NYPD rolling out new punishment scheme

For the first time, the NYPD is formalizing the punishments that cops can face for everything from using foul language to leaking information to the media.

A draft of the department’s “disciplinary matrix” — a format used by some other police departments across the country, including Los Angeles and New Orleans — was published online Monday morning for public review before it goes into effect on Jan. 15, 2021.

The standardized rules were created at the recommendation of a panel of policing experts who were tapped to review the department’s disciplinary process in 2018.

The 48-page draft covers a variety of offenses. In most cases, cops lose vacation days for infractions, though more severe violations can result in suspensions or termination.

Discourtesy, for instance, comes with a five-day penalty — while a wrongful stop-and-frisk and failing to provide a badge number or a Right To Know business card come with a potential three-day punishment.

Under the proposed matrix, cops can be dinged 20 vacation days or suspended for the same amount of time for purposely not recording an encounter with their body camera.

They face the same penalty for leaking information to the media.

At the same time, verbal sexual harassment comes with 20 days of docked time — with five more days added if there is “suggestive touching.”

Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea touted the matrix as a step toward transparency at a time when reform is at the forefront of contentious national political discourse.

The mayor said he was motivated byapledgehemadetotheObama Foundation back in June to review police policies. Shea said the pledge was a “no-brainer” for the city since there was a “tremendous amount of overlap” with the panel’s recommendations.

“Over the past nearly seven years, our NYPD officers have worked tirelessly to carry out a series of cutting-edge reforms, all geared toward increasing fairness, impartiality and accountability in policing and to deepen our ties with those we serve in every New York City neighborhood,” Shea said, noting the matrix was in the works for the last 12 months.

The department was forced to roll out the matrix as part of the

City Council’s recent package of police reforms — after having dragged its feet for years, according to council sources.

Some cops railed against the matrix, questioning the point of guidelines if it’s still at the discretion of the police commissioner.

“That line alone defeats the point of a matrix,” one source griped to The Post.

A federal judge who ruled the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk was racist and unconstitutional also recommend the matrix.

All of the other recommendations from the policing experts of the Blue Ribbon Panel, helmed by former Police Commissioner James O’Neill, have been adopted.

“We wanted to make it very, very clear that if you do certain things there are certain consequences,” Assistant Chief Matthew Pontillo told the Associated Press, which first reported the disciplinary changes.

A police-reform group slammed the matrix, saying the thought that cops would face the strong penalties was a “fairy tale.”

“The NYPD just made public that officers who break the law with unlawful arrests, illegal searches, unconstitutional stops, and who refuse to give their identification as part of the Right To Know Law won’t lose their jobs — they just might lose some vacation days,” said Mark Winston Griffith, a Communities United for Police Reform spokesman.

“Cops who cause serious physical injury, sexually harass, refuse to intervene in excessive force, don’t supervise officers, or interfere with body camera footage might lose some vacation days, not their jobs.” Additional reporting by Julia Marsh