Crime

BuzzFeed Reveals That Black People Haven't Been Lying All This Time About The NYPD

A report highlights that the NYPD regularly puts bad cops back on the streets.

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One of the things we’ve learned through the #MeToo movement is that nearly every woman has a story about sexual assault, harassment, or inappropriate behavior. Part of the effectiveness of the campaign is just realizing that nearly everybody around you has had an experience.

For minorities, the same overwhelming repository of like stories can be found when talking about the police. Nearly every black person I know has had some negative, racially tinged interaction with the cops. Hell, the first person to ever call me the n-word to my face was a freaking cop. Getting harassed by the police is just a black rite of passage, and those of us who have merely survived our encounters with law enforcement count ourselves as lucky.

And yet, white people — in the most general sense of that label — don’t really seem to believe that the cops are as bad as most black people keep trying to tell them. They can’t just take our word for it. Simply believing black people is so outside the scope of their normal existence that they struggle with it. They need evidence, preferably on video, of mistreatment. And even then, they’re liable to say that what they see with their own eyes is justified… or that the unjustified behavior only happens to a few people… or some other willfully ignorant excuse to convince themselves that American police aren’t nearly as racist as non-white Americans keep trying to tell them.

In that context, I find this BuzzFeed report important only insofar as it convinces additional white people to recognize the obvious truth about their police forces.

Secret files obtained by BuzzFeed News reveal that from 2011 to 2015 at least 319 New York Police Department employees who committed offenses serious enough to merit firing were allowed to keep their jobs.

Many of the officers lied, cheated, stole, or assaulted New York City residents. At least fifty employees lied on official reports, under oath, or during an internal affairs investigation. Thirty-eight were found guilty by a police tribunal of excessive force, getting into a fight, or firing their gun unnecessarily. Fifty-seven were guilty of driving under the influence. Seventy-one were guilty of ticket-fixing. One officer, Jarrett Dill, threatened to kill someone. Another, Roberson Tunis, sexually harassed and inappropriately touched a fellow officer. Some were guilty of lesser offenses, like mouthing off to a supervisor.

At least two dozen of these employees worked in schools…

In every instance, the police commissioner, who has final authority in disciplinary decisions, assigned these officers to “dismissal probation,” a penalty with few practical consequences. The officer continues to do their job at their usual salary. They may get less overtime and won’t be promoted during that period, which usually lasts a year. When the year is over, so is the probation.

Today many continue to patrol the streets, arrest people, put them in jail, and testify in criminal prosecutions.

New York is notoriously secretive when it comes to police discipline. The state keeps most of these records as hidden as possible, because if defense lawyers got to know that the cop who busted their client has a history of racial prejudice, brutality, or outright lying, well, that might create some reasonable doubt at trial. Getting these records is an impressive feat by BuzzFeed.

But the behaviors detailed in these documents shouldn’t be surprising to anybody who has been paying attention. It shouldn’t be surprising to anybody who has listened to and actually believed the minority friends in their lives. You can talk all you want about “bad apples,” but the NYPD’s policy is to protect those bad apples, and reintegrate them into the bunch in the hope that nobody will notice.

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Maybe some of you people will believe BuzzFeed. Black people have been trying to tell you the truth ever since you met one, but now that some white reporters are on it, maybe you’ll listen.

Secret NYPD Files: Officers Can Lie And Brutally Beat People — And Still Keep Their Jobs [BuzzFeed]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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