NYC Council Police Reform Proposals Call for NYPD to Expand Reporting System

By: Donny Simcha Guttman

The NYC Council announced a series of 7 police reform proposals as part of the Democrat Majority’s agenda to be voted on in coming weeks. The proposals include expanding the NYPD reporting system on interactions with New Yorkers. In the past, NYC has required the NYPD to fill out information on a level 3 interaction, which is a “reasonable search”, allowing the NYPD to legally detain the interactor. Now, NYPD will be required to fill out forms for any interaction with a New York irrespective of the reason. The filing will have to include information of the reason for the encounter, and if there was any subsequent action taken by police.

Also, racial and demographic info will also be required on new forms. Michael Clarke, the NYPD’s director of legislative affairs testified to the NYC Council recently, that the new filing would be required even for “interactions that are not police stops — What possible value would taking this information have toward the goal of providing police accountability? In fact the bill is detrimental to building community and police relations, as it disincentivizes officers from approaching people who might need their help.” Despite recent fighting with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, a federal board overseeing the NYPD, has not supported the new proposals.

According to NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams however, “New York City’s current policies on access to body worn camera footage have unfortunately fallen short of prioritizing public transparency.” Though NYPD advocate, Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry commented to the NY Post that, “The City Council needs to stop. Stop burying cops under paperwork and the NYPD under useless reporting requirements. Stop empowering the overlapping oversight regimes to crush cops’ careers just to fuel their anti-police narrative.”

Part of the new proposed legislation includes new requirements to hand over to the public NYPD camera footage quicker than in the past. NYC Advocate Jumaane Williams requested legislation which would require the NYPD handing over camera footage within 10 days of a request by the NYPD’s inspector general. If footage is not given in the legally allotted time, a written explanation must be given to the Department of Investigation for a waiver of exception to be granted. On the new proposed camera legislation, Michael Clark also testified to the council that, ““The intent of this bill is to presumably make videos available for public inspection.

Allowing members of the public to inspect videos of individuals, possibly having one of the worst moments of their lives, is highly problematic and should be discouraged.” However, Speaker Adams however believes that other cities policies on disclosing footage were “significantly better.” She also remarked, “Clearly there is a transparency gap regarding body worn camera footage that requires examination and solutions”. On the complaints from law enforcement advocates on the aggressive nature of the new proposals, she comments that it was “misguided and clearly short-sighted” to not recognize the need for public safety and transparency.

Other proposals include, expanding NYPD civil lawsuits legal statute limits beyond 5 years when the complaint was filed, more information on consent searches, traffic stops. The proposals would also require reporting more information of different strategies that the NYPD take, including stop-and-frisk searches, overtime spending, and further data on criminal complaints, arrests, and summons issued. Lastly, it would also require, more NYPD donor information to those that donate more than a million dollars and where such money was used for.