Every mayor rightfully sees the safety of New Yorkers and the people who visit here as a top priority. Safety should include both smart policing and transparency and accountability, which requires serious civilian oversight of the police that is both supportive and corrective. It also requires objectivity and fairness.
But there seems to be too little daylight between Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD to effectively achieve these dual outcomes. That’s not too surprising for a former police captain who ran for mayor on a law-and-order platform and has enthusiastically brought police officers into his leadership circle.
Unfortunately for the mayor, he is finding out that his uncritical allegiance to the police is not without its consequences. Facing multiple federal criminal investigations that have ensnared top officials in his administration, resulting in the untimely resignation of his hand-picked police commissioner, his chief counsel and that threaten to derail his re-election bid before it even begins, Adams is experiencing the most fraught period of his mayoralty.
At times like this, when the mayor feels unfairly criticized about his stewardship of the city, he invokes the name of the city’s first Black mayor, the late David N. Dinkins, who arguably was held to a much higher standard than white politicians of his day. And when the mayor resorts to this tactic, it’s calculated; he’s messaging to the city’s Black citizens that he, like his predecessor before him, is treated differently by the mainstream media because of both explicit and implicit racial bias.
But there is a glaring irony, however, to this mayor comparing himself to David Dinkins, considering how he has used his authority to weaken and undermine one of the former mayor’s most important and lasting achievements.
The Fight for An All-Civilian Complaint Review Board
Earlier this month, ProPublica reported that under former Police Commissioner Edward Caban, nearly 60 percent of all citizen complaints filed against NYPD police officers this year with the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), and substantiated by the oversight agency, were “killed” by the police commissioner without even reviewing the evidence. Among the complaints “killed” by the commissioner were allegations of illegal searches of homes and vehicles, use of excessive force and unconstitutional stop-and-frisks, which coincidentally have soared under this mayor.
While his police commissioner was cavalierly dismissing hundreds of complaints lodged against police officers simply because he could, the mayor was using his power to push out the former chair of the CCRB for essentially doing her job, and freezing funding to the already understaffed agency.
I was a member of the Dinkins Administration when a mob of off-duty police officers stormed City Hall on September 16, 1992. They were protesting Mayor Dinkins’ support for the creation of an all-civilian complaint review board, independent of the police department, to review complaints against the police. That day, thousands of officers descended on the streets around City Hall, blocking traffic, damaging parked cars and spewing racial slurs about the mayor. Their outlaw behavior made an overwhelming case for why civilian oversight of police authority was needed.
In 1992, Eric Adams was a transit cop and a vocal police reform advocate. Standing only a few feet away from the assembled mob of officers near the steps of City Hall, Adams vehemently condemned the behavior of the cops that day, calling them a “drunk racist lynch mob.”
Thirty years ago, you likely did not have to convince Eric Adams that the city’s Black and Latino New Yorkers, who are disproportionately harmed by police abuse and already have a deep mistrust of institutions controlled and operated by police officials, deserve to have their documented complaints of police abuse heard and taken seriously.
When rogue police behavior goes unchecked, it reinforces suspicions within the city’s minority communities that law enforcement is indifferent to abusive treatment of Black and brown citizens. At the same time, when acts of police misconduct are swept under the rug or dismissed with a mere slap on the wrist, it taints the reputation of all police officers who conduct themselves with integrity, while giving abusive officers license to act with impunity.
An independent, respected and fully funded CCRB is essential to holding law enforcement accountable for their actions and reassuring the public that when an officer decides to make an arrest, detain a person or search someone’s home or vehicle, their actions can be subjected to independent oversight.
As the mayor navigates the current crisis engulfing his administration, my hope is that he will begin changing the way his administration, especially the NYPD, engages with the CCRB. That would help show the city’s Black and brown communities that while he may be wired to defend the police, he also respects and cares about the rights of everyday New Yorkers.
By doing so he would emulate one of David Dinkins’ greatest qualities: respect for the people he served, especially those most impacted by police misconduct.
Let’s lead the nation in accountable, transparent, and effective policing. That would be a legacy worthy of invoking the name of David Norman Dinkins.
Frederick Davie was chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board from December 2017 until January 2022. He is currently senior strategic advisor at Union Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer. The Urban Agenda is available on CSS’s website: www.cssny.org.