NY Public Advocate gets access to cops' records id CAA21481; Thu, 16 Oct 1997 02:35:39 -0400 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [Original Source Publication not cited by poster] source: Michael Novick October 16, 1997 Public Advocate Wins a Look at Suspected Officers' Files By KIT R. ROANE NEW YORK -- The New York Police Department must allow the city's public advocate to review the case files of hundreds of police officers whom the Civilian Complaint Board suspects of misconduct or brutality, a State Supreme Court judge has ruled. The decision, which was released on Wednesday, was the latest blow to a department under intense scrutiny in the wake of allegations that Abner Louima was beaten by officers in a Brooklyn station house in August. The ruling came on the same day that the city's Commission to Combat Police Corruption released a report on how well the department polices its own. In granting the request for the files by Public Advocate Mark Green, Justice Edward Lehner wrote that the public advocate for the City of New York was both "a watchdog over city government and a counterweight to the powers of the mayor." Lehner added that the office had been created in 1989 specifically to publicize "any inadequacies, inefficiencies, mismanagement and misfeasance found." The city plans to appeal the decision to the State Appellate Division, said Lorna Goodman, a lawyer for the city. The city contends, among other things, that Green has no right to the files under the charter of his office and that providing him with them would jeopardize the confidentiality rights of police officers under the State Civil Rights Law.= In January, Green began seeking files of cases that the Civilian Complaint Review Board deemed credible enough to warrant disciplinary action by the Police Department. He said he wanted to determine why one-third to one-half of the complaints recommended for action by the board over a two-year period ending in December 1996 were later dropped by the Police Department with no disciplinary action against the officers involved. He is also seeking records of cases in the same period in which the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau sought disciplinary action against officers. "I sought this data before the Abner Louima case," Green said after the decision was announced. "And now the people of the city are obviously concerned about the level of and the cure for police misconduct. I hope to contribute to that remedy once we get these files." The Police Department has said that when misconduct or brutality cases against officers are dropped it is usually because of a lack of evidence against the officers, or because witnesses have become reluctant to testify, or the 18-month statute of limitations on the cases has lapsed. Earlier in the day, the Commission to Combat Police Corruption released its own study of how Internal Affairs handled citizens' complaints about police malfeasance. The commission, which was created by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani after the 1994 Mollen Commission report found extensive corruption in the department, studied 78 investigations completed by the Internal Affairs Bureau in 1996. According to the chairman of the four-member panel, Richard Davis, the study found that 87 percent of the cases were conducted in a satisfactory manner, and that the department personnel were "doing a reasonably good job but not a perfect job policing themselves." The Commission also reviewed tapes of 85 calls to Internal Affairs officers by civilians complaining of police corruption. The study found that many of the officers were "apathetic or argumentative," did not ask pertinent questions that might identify the officer under discussion or made incomplete logs of the call. oOo In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Be PART of the solution -- People Against Racist Terror/ PO Box 1055/Culver City CA 90232-1055/310-288-5003/ Order our journal "Turning the Tide." mnovickttt@igc.org Free Mumia Abu Jamal! Free All POW's and Political Prisoners! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty! ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-10.16.97-02:35:49-26666