Now That Police Disciplinary Records Are Public, How Can New Yorkers See Them?

A week after the state legislature and Governor Andrew Cuomo repealed the 44-year-old state law that shielded police disciplinary records from the public, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would begin compiling those records in a public database.

“We're going to start a massive effort to make public information regarding to police discipline. And this information will move very quickly and ultimately all of it will be available online,” de Blasio said at a news conference on June 17th.

Advocates of criminal justice reform and police transparency applauded the move, noting that it will save New Yorkers the time and the trouble of going making a Freedom of Information Law request—a process that can take months or even years.

Michael Sisitsky, lead general counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the creation of the database gives the de Blasio administration the chance to live up to “their rhetoric of the past few years, and also show they’re really committed to embracing transparency required of them under the law.”

But what exactly will be in the mayor’s police disciplinary database? And how and when will the public be able to access it?

What kinds of records are police departments now required to make public?

Before it was repealed earlier this month, New York Civil Rights Law section 50-A allowed police departments across the state to deny public access to disciplinary records. It’s why for years, the public did not know that before he fatally choked Eric Garner in 2014, NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo had a long history of misconduct allegations leveled against him, and it’s why Pantaleo’s departmental trial was shrouded in secrecy (50-A meant that the department could refuse to even release the charges against Pantaelo.)

50-A also made it exceedingly difficult for defense attorneys to access police disciplinary records—they could only do so if they could prove there was something relevant in an officer’s file, without having seen the file themselves.

The legislation passed to repeal 50-A requires police departments to turn over internal police disciplinary records, minus any personal information like home addresses.

The law does not require police departments to turn over files on "technical infractions," which are defined as "solely related to the enforcement of administrative departmental rules that (a) do not involve interactions with members of the public, (b) are not of public concern, and (c) are not otherwise connected to such person's investigative, enforcement, training, supervision, or reporting responsibilities."

What exactly will be included in de Blasio’s police records database?

The mayor said that an officer’s name, the internal charges they faced, the hearing dates, and the ruling of departmental trials will be made available by July.

A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office elaborated that the viewable records would also include an officer’s badge number, a history of the precincts and units an officer has been assigned to, and the transcripts from the disciplinary hearings.

Only the names of officers who have faced departmental charges will be in the database.

How far back will the police disciplinary records go?

Kapil Longani, an attorney with the mayor’s office, told Gothamist the city will initially have records dating back 15 years, with the goal of adding more records incrementally.

Longani cautioned that getting records up before the digital age may take longer, provided the city wants to go back, say, 50 years, when records were not digitized.

“The fact that we are uploading all active [NYPD] members right off the bat, in and of itself makes it the most transparent, trailblazing...system of transparency for disciplinary records in the entire country. But we're not going to stop there. We're going to move to retroactive,” said Longani.

Molly Griffard, a fellow with the Cop Accountability Project under the Legal Aid Society, said that without the database, the city would have been inundated with FOIL requests. The database potentially avoids the hassle of getting sued each time someone sought to obtain personnel records that are now required to be released under the law.

What about CCRB records?

The Civilian Complaint Review Board—which has jurisdiction over complaints from the public about the NYPD that involve abuse of authority, discourtesy, excessive force or offensive language and, police lying—say they will release their own searchable database soon.

Their database will include an officer’s name, rank, precinct assignments, type of infraction, and the CCRB’s recommendation, if the CCRB came to one. All complaints against officers will be in the database, whether they are substantiated or not.

Incident reports, which offer more detailed accounts of allegations, will not be publicly available. There’s no confirmed date on the rollout of the database yet.

CCRB will allow the public to go to its office to access these records once the stay-at-home order is lifted.

What happens if the disciplinary records I’m looking for aren’t in the database?

You’ll have to make a FOIL request with the NYPD, but getting a response can take a very long time, upwards of a year or more.

“[T]his is an incredibly cumbersome, time-consuming process. And it takes resources both for the individual seeking the information, as well as resources of the government,” Griffard said.

Sisitzky says that New Yorkers should continue putting pressure on police departments to ensure FOIL requests are properly honored.

“I think there's more that we need to do to hold these agencies' feet to the fire in terms of their responsiveness to these record requests,” said Sisitzky. “We need to be asking, demanding that they be more proactive about providing this information so that we're not subjecting people to endless delays and getting access to these records.”

What if you filed a FOIL request for police disciplinary records before 50-A was repealed, but haven’t heard back yet. Will you need to file another request?

Bronx State Senator Jamaal Bailey, the main sponsor of the senate version of the 50-A repeal law, said that if your request hasn’t been denied yet, the department should turn over the records.

“From my understanding, if it’s pending they shouldn’t have to refile [a request],” Bailey said. “If it’s pending then technically speaking, that information should be given.”

Bailey cautioned that “how the individual agency or office is going to interpret it, again, I’m not sure, but the intent is to ensure that we have transparency and accountability.”