The city agency created to increase oversight of the New York Police Department referred more than half of the complaints it received last year to the NYPD’s internal investigative body, according to a new report, prompting some to question the effectiveness of an entity intended to act independently of the department it oversees.
The Office of the Inspector General, a police-watchdog group, was created in 2013. Its first annual report found that almost two-thirds of the 150 complaints it received in 2014 were referred to other city agencies because “they did not concern systemic issues, fell into the jurisdiction of other bodies, and could be more efficiently managed by those other entities.”
In the report, Inspector General Philip Eure said 85 of the 150 complaints were referred to the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau and six to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent agency created in 1993 to investigate police misconduct. Two complaints were referred to other agencies.
Of the remaining 57 complaints, all but seven were closed, because “no further action was warranted,” according to the report.
Mr. Eure said the referrals made sense under the scope of his office, which was created by the City Council under the 2013 Community Safety Act over the veto of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“We were not set up to replicate the work of IAB or CCRB,” Mr. Eure said, adding that the review board was set up primarily to handle complaints against individual officers. “That covers a lot of territory,” he said.
Some community leaders, while praising the OIG report, say it raises concerns about the agency’s independence.
Councilman Jumaane Williams, a Brooklyn Democrat and another co-sponsor of the Community Safety Act, said even the complaints that fall under the Internal Affairs Bureau should ultimately be reviewed by an outside body.
“There is a bigger concern that there’s not an independent way to look at these complaints,” he said. “That’s not the fault of the inspector general; that’s the fault of what we have available to us.”
Joo-Hyun Kang, director of Communities United for Police Reform, a coalition of liberal groups that pushed for the Community Safety Act, said the OIG report offers “important insights” but that the referral of the majority of complaints to the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau “raises flags.”
“There’s a reason that people go to an independent agency and not the NYPD, especially to report use of force,” Ms. Kang said. “There’s no public confidence in the NYPD being able to police itself for good reason.”
Department of Investigations Commissioner Mark Peters, whose office oversees the Inspector General, said the agency is working as intended. “I think we both feel as though the mandate of the office and the statute that created it are more than ample to do the work that we’re doing,” Mr. Peters said.
City Councilman Brad Lander, who co-sponsored the Community Safety Act, said he was impressed with the work of the office so far and said the agency’s referrals were “entirely appropriate.”
Mr. Lander, a Brooklyn Democrat, said he would like to see Mr. Eure review the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau in the future, “taking a look at how the IAB is functioning.”
The report also noted that the Inspector General received nine complaints from current or retired NYPD employees. It didn’t elaborate on the nature of those complaints.
“A lot of people believe that complaints come from citizens, members of the public—and they do—but we want to let people know that we also receive information from officers,” Mr. Eure said.
Mr. Eure’s report outlined the agency’s development over the past year to an office of 23 employees, its January review on the use of choke holds by police officers, and its outreach efforts to community groups and civil-rights organizations, such as the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
Mr. Eure said the agency intends to release four major reports this year. One will review instances of improper use of force by NYPD officers and resulting disciplinary action; another will look at patterns of low-level arrests and summonses; a third will review surveillance of religious and political groups, and fourth will examine police encounters with people who have mental illness.
Police Commissioner William J. Bratton commended the OIG’s efforts “in establishing a basis for having an independent and unbiased review of police practices and policies, and said he looks forward to “continue working collaboratively with OIG-NYPD in furthering our goals of enhancing the public’s trust in the police department.”