The New York City Council announced on Friday that it plans to introduce a comprehensive bill package that would "reduce the NYPD’s footprint in the city and improve police discipline and increase accountability."
Among the 11 proposals: stripping the police commissioner's final authority in disciplinary matters, ending qualified immunity for officers who commit misconduct, and giving the council the power to deny a mayor's choice for commissioner.
“Some of these issues, as I’ve been researching them, go back generations,” said one of the package's co-sponsors, Brooklyn Councilmember Stephen Levin. “So the police commissioner’s final authority on discipline—that goes back 80 years."
Levin added, "They are issues that I think have been unaddressed for far too long, and this is the council saying, ‘We want to take the opportunity to make these necessary changes now and to not wait any longer.’ We’re taking a proactive stance.”
The package of legislation will be introduced during a council meeting on February 11th, though hearings on the bills will begin on February 8th.
The council's proposals are tied to a mandate set by Governor Andrew Cuomo this past summer requiring all localities in the state to submit a plan for police reform by April 1st or risk losing state funds. At a hearing to discuss the city and the NYPD's reform plan earlier this month, City Councilmember and chair of the Public Safety Committee Adrienne Adams said she was concerned that the police department had essentially controlled the reform discussions, and expressed deep dissatisfaction with the department's inability to reckon with instances of documented misconduct and bad decision making while they responded to the George Floyd protests over the summer.
"If the leadership didn’t get the message this summer on what’s wrong with policing in America and in New York City, I quite frankly don’t know if they ever will,” Adams said at that hearing.
Adams is another one of the package's main co-sponsors, along with Speaker Corey Johnson, Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo, and Councilmember Vanessa Gibson.
The new package of legislation would also give the City Commission on Human Rights the power to investigate police officers with a history of racial bias or bigotry, transfer the NYPD's ability to issue press credentials to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and create a new task force outside of the NYPD to respond to mental health emergencies. One bill would also transfer authority for investigating vehicular crashes to the Department of Transportation.
Some of the legislation would require state approval, such a removing the commissioner's final authority over disciplinary recommendations from the city's police oversight agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board. The NYPD routinely downgrades or rejects the penalties recommended by the CCRB.
Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that essentially shields police officers from any personal liability stemming from misconduct on the job. The council's bill would create a city bill of rights that citizens could use in civil legal actions against the police.
The council's legislation comes a little more than a week after New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that she was suing Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD over the police department's "blatant use of excessive force and misconduct," during the George Floyd protests. James is seeking a federal court-appointed monitor to oversee the NYPD's policing of protests, a move that the mayor and the NYPD both oppose.
In his State of the City address earlier this week, de Blasio outlined considerably more modest reforms for the NYPD, such as allowing the members of local police precinct councils to weigh in on precinct leadership hiring. The mayor and the NYPD also released a new "disciplinary matrix" this month to dictate specific punishments for officers who commit misconduct, though the NYPD Commissioner still retains the ultimately authority in how an officer's case is adjudicated.
“We look forward to reviewing all legislation and working in partnership with the Council in pursuit of our shared goal of longstanding police reform," said Avery Cohen, a City Hall spokesperson, when asked to comment on the council's legislation. An NYPD spokesperson said the department will review the bills.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who is co-sponsoring some of the legislation, said in a statement, "With this action, the City Council is taking a needed leadership role that has too often been abdicated by those in power, despite clear need and sustained calls from New Yorkers."
