NYPD Commissioner’s response to story about sweeping police brutality cases under the rug — ProPublica

New York Police Commissioner Edward Caban released a five-page statement Tuesday night defending his handling of officer discipline in the year since he became department chief.

The statement, posted on social media platform X, was in response to an article published last week by ProPublica and the New York Times detailing how Caban swept under the rug dozens of cases of alleged police misconduct in which officers were accused of, among other things, improperly applying chokeholds, using Tasers and beating protesters with batons. Some incidents were so serious that a police watchdog, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, concluded the officers likely committed crimes.

According to ProPublica, Caban has shielded 54 officers from public disciplinary action in his roughly one year in office – a tactic known as retention. His predecessor, Keechant Sewell, did this eight times in her first year in office.

Long before our story was published, we asked Caban for an interview and sent the NYPD detailed questions about our reporting. In response, the police issued a one-line statement: “The NYPD continues to work closely with the Civilian Complaint Review Board under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding.” That memorandum gives the commissioner the authority to preemptively dismiss cases without trial.

On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams was asked about our story at a press conference. “I have dedicated my life to police reform and proper policing,” he said. “I monitor these cases, I don’t interfere. But I have very clear expectations. We will have a police department that operates professionally.” Adams offered Caban his full support, saying the commissioner “has been extremely clear on this.”

Caban subsequently submitted a five-page statement challenging the story.

He found no inaccuracies but argued that the story was unfair. “No one is more interested in a fair, effective and efficient NYPD disciplinary process than I am,” Caban wrote. “Any suggestion that my handling of an incredibly complex, collaborative process undermines those standards simply does not stand up to honest scrutiny.”

Caban also argued that he was more efficient and effective in administering justice than the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

Here are some of Caban’s claims and what our reporting found:

“This was and remains an open process.”

When the CCRB decides on allegations of misconduct, its lawyers serve as prosecutors in a public proceeding before the NYPD, where evidence is presented and officers are questioned about the incidents.

When the Commissioner takes a case forward, he makes a closed-door decision on whether the officer’s conduct was justified, and he alone determines whether he should be punished. He sends a letter to the CCRB explaining his reasons, but the department does not release the letter, and the CCRB does not do so until months later.

The process is so opaque that the civilians we interviewed about their pending misconduct cases were unaware that the cases had been dropped.

When we told Brianna Villafane that the commander who grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to the ground during a Black Lives Matter march had been acquitted by the commissioner, she gasped and shook her head. “Who am I supposed to call now to feel safe?” Villafane asked. “Not him.”

“Every time I have taken on a case, it has been in accordance with the mutually understood and agreed upon guidelines set out in the Memorandum of Understanding.”

ProPublica’s reporting shows that’s not the case. One of the few limitations on a commissioner’s power to close cases is that he can only do so with officers who have no criminal record.

We have identified several cases where the Commissioner has closed proceedings against officials whose files contained previous proven cases of misconduct.

The department’s press office did not respond to questions about these cases for our original report, and the mayor’s chief counsel did not respond to a similar question at Tuesday’s press conference. On Wednesday, ProPublica asked the police department again about these cases and the department did not immediately respond.

“Police officers face unprecedented penalties.”

We have tracked the penalties imposed by Caban in cases where he short-circuited the controls. In 40 percent of cases, he imposed no penalty at all on the officers.

In the cases where he did impose disciplinary measures, they were usually mild, such as the loss of a few days’ vacation. The most severe punishment, we found, was a case in which he deducted 10 days’ vacation from an officer.

In more than 30 other cases, Caban overturned sentences in which the officers themselves had already agreed to a punishment. He did this more often than any other commissioner in the last ten years.

“Over the past year, the number of cases I have tried has increased enormously. So it is only logical that the number of cases I am handling will also increase.”

ProPublica has looked into this very issue. According to CCRB data, Caban faced 409 cases from the agency in his first 11 months, compared to 521 cases faced by his predecessor Sewell in her first year.

One thing that we believe the Commissioner did not address is:

Restraint is not the only method the NYPD uses to block cases.

As we reported, there have been seven cases since last summer in which the NYPD has refused to officially notify officers of the charges against them. Without such notification, there can be no disciplinary action.

These cases include chokeholds, electric shocks, and beating a teenager with a baton. Each of these cases was so serious that the CCRB concluded that the officers’ conduct was likely criminal. And when the department simply fails to inform an officer, there is no public announcement, effectively delaying the case indefinitely.

We asked the NYPD and the Commissioner about these cases for our previous article. They did not respond.