New York Urban League (NYUL) president Arva Rice chaired her last Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) meeting on Aug. 15, marking her last day with the NYPD oversight agency after two and a half years.
She submitted her letter of resignation on July 22 and pointed to needing to prioritize NYUL’s work empowering Black Americans during this upcoming “monumental” presidential election.
“My tenure has shown that the Civilian Complaint Review Board is a vital resource for our city,” Rice said during the meeting. “I believe it deserves a full-time chair who is able to dedicate themselves completely to advocacy and leadership. It is my hope that in focusing my efforts elsewhere a new chair will be appointed who will continue this critical work. I urge the Mayor and the Speaker to come together and agree on a chair who will be able to lead the agency forward.”
But reporting by the Daily News and The New York Times this past April indicate the Adams administration pushed for her to resign. Mayor Eric Adams later denied the claims, saying during a spring press conference, “no matter who’s the chair, it has to be a dual agreement by the City Council and the Mayor”
The CCRB is an independent city agency tasked with investigating police misconduct complaints parallel to the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau. Fifteen board members are largely split between handpicks by the mayor and City Council. Three seats are selected by the NYPD Commissioner and one by the Public Advocate. The chair is a joint decision by the mayor and council.
Last month, Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry celebrated Rice’s resignation on behalf of “hard-working police officers who have had their careers derailed by anti-police activists on CCRB’s board.”
Yet Rice’s stint was characterized not by advocacy, but rather by bureaucratic departmental victories. During her tenure, the agency cut down investigation times, cleared a complaint backlog built up from the COVID-19 pandemic, expanded jurisdiction to investigate racial bias and fought for a budget increase to bolster staff.
Even her public criticism of the NYPD’s refusal to discipline the officers who killed Kawaski Trawick stemmed from the department’s delays in handing over body-worn camera footage rather than over the preventable death of a gay Black New Yorker who called 911 himself to get back into his apartment.
“To their credit, the NYPD recognize that their delays in this case were obstructing the disciplinary process and many other investigations and have both and both agencies agreed to a policy which limited the NYPD to 90 days to respond to the CCRB’s requests for evidence,” said Rice in the April meeting.”While this MOU is an excellent start, it is not enough to ensure that we have comprehensive police accountability.”
Rice also penned a letter in the CCRB’s most recent semi-annual report announcing her departure where she called the investigation’s outcome “an unacceptable circumvention of the disciplinary system.”
Cops accused of misconduct avoiding disciplinary measures recommended by the agency after thorough investigations are not unique to Trawick’s killing. The final call lies with the NYPD Commissioner. Daniel Pantaleo’s firing over the death of Eric Garner was the only time over the past decade a CCRB investigation led to an officer getting kicked off the force. Then-Commissioner James O’Neill faced a no-confidence vote from the PBA over the firing.
Just this Tuesday, Aug. 20, current Commissioner Edward Caban dropped abuse-of-authority charges by the CCRB against NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey after a substantiated misconduct complaint that he had sprung a former officer from police custody after he was arrested for allegedly chasing three teens with a gun. The agency recommended the NYPD dock 10 days of vacation time.
ProPublica reported earlier this month that Caban frequently uses an obscure authority known as “retention” to bury misconduct investigations by the CCRB, including a substantiated complaint by William Harvin Sr., who accused an officer of tasering him four times while restrained on the ground. The agency recommended disciplinary action back in 2022, but the NYPD never served the officer and later promoted him.
Earlier this month, LatinoJustice PRLDEF sued the NYPD for failing to punish the officer accused of misconduct in Harvin’s case.
“[Harvin] went to the CCRB, he filed a complaint, he sat for an interview, the investigator [took] a sworn statement, he cooperated with the investigation,” said Andrew Case, supervising counsel at LatinoJustice. “And when the investigation was concluded, they analyzed the evidence and they determined Detective Torres had violated the law. They send that to the NYPD, and the first step in the discipline process is for the NYPD to type up the charges and physically serve them on an officer. This takes maybe a day at the most, if they choose to do it.
“They have not served this officer for over two years. They have simply sat on this case and done nothing at all. It’s an intentional effort to stop the disciplinary process from going forward. So we filed a lawsuit [representing] Mr. Harvin…basically what we’re saying is the NYPD has an obligation to fill its function as a government agency that disciplines its workforce the same as any other agency does.[If] the police commissioner has sole power of the discipline, that involves the responsibility to actually execute it, even just a process of it.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.