Objective

To determine if the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) has an appropriate and sufficiently documented basis for the complaints referred to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and other agencies and for truncated complaints,¹ and if CCRB is conducting investigations in compliance with New York City regulations and CCRB’s internal policies and procedures. The audit covers the period from January 2018 through May 2021.

About the Program

CCRB receives, investigates, prosecutes, mediates, hears, makes findings, and recommends action on civilian complaints filed against members of the NYPD. CCRB has jurisdiction over complaints that allege the use of excessive or unnecessary force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, or the use of offensive language – collectively referred to as FADO. Although CCRB investigators make recommendations to CCRB’s Board on how each allegation should be resolved, the Board decides the disposition of each allegation based on the majority vote of a panel of three Board members. CCRB reported that it received 3,872 and 1,749 complaints within its jurisdiction in 2020 and the first half of 2021, respectively.

Key Findings

CCRB does not complete investigations in a timely manner and does not have performance measures in place to effectively monitor lengthy investigations. CCRB reported that it took 211 and 248 days, on average, to fully investigate and close cases in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Investigation durations significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, with CCRB reporting averages of 317 and 430 days to fully investigate and close cases in 2020 and the first half of 2021, respectively. In October 2018, CCRB officials reported to the Board that the internal expectation to fully investigate a case in 90 days is not being met and is not realistic. While CCRB officials attributed long investigation times in part to NYPD’s delays in providing information or access to members of service, we identified weaknesses in CCRB’s oversight of timeliness of investigations and monitoring of delays that could jeopardize its ability to hold officers accountable for misconduct. However, CCRB did not revise this time frame or create effective ways to monitor causes of delays. For example, CCRB has automated notifications that cases are nearing the statute of limitations. However, given the time it takes to address delays during investigations, these notifications may not occur timely enough for CCRB to effectively address such cases.

Furthermore, CCRB did not always follow its own complaint processing policies and procedures. For example, CCRB truncated a sampled complaint while there was an outstanding request to the NYPD for body-worn camera footage. According to CCRB’s Investigative Manual, no case should be recommended for truncation if there is an outstanding request for body-worn camera footage. In addition, we determined CCRB did not follow the recommended penalties stated by its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the NYPD over disciplinary penalties in one case soon after the MOU was effective.

¹A truncated case is when an investigation is attempted but is not completed.

Key Recommendations

• Augment existing formal processes with appropriate controls to ensure that the NYPD responds to CCRB’s requests for documentation and interviews in a timely manner, and improve the efficiency, thoroughness, and effectiveness of its investigations.
• Enhance formal processes to help ensure that cases approaching the 18-month statute of limitations are identified and prioritized more timely, allowing sufficient time to resolve them and recommend penalties as appropriate.
• Enhance formal processes to assess the extent to which various causes of delays affect the timeliness of investigations and take appropriate remedial action.