NYPD Disciplined 229 Officers for Misconduct Last Year

Complaints have been heard.

A report from the Civilian Complaint Review Board revealed that 229 NYPD officers were reprimanded for misconduct in 2012. That's a five-year high, as there were just 153 in 2008. The study defined a complaint as "a case stemming from a civilian encounter with police, in which the civilian believes the officer(s) committed acts of misconduct."

Each complaint could contain more than one allegation against an officer, and each allegation investigated fell into the category of offensive language, abuse of authority, force and discourtesy. Overall, the CCRB received 5,763 complaints in 2012, marking a 3 percent drop from 2011 and a 22 percent drop from 2008.

Before anyone takes pride in that trend, here's something to consider: the CCRB says Hurricane Sandy knocked out its main phone line and that the number of calls dropped during the subsequent months it was out of service. Before the superstorm, the complaints had increased by 1 percent over 2011 and when the system was finally restored in March, complaints increased once again.

Although the number of stop-and-frisks decreased by 5 percent from 2012 to 2011, they still made up nearly 30 percent of the complaints. The most complaints came from Brooklyn and despite making up just 23 percent of the city's population, African-Americans accounted for 57 percent of misconduct victims.

[via Gothamist]

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