A TWISTED BLUE LINE
Report: Many bad city cops merely get wrist slaps
When it comes to punishing its own, it looks like the NYPD has a roulette wheel for discipline, and it’s rigged against the public, civil rights advocates say.
A seven-month investigation into how the department disciplines cops shows that punishments are often disproportionate with offenses, especially when it comes to incidents involving everyday people. And final dispositions ordered by Police Commissioner James O’Neill are not made public because of a state law requiring personnel files to be kept confidential.
After reviewing 162 official NYPD disciplinary dispositions that were decided between December 2017 and March 2019, the Daily News has learned that most cops found guilty in departmental proceedings of false arrest, assault or discourtesy toward people they meet on the street were forced to give up fewer than 15 vacation days.
Thirty-one of the cases reviewed involved the public, but stricter penalties of 16 vacation days or more were imposed in only a third of them, and only two cops were put on dismissal probation, the last stop before being fired.
The disciplinary findings reviewed by The News showed that 131 officers accused of interdepartmental offenses that had nothing to do with the public or occurred while an officer was off-duty were treated more severely, with 45 officers losing up to 25 vacation days. Another 55 cops were put on dismissal probation and ordered to give up 30 or more days.
“It’s unacceptable that when officers abuse, brutalize and kill members of the public, they too often get a slap on the wrist — if they’re disciplined at all —while heavier disciplinary consequences are issued for protocol violations that don’t involve harming the public,” said Anthony Pierre, a spokesman for Communities United for Police Reform.
Even the punishments for departmental offenses are out of whack with the allegations, said a rank-and-file officer who had to go through a department trial and was hit with dismissal probation.
“These punishments never meet the crime,” said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “You can have a guy who’s found guilty of losing his gun and has to give up 10 vacation days, and then you have another cop accused of excessive lateness and he loses 25 days. How is that fair?”
“It’s all who you know,” the officer said. “It’s a buddy system, and if you have a good buddy, they will take care of you. If not, you’re going to be hammered.”
The Daily News reached out to the officers highlighted in this story for comment. None responded.
NYPD discipline cases can take years to resolve. Penalties are recommended by an NYPD trial judge and are rubber-stamped, increased or decreased by O’Neill at his discretion.
The investigation revealed a gallery of cops slapped on the wrist for violating civil rights, but trampled for breaking department rules. For example: On Dec. 21, 2015, NYPD School Safety Officer Kareem Phillips caused turmoil at the Progress High School in Williamsburg when he allegedly crashed into a classroom while struggling with 18-yearold Yordy Aragonez. After throwing the student against a desk, Phillips repeatedly struck the teen with a metal baton, allegedly screaming. “Stop, motherf——-, stop! You got the f—— cops here. You want to f—- around?”
A student recorded the incident, according to a lawsuit against Phillips that was settled. The video was viewed by The News.
The teen was given a summons for disorderly conduct that was later dismissed. Phillips faced departmental charges for being discourteous to multiple individuals and wrongfully using force without police necessity. Two and a half years later, O’Neill docked him 12 vacation days.
Separately, the NYPD accused Phillips of defrauding an auto insurance company, and found him guilty of bilking the company out of $104,000 and failing to notify the department that he was the focus of a criminal investigation involving the fraud. For that, O’Neill put the 16-year NYPD veteran on dismissal probation and a 31-day suspension, more than double the number of days he lost for allegedly assaulting a student, in public, on camera.
Neither Aragonez nor his attorney returned requests for comment. Calls and texts to Phillips were not returned.
On the day Phillips lost 12 days, O’Neill demanded Officer Rafael Morales of the 44th Precinct in the Bronx give up seven vacation days for stopping and frisking someone without legal authority.
In the same batch of discipline reports, O’Neill slammed Capt. David Dent, then of the 104th Precinct in Queens, with dismissal probation and a fine of 65 vacation days for ordering two cops to run a personal errand for him, going off post without permission and “conducting personal business while on department time.” Neither officer returned an email seeking comment on their penalties.
O’Neill also demanded that Officer Jimmy Romero of the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn give up 25 vacation days for failing to appear on his scheduled tour of duty and leaving the city “without the approval of the chief of personnel.” Sgt. Sesame James of the 103rd Precinct in Queens was fined 20 vacation days for being discourteous to a supervisor and disregarding the supervisor’s order.
