The State Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would make assaulting a police officer, EMT, or other first responder akin to a hate crime. The bill, sponsored by Republican Senator Fred Ashkar of Binghamton, passed 56-6 with bipartisan support.
Camera footage helped substantiate 7 percent more Civilian Complaint Review Board cases last year compared to cases without video, according to a new report released by the agency Wednesday.
These statistics, according to the CCRB, show that police-worn body cameras could help resolve cases involving police misconduct allegations. The NYPD is expanding its use of body cameras and expects to have deployed 5,000 cameras through 2018 and about 22,000 by the end of 2019.
The New York Police Department’s body camera program launched this week, but not without a fight from activists.
Last week, Communities United for Police Reform and other community groups filed a legal opposition to the NYPD’s then-proposed policy. Submitted to Judge Analisa Torres, they wanted to halt the program’s rollout. The community groups, along with entities like The Center for Constitutional Rights, believe the language of the program renders the concept of body cameras for cops meaningless.
Council members will force a vote on hotly debated police reform bills if Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refuses to allow a vote this year, they said Tuesday.
Jin Hee Lee, deputy director of litigation of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. and co-lead counsel in Davis, et al. v. City of New York and New York City Housing Authority, and Joo-Hyun Kang, director of Communities United for Police Reform, talk about some of the objections to the NYPD's plan for the body camera pilot program slated to start this week and the legal challenge that's been filed to change it.
NYPD body cameras are supposed to create police transparency and accountability, but police reform advocates are now seeking to block the program, arguing it could instead have the effect of protecting abusive officers. NY1's Bobby Cuza has the story.
New NYPD guidelines will hobble a pilot program intended to test the effectiveness of body cameras in holding police officers accountable for unjustified street stops and other abuses of power, according to civil rights attorneys and community groups.
Melissa Mark-Viverito made sure her final stated meeting as city council speaker was a full agenda — and it was filled with goodbyes and controversies.
At issue were two bills dealing with how police and the public interact.
One requires that the NYPD direct officers to search only after obtaining "voluntary, knowing, and intelligent consent."
The second requires police give out business cards, including name, rank, and shield number, while noting 311 can be called to submit comments about the encounter.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump made no secret of his hostility towards movements that have drawn attention to police violence, challenged the confluence of immigration and local law enforcement, and called for meaningful police reform and accountability and reform.
Activists continued to hammer away at the NYPD’s body camera program Thursday.
Outside City Hall, groups affiliated with Communities United for Police Reform demanded that the pilot program — slated to begin next week and eventually involve 1,000 officers in 20 precincts — be halted until changes are made.