Shining light on the blue

On Aug. 24, 2016, in this newspaper, Rocco Parascandola and Graham Rayman uncovered a scandal hiding in plain sight: “Citing a clause in a 40-year-old law, the NYPD has suddenly decided to keep records regarding the discipline of officers under lock and key — and will no longer release the information to the public.”

Nearly four agonizing years later, that insult to the intelligence and the decency of the people of New York, is on its way to the dustbin, with repeal having passed the Legislature and awaiting only Gov. Cuomo’s signature.

This is the end of the beginning of reform, not the beginning of the end, but the demise of Civil Rights Law 50-a is significant indeed.

It took the uproar following the vivid, caught-on-camera death in Minneapolis of George Floyd by an officer with 19 prior complaints against him to move the needle in Albany. Because the angry and tumultuous and disruptive movement sparked by one murder ratcheted up pressure on legislators and police unions and rendered the law especially indefensible.

Thank you, protesters. We’ve had our disagreements, but here, you have our gratitude for pushing a vital reform over the finish line.

Passed in 1976, 50-a was supposed to protect uniformed services from having their disciplinary histories used unfairly in trial proceedings. Over the years, its power grew, until in 2016, the NYPD adopted that radically ridiculous, ridiculously radical new reading of the law, blocking even pro-forma posting of disciplinary information that had been the rule for decades.

The state Court of Appeals ultimately upheld these interpretations — hiding information desperately needed for any New Yorker wishing to hold accountable the handful of cops who abuse their authority.

One bad law is dead. Meaningful policing reform has a new lease on life.