NYPD Defends Handling Of Crash Investigations Under Pressure To Shift Authority To DOT

On a summer evening in 2014, Dulcie Canton was riding her bike though Bushwick when she was struck from behind by the driver of a Chevy Camaro. The driver fled the scene, leaving Canton with multiple broken bones and a concussion. As she recovered in the hospital, her friends, along the lawyer Steve Vaccaro, managed to collect security camera footage of the incident, and eventually traced the vehicle back to its owner.

Despite the evidence, the NYPD refused to even interview the driver. When Canton reached out to the 83rd precinct, she was informed that the detective in charge of her case had gone on vacation. They never called her back.

"The NYPD was of absolutely no help," Canton recalled at a City Council hearing on Wednesday. "They told me they would interview the driver if they had the time."

Canton's experience is hardly unique among pedestrians and cyclists, who've long alleged that the department is uninterested, if not outright hostile, to crash victims. Those complaints helped fuel new legislation introduced last month to remove the responsibility of serious crash investigations from the NYPD and give it to the Department of Transportation.

The bill, which has the support of Council Speaker Corey Johnson, would create a new unit under the DOT that would take the lead in interviewing witnesses, collecting data, issuing public statements, and reviewing the street design at the site of serious crashes.

But the bill is opposed by the Mayor's Office, the NYPD, the DOT and all five of the city's district attorneys, who argue that it's critical for the department to remain the "primary" agency in charge of crash investigation.

"These are core responsibilities of law enforcement," said Oleg Chernyavsky, the NYPD's chief of legislative affairs. "We’re going a little bit too far when we’re talking about peeling away core law enforcement responsibilities and farming it out to other agencies."

Margaret Forgione, the DOT's First Deputy Commissioner, agreed that the move could "severely compromise prosecutors' cases," at least in the first few years, due to the lack of law enforcement experience at the transportation agency.

Advocates for safe streets, and their allies in the City Council, say that the NYPD is already compromised in its efforts to investigate serious crashes in New York City. The department makes arrests in fewer than 1 percent of hit-and-run crashes — a fraction of the rate seen in other big city departments like Los Angeles. Even when those hit-and-runs are fatal, arrests are made in roughly one third of cases.

On Wednesday, shortly before the City Council convened, a 6-year-old yeshiva student was fatally struck by a yellow school bus driver. The driver, who did not stop, was later interviewed by officers with the Collision Investigation Squad. Soon after, a leader of the unit assured reporters the fatal hit-and-run was likely an "accident."

Much of the focus at Wednesday's hearing centered on the NYPD's Collision Investigation Squad, which handles crashes involving deaths and victims in critical condition. Despite Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero promises, the unit now has fewer officers investigating fewer crashes than it did when it was overhauled eight years ago.

Lieutenant Jagdeep Singh, who heads CIS, said that the 22 officers and four sergeants currently assigned to the unit were "adequate" to do the work that's asked of it. "We’re able to give each investigation the amount of time it requires, and we investigate it thoroughly," said Singh.

In 2020 — the deadliest year on city streets since de Blasio took office — CIS investigated just 374 of the city's more than 44,000 crashes that resulted in injury, leading to 78 arrests, according to data provided by the department on Wednesday.

"That’s why we don't have trust," replied Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, the chair of the Transportation Committee, and the bill's sponsor. "I have a big issue when I heard from the person in charge of the unit saying that’s enough...How can you say that to the face of those families?"

In addition to increasing resources, proponents of the bill say that moving crash investigations to the DOT would allow the city to take a more holistic approach to stopping reckless drivers. While the de Blasio administration has touted Vision Zero as a data-driven approach, the NYPD has frequently refused to release information about its CIS investigations, according to Councilman Brad Lander.

"We could learn a lot more if we had a strategic and integrated focus to combat reckless driving, but we don’t," Lander said on Wednesday. "I’ve just come to the conclusion that we have a lot better chance of getting it if we put it all in one agency with the role of reducing crashes."

The legislation is part of a package of City Council legislation introduced last month to drastically reduce the NYPD's footprint in the day-to-day life of New Yorkers. In the weeks since, Mayor de Blasio's administration has come out against several key pieces of that legislation.

De Blasio spokesperson Mitch Schwartz said on Wednesday that the administration was in active conversation with the City Council about its Vision Zero plan.

"We look forward to finding a solution that doubles down on Vision Zero and addresses the concerns raised by NYPD, DOT, and all of New York City's District Attorneys," Schwartz said.

In response, Speaker Johnson issued a forceful rebuttal, indicating that the Council planned to move forward with the legislation, regardless of the mayor's opposition.

"This Council will not be lectured by the de Blasio administration on holding reckless drivers accountable," the statement reads. "This bill does nothing to prevent or even limit the ability of the police and District Attorneys to pursue criminal enforcement against reckless drivers. It does the opposite — it strengthens our ability to finally make real progress to end traffic violence in New York City."