rhetoric on the issue helped propel him to office in 2013.
In the last two weeks, the mayor has signaled his intention to rethink the Police Department’s budget and role in the city. Earlier this month, Mr. de Blasio pledged to cut police funding, although he has balked at the City Council’s proposal to slash $1 billion.
He also is now embracing a City Council bill that would ban law enforcement’s use of chokeholds, after years of resisting the proposal. The bill has enough Council support to override a mayoral veto.
“I’m listening. I’m acting,” Mr. de Blasio said on Wednesday. “I feel what people are saying. Things have to change, they are changing and they will change more.”
The situation is so fluid that the mayor appeared to modify a new policy that he had just announced the day before. On Tuesday, Mr. de Blasio said that he would require the police to release all body camera footage and audio within 30 days in cases where an officer caused death or substantial bodily harm, or fired a weapon that could have done so.
Originally he said the policy would not apply retroactively. On Wednesday, he said it would.
He also said Wednesday that the Police Department will speed up disciplinary procedure in cases where officers cause “substantial injury to a civilian.” The new guidelines require the police commissioner to decide whether to strip the officer of badge and gun or suspend the officer within two days.
Internal investigations in those cases must generally be concluded within two weeks, Mr. de Blasio said. In the past, disciplinary inquiries could take months or years, as occurred in the case of Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who put Eric Garner into a chokehold.
The mayor’s actions come after the State Legislature’s repeal of the law known as 50-a, which his administration interpreted to shield records of police misconduct.
The mayor made the announcements without the presence of his police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, who will be charged with implementing the new policies. Nevertheless, Mr. de Blasio insisted that he and Mr. Shea are on the same page.
Police reformers were dubious in their initial response to Mr. de Blasio’s announcements, given his history of obstructing change in the department.
In the case of the chokehold bill, senior officials from the mayor’s office had requested that it contain a clause excluding “incidental contact that results in compression of the diaphragm.” Rory I. Lancman, a councilman from Queens and the primary sponsor of the legislation, said the clause would have neutered his bill. On Wednesday, a spokeswoman from the mayor’s office, said the mayor embraced Mr. Lancman’s bill as is.
On Wednesday, Communities United for Police Reform, an advocacy group, accused the mayor on Twitter of making “empty statements without detail.”
The group has demanded Mr. de Blasio defund the police, as has Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, who plays a central role in the city’s budget negotiations. The city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, who, like Mr. Johnson, is running for mayor, has also called for some level of defunding.
In a statement, Mr. Stringer described Mr. de Blasio’s announcement as “unclear” and said the Council should pass legislation that requires the Police Department to report disciplinary records in a public online database.
“There is no substitute for codifying this important reform with the force of law,” Mr. Stringer said.
Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.