In another batch of discipline orders filed on July 6, Officer Jonathan Vasquez of the 47th Precinct in the Bronx was found guilty of failing to
end a vehicle pursuit “when the risk of injury outweighed the need to stop the vehicle.” Sgt. James Slavin of the 17th Precinct in Midtown was found guilty of using unnecessary force and for “restricting the breathing of someone”. Officer Jason Treglia, also of the Bronx, was found guilty of stopping and arresting someone without legal authority. The officer in each case was fined 10 vacation days or less.
Those orders showed that Officer Derek Gilson, arrested for drunken driving while off-duty after crashing onto the front lawn of a Staten Island home in June 2016, with no injuries, was given dismissal probation and charged 60 vacation days, more than double the days taken from Vasquez, Slavin and Treglia combined. The hefty vacation day penalty included 35 days from his month-long suspension from the NYPD after his arrest.
By the end of last summer, as a special panel that included former Manhattan U.S. Attorney and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White, former Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers and past Manhattan federal judge Barbara Jones began reviewing the NYPD’s disciplinary procedures, penalties against cops accused of misconduct against the public increased, but not by much.
On Sept. 25, O’Neill ordered Officer Darrell Lowe of the 40th Precinct to give up 17 days for wrongfully using force and strip-searching a civilian, seven days more than Treglia and 10 more than Morales.
On March 1, O’Neill hit Officer Zachary Chardavoyne with a 15-day penalty after he posted a picture of himself in his NYPD uniform on his Facebook page, a harsher penalty than Phillips, Treglia and Vasquez received for offenses involving the public.
The NYPD’s helter-skelter approach to discipline has some civil rights advocates calling for firm penalty guidelines.
“A system that doles out softer discipline to officers who abuse members of the public is a system that cannot earn the trust of New Yorkers,” said Chris Dunn, legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union. “For true accountability, the NYPD must adopt a transparent system that guarantees discipline is consistent across the board and that recognizes the seriousness of mistreatment of civilians.”
The city’s independent police watchdog group, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, has also seen a “discrepancy between penalties imposed for internal offenses and penalties imposed for misconduct involving civilians,” an agency spokeswoman said.
In response to a request for comment on department disciplinary practices and the News’ findings, NYPD spokesman Phil Walzak said, “A fair and consistent discipline system is key to building trust with the community.
“In accordance with the panel’s recommendation, the NYPD, in partnership with the CCRB, is currently examining how a discipline matrix that would enumerate presumptive penalties for offenses could be created.”
A CCRB spokeswoman said that with the working group in place, the agency “is hopeful that this will harmonize agency and departmental views of appropriate discipline.”
NYPD officials with knowledge of disciplinary procedures said punishments are based on multiple factors such as a cop’s department history and previous discipline, not on an offense alone. They said factors can vary greatly requiring different disciplinary measures. “It would be inaccurate to allow one case or a small grouping of cases to characterize the entire disciplinary process,” one official said.
Out of the 162 cases, eight cops were found not guilty. Two were fired: Sgt. Tracy Gittens, who was on Mayor de Blasio’s protection detail and was found guilty of ingesting marijuana, and Officer Efrain Santiago, who pleaded guilty to associating with someone with a known criminal history, against supervisors’ orders. Neither case endangered the public.
The NYPD did not publicly disclose these decisions because of Section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law, which requires personnel records to be confidential. Critics have said the department is interpreting the law too broadly. That could change.
The panel tasked with reviewing the NYPD’s disciplinary process found that it needs to be more transparent. It called on the state to amend the law to allow greater openness and for O’Neill to explain in writing any penalty decision he makes that varies from a trial judge’s recommendation. The panel found that from Jan. 1, 2016, through Nov. 21, 2018, O’Neill superseded the trial commissioner’s recommendations in 61 of 459 cases, and in roughly half of the 61 cases, he downgraded penalties.
“It is also clear that there is significant suspicion and speculation by the public that disciplinary decisions are not always fair, evenhanded and consistent,” it noted. “The panel therefore recommends that the department study and consider adopting a disciplinary matrix to help guide the commissioner in exercising his broad discretion and to address public perceptions and misgivings about the disposition of cases and the imposition of appropriate penalties.”
O’Neill vowed to make sweeping changes in the NYPD’s department advocate’s office based on the panel’s findings. So far, he has put the trial calendar online without the charges officers are facing, publicly supported changes to 50-a, produced statistics on discipline meted out in 2016 and 2017 and outlined the discipline protocol for cops accused of domestic violence.