Cop vs. cops in suit Officer says bosses, Internal Affairs mishandled case
In a tale that highlights arbitrariness in the NYPD disciplinary system, a cop unhappy with how his bosses handled his disciplinary investigation filed a complaint with the Internal Affairs Bureau hoping for an independent probe.
But the head of Internal Affairs turned around and sent the officer’s complaint right back to the very unit that had been investigating him.
The unusual decision by Deputy Commissioner Joseph Reznick, head of the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, has raised eyebrows within the NYPD over conflict-of-interest issues and led to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the officer who made the complaint, Scott Munro.
Munro’s complaint stemmed from Lt. John Dandola’s handling of a tangled investigation into whether Munro punched a fellow member of a Long Island volunteer fire company in 2018.
Munro and his supporters say it was a minor scuffle. Munro eventually pleaded guilty to a minor charge in the case, which is now sealed.
But Dandola, who works for the Detective Bureau investigations unit, substantiated the allegations against Munro. They include participating in an off-duty altercation and failing to report it and, somehow, failing to update his emergency contact phone number, among other counts.
In the NYPD, substantiating allegations is an early step in the disciplinary process.
But on the basis of Dandola’s decision to substantiate the allegations, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea demoted Munro from detective to police officer on June 29, 2020 — even though the disciplinary case was still pending.
On the day he was demoted, Munro filed a complaint with Internal Affairs accusing Dandola of a range of serious misconduct in the investigation, including coaching witnesses, falsifying documents and omitting evidence, says the suit filed Wednesday.
Under longstanding NYPD rules to prevent conflicts of interest and Mayor’s Executive Order 16, Internal Affairs was mandated to investigate the complaint.
Moreover, under NYPD Patrol Guide Section 205-38, only Internal Affairs or the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity are allowed to investigate retaliation complaints by cops who come forward about misconduct.
But Reznick (photo), the head of Internal Affairs since March 2014, removed the case from the Internal Affairs Bureau and handed it to
Dandola’s direct bosses in the Detective Bureau investigation unit.
“Reznick refused to investigate the whistleblower complaint by Munro” — the allegations that he’d coached witnesses and falsified and omitted evidence — “choosing instead to refer the investigation to [the investigation unit] to allow them to cover up their own malfeasance,” Munro’s lawyer John Scola said.
Once Munro’s complaint was back in the hands of the Detective Bureau investigation unit, Dandola’s superiors, Capt. Thomas Kamper and Inspector Edward Armstrong, allowed Dandola to reopen the Munro probe, even though it had been closed for 10 months, the lawsuit says.
Also, the suit says, Dandola was allowed to alter or add memos and other material he had not previously included or purposefully omitted from the case file.
Armstrong and Kamper also let Dandola sign off on his own work — a major no-no under NYPD procedures, the lawsuit says. Additionally, the suit says, Armstrong and Kamper, both commanders, allowed
Dandola to sign off on their work.
“Dandola was actively participating in an investigation of himself,” the lawsuit claims.
Retired NYPD Capt. Warner Frey, a former commander of the investigation unit, said he had never heard of a case being handled in such a way.
“They allowed Dandola the opportunity to correct the mistakes he was alleged to have made, which is ludicrous,” Frey said. “When an officer is formally accused of misconduct, that officer should not get the opportunity to change relevant evidence that alters the outcome.”
Frey said the case should have been sent back to Internal Affairs.
Finally, on Dec. 6, Kamper and Armstrong dismissed Munro’s complaint with minimal if any investigation, the lawsuit alleges. Reznick agreed, even though Munro was never fully interviewed.
Munro, 29, has been on modified assignment working a desk in Queens South for more than two years. No date for a departmental trial or even a pretrial conference has been scheduled.