Misconduct complaints against the NYPD are on the rise, but many of the officers who are accused of wrongdoing aren’t facing discipline, according to a new police watchdog report released Monday.
In 2024, New Yorkers submitted more than 5,600 complaints against officers, accusing them of excessive force, offensive language, sexual misconduct or several other types of policy violations, according to the report. That’s the highest number since the stop-and-frisk era in 2012, according to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates the allegations and recommends discipline.
The jump in complaints comes amid Mayor Eric Adams’ and the NYPD’s aggressive approach to policing both violence and lower-level crimes, such as fare evasion and unlicensed street vending. It also coincides with upheaval in the police department’s leadership and budget shortfalls that have limited the work of the CCRB.
The watchdog agency said in its report that it closed more than 1,400 cases last year without fully investigating the complaints because of staffing shortages and a higher workload. Even when investigators did find that officers broke department policy, the NYPD often chose not to discipline them, the report said. Sometimes that was because the police commissioner disagreed with the board’s recommendations, but for many substantiated complaints, the NYPD dropped the case because of a statute of limitations issue, the agency said.
The police department dismissed 890 misconduct complaints last year because officials said there wasn’t enough time before the statute of limitations expired to pursue disciplinary proceedings, according to the CCRB report. The agency found that the number of complaints thrown out due to statute of limitation rules more than tripled last year compared to 2023.
“For the complainant, that has to be incredibly demoralizing and create a sense of cynicism that the system is designed to ensure that the officers don’t receive discipline,” said Daniel Bodah, who worked as an investigator at the CCRB for seven years and now researches police accountability at the Vera Institute of Justice.
An NYPD spokesperson said the department always reviews complaints when the CCRB recommends severe discipline but sometimes drops less serious complaints when the watchdog agency doesn’t leave enough time for the police to review them. The spokesperson also noted the civilian complaints account for only a small portion of police interactions. Nearly 85% of active NYPD officers have never been the subject of a substantiated civilian complaint, according to the watchdog report.
The CCRB is tasked with receiving and investigating several categories of misconduct complaints against NYPD officers. The complaints range from racial profiling to discourtesy and untruthfulness. Once the CCRB substantiates a complaint and presents its findings to the NYPD, it is up to the department to decide whether to pursue discipline.
Statute of limitation rules require the department to begin disciplinary proceedings within 18 months of an incident. According to the report, 38% of the CCRB-substantiated complaints were dropped while the NYPD still had 60 days to pursue discipline against an officer.The trend of the department not pursuing disciplinary proceedings because it was too close to the statute of limitations started to climb in 2022 and rose sharply last year.“It sort of makes you wonder what the expiration date is for,” Bodah said.
He said the department is likely dismissing those cases because it wants to thoroughly review the allegations after the CCRB has already conducted its own investigation.
“It seems like an extra measure of due process beyond what we ordinarily see in any kind of adjudicative process,” he said.
In a statement, Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry accused the CCRB of wasting taxpayer dollars to solicit complaints and search for reasons to discipline officers.
“Every step of CCRB’s process is infected with anti-police bias,” he said. “This report is in no way a reflection on the men and women who protect this city every day. Police officers have zero confidence in the fairness or accuracy of CCRB’s findings in this report, and New Yorkers shouldn’t have any confidence in them, either.”
Except for during the pandemic, police misconduct complaints have risen consistently since 2016. The overall rise in allegations of misconduct was most notable in “abuse of authority,” a catch-all category ranging from sexual misconduct to failing to take a complaint.
Combined with the increase in complaints, a larger percentage of them were substantiated last year compared to 2023, putting last year on par with 2022. Acting CCRB Chair Mohammad Khalid said in the agency’s annual report that body camera footage has helped investigators identify officers accused of misconduct and determine whether they violated department policy. But, he said, cameras have also increased the burden on investigators who have to sift through thousands of hours of video.
The CCRB has a shortage of staff investigators and appointed board members who review investigators’ findings and vote on whether to recommend discipline. It took an average of 408 days for the agency to complete an investigation last year, and even longer for cases when they found an officer had violated NYPD policy. Bodah said a shortage of board members could further drag out the time it takes to make a recommendation to the NYPD, which could be contributing to the large number of cases dropped due to the statute of limitations.
In its report, the CCRB said it plans to stop investigating several types of complaints because of a shortage of investigators. Such complaints no longer being pursued by CCRB include failing to provide a business card, discourteous words and forcible removals to a hospital, unless the officer is also facing more serious allegations from the same incident.