The CCRB Tells The NYPD Which Cops Have Lied. Usually, Nothing Happens

Newly released data shows that the NYPD rarely moves forward with dishonesty findings they receive from the city’s civilian oversight board.

Between 2016 and 2019, the Civilian Complaint Review Board sent 61 findings of False Official Statement citations against officers to the NYPD. Of these, the board knows of just five where police substantiated their findings, according to data released to WNYC under the Freedom of Information Law.

In 57 percent of cases, the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau classified the board’s determinations as “unfounded,” “unsubstantiated” or other invalidating categories. In about a third of cases, the CCRB is currently unaware of how the NYPD decided.

Lying by police in official proceedings has a long history, and has become known informally as “testilying.”

Currently, when the Civilian Complaint Review Board determines an officer has lied to its investigators, they must turn the case over for the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau to handle. But voting is already under way on a city charter revision that could change that. The hotly-contested proposal would empower the CCRB to conduct its own investigations of police lying.

Molly Griffard, a Legal Aid Society fellow involved in the organization’s Cop Accountability Project, said the numbers show the current system for handling police lying is broken.

“We can’t rely on the police to police themselves, which is why we have the CCRB in the first place,” she said. “We need the CCRB to be able to investigate and prosecute officer lying because we trust them as an independent agency to do a thorough job.”

Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos, a reform advocate, said the data shows why voters need to pass the CCRB ballot measure. “We want greater transparency,” she said. “The only way we can achieve this, right now anyway, is to empower the CCRB to prosecute those bad actors, who have essentially broken their oath.”

In a statement, Joseph J. Reznick, the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs, defended the department’s review processes. “As far as IAB not taking police lying seriously, I vehemently refute the remark,” he said. “We don’t tolerate false or misleading statements being given to us and we certainly don’t tolerate any officer lying or providing misleading statements to CCRB investigators.”

The NYPD said between 2016 and 2018, more than 60 NYPD members have been terminated or forced to leave because of disciplinary cases involving false or misleading statements.

Some law enforcement sources say the data proves the CCRB is bringing the department flimsy allegations.

Joe Giacalone, a former NYPD Internal Affairs investigator and an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, defended the NYPD’s evaluation of CCRB referrals.

“Believe me, nothing is taken lightly. All the Is are dotted, and Ts are crossed,” he said. “If IAB was able to substantiate any allegations against the officer, they would.” Asked about the upcoming vote, Giacalone said he opposed the measure. “The CCRB has shown its bias to be anti-cop, and I just don’t trust them to wield that kind of authority,” he said.

Over the last week, police union officials have also launched their own social media campaign against the proposal, accusing the CCRB of being the pawn of “cop-haters,” “drug dealers” and “thieves.” The New York City Police Benevolent Association did not respond to WNYC’s request for comment. Last week, the CCRB published its own “myth vs. fact” page, responding to the PBA’s attacks.

Jonathan Darche, the CCRB’s executive director, said he does not know why so few false official statement cases are substantiated by the police department, but defended his organization’s work.

“I don’t know how IAB evaluates these cases. I know that we take them very seriously,” he said. “We only refer cases of false official statement to the department when we feel that the officer has made a willful misrepresentation about a material fact in a case.”

Darche added that if the CCRB is authorized in November to investigate police lying, the public would be more convinced that there “will be a fair investigation of the facts.”

The NYPD has voiced concerns over expanding the CCRB’s authority. In June, the Gotham Gazette reported that representatives from the Mayor’s office and the police department lobbied against it behind the scenes.

Over the last year, WNYC has investigated persistent failures in how police officials and prosecutors track and handle police lying. In April, WNYC revealed that all five borough DAs are building secret lists of officers with potential credibility issues. Earlier this month, WNYC secured a partial release of the Bronx DA’s internal records on police dishonesty.

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