How watchdog got ax
Top Adams aide led push to can cop oversight boss: sources
Months before the head of the city’s police oversight agency was pushed out the door over comments about the NYPD’s decision not to discipline the cops who shot Kawaski Trawick, one of the most powerful officials in Mayor Adams’ administration took a lead role in pressing for her removal, the Daily News has learned.
Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks worked to oust Arva Rice as early as last summer, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Adams had Banks ask Rice, the Civilian Complaint Review Board chairwoman since February 2022, to step down over her comments on the Trawick case and her request for more funding for the agency, The New York Times reported Tuesday. In response to the mayor’s request, Rice reportedly plans to step down in coming weeks.
But it was Banks who first approached Rice during a period between late June and early July 2023 to tell her the administration wanted to replace her, the sources told The News.
Around the same time, the deputy mayor was introducing a prospective new Civilian Complaint Review Board appointee, lawyer Khaair Morrison, to other board members as the incoming chairman replacing Rice, the sources said.
In response, Rice privately asked Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens Democrat, if it was true she was going to be asked to leave, and the speaker said it was not, the sources said.
Morrison, who has worked at the white shoe firm Debevoise and Plimpton, was in the end never appointed by the mayor. He did not reply to questions from The News on Wednesday.
The new move to oust Rice drew sharp criticism Wednesday from Council members and advocates.
“Ms. Rice was the one agency head in this administration willing to hold the NYPD publicly accountable for police misconduct and was particularly candid about the police commissioner’s refusal to discipline the two officers who killed Kawaski Trawick,” said
Christopher Dunn, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “It’s a travesty she’s being forced out.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Adams appeared to play down reports of the ouster, telling reporters it was “not true” budget issues led to the move.
“No one was pushed out,” the Democrat said.
Banks, who abruptly resigned as NYPD Chief of Department in 2014 amid a federal corruption investigation in which he was never charged, also acted as a prime mover in the latest attempt to unseat Rice as chairwoman, the sources said.
Reps for the mayor did not immediately return a request for comment on whether he was aware of Banks’ push for installing Morrison as the new CCRB chair.
Neither Banks, who as deputy mayor wields significant power over the city’s law enforcement apparatus, nor Rice responded to messages requesting comment. A spokesman for Speaker Adams declined to comment.
The Rice controversy comes as two other high-ranking Black women in the administration are stepping down — Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix and Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Dawn Pinnock.
Meanwhile, Adams is hoping to convince a resistant Council to approve Giuliani administration alum Randy Mastro, a white man, as Hinds-Radix’s replacement as the city’s top lawyer.
Late Friday, Police Commissioner Edward Caban declared he’d cleared Officers Herbert Davis and Brendan Thompson for the fatal 2019 shooting of the mentally ill Trawick, saying “no crime was committed” and blaming the CCRB for allegedly missing a deadline for filing charges.
Rice, in comments at an April 17 board meeting, countered that the NYPD held back evidence, causing the deadline to be missed.
“Had NYPD conducted a legitimate investigation and held their officers accountable, Kawaski’s family could have avoided the last five years of fighting for justice,” she said.
Speaker Adams called Caban’s decision “incredibly disturbing.”
But the CCRB’s recent request for a budget increase may have played a larger role in the push to oust her, the sources said. In March, Rice asked the Council for a budget increase of $15 million because of an expanding caseload.
Dunn said the the move suggests the administration intends to undermine the oversight body during a period of more aggressive police tactics.
Civilian complaints have jumped 50% and the NYPD has been criticized for street-level tactics in lower-income Black and Brown neighborhoods.
On March 27, cops shot and killed Win Rozario, 19, in South Ozone Park, Queens. Officers encountered the mentally ill youth holding a pair of scissors after he called 911 on himself. An investigation into the case is continuing, and the NYPD has yet to release body cam footage of the incident.
Brooklyn Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, a Democrat who cochairs the chamber’s Progressive Caucus, said the mayor’s apparent effort to remove Rice is part of what she sees as his insistence on shielding the NYPD from scrutiny.
“He once again shows how he leads — it’s my way or the highway for him,” she said. “This further demonstrates cruelty.”
Meanwhile, the NYPD has been mourning the death of Officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot in a street encounter with an armed ex-felon in Far Rockaway on March 25.
Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association, said the CCRB has become too critical of officers.
“For far too long, CCRB has functioned as an anti-police advocacy outfit instead of investigating complaints ‘fairly and independently’ as required by the City Charter,” he said. “The mayor must appoint new leadership to change that reality.”