The Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the watchdog devoted to investigating NYPD misconduct, is budgeted at $24.5 million annually.
Here’s how their oversight goes: a citizen lodges a complaint. Investigators determine whether the complaint is “substantiated or unsubstantiated.” Unsubstantiated just means that the witness didn’t cooperate or like moved and could no longer be reached.
Almost never, a claim of abuse is substantiated and the CCRB recommends termination. The police commissioner totally ignores them and either decides the cop is “not guilty” or metes out less severe punishment like docked vacation days or more training.
I literally cannot think of a bigger waste of taxpayer money, except for the taxpayer money that’s set on fire in endless lawsuit settlements over police abuse. I mean it’s insane. I don’t know how anyone in the CCRB goes to work in the morning. Are … they OK?
As it turns out, Commissioner Keechant Sewell is going above and beyond the call of duty in not even administering mild CCRB discipline recommendations like docked vacation days.
Where her predecessors applied discipline lite in 80 percent of cases, Sewell rejected more than half.
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