Backlogs at the Civilian Complaint Review Board are now running over a year, making a mockery of whatever purpose the board’s supposed to serve.
Part of the problem is that three of the 15 commissioner slots have been sitting vacant, making it that much harder to assemble enough members to either dismiss or validate each civilian complaint.
A larger issue is that it’s far too easy to file a bogus claim in the first place.
Mayor Eric Adams recently found the time to fill a fourth vacancy by naming Sherene Crawford to join the board next month; he still has one spot to fill, and the Bronx City Council delegation needs to quit stalling and choose its CCRB appointee. Plus, Adams and Council Speaker Adrienne Adams must jointly name a board chair.
This is pretty slight progress over last September, when we called on the politicians to fill five vacancies.
Time and again, a board session is aborted for lack of a quorom of commissioners; each time, roughly a hundred cases get delayed.
That’s unfair to the accused cops: The CCRB substantiated fewer than 14% of the 5,600 complaints it received in 2023 and less than 25% in 2024.
And CCRB records show that many of the substantiated claims are for violations such as failure to turn on a body-worn camera or failure to offer the “Right To Know” card.
Bad enough that a cop’s reputation can be smeared — a blemish that stains an officer’s record — because she forgot to hand someone her business card.
Worse still that so many officers sit in limbo so long because of the backlog, with superficially more serious charges pending even though they’ll eventually get dismissed for lack of any evidence.
Problem is, there’s no penalty for a civilian to file a false claim or lie to CCRB investigators, though even a voter registration form has an affidavit section to discourage bogus enrollments.
No wonder the NYPD is suffering unprecedented attrition and having a difficult time attracting new recruits.
On top of filling the vacancies, the council and mayor should address one simple reform: Require all complainants to give their statement under oath.
No one should be able to call or email the CCRB with the most outrageous lies with zero risk of consequences.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
