the CounCil

Christine C. Quinn Speaker

the City of new york City hall new york, ny 10007

of

Telephone 212-788-7210

February 7, 2012 Raymond W. Kelly Commissioner New York City Police Department 1 Police Plaza New York, NY 10038 Dear Commissioner Kelly: I am writing to call your attention to concerns I have about certain police matters and to propose ways in which we can work together to address these concerns. As ever, I applaud the Departments many successes in fighting crime and keeping New York City safe. Most notably, the fact that over the past decade there were 5,430 murders in New York City compared to 11,058 murders committed during the previous decade, a difference of 5,628 or a 51% decrease. We understand the vast majority of the lives saved were men of color and that part of the NYPDs policing strategy that led to this decline is based on stop, question, and frisk. However, I am concerned that a rift has developed between the police department and New Yorkers--particularly New Yorkers of color. Much of this division is centered around stop, question, and frisk practices (SQF). Although I support the continued use of this practice, I believe that, at times, SQF has been carried out in a way that has sown distrust in communities of color. For example, young men of color consistently report that they are subject to repeated SQF encounters with police officers as they go about their daily lives in their neighborhoods. At times these encounters are negative; some result in CCRB complaints related to excessive force or abuse of authority. Further, the racial disparity in the SQF numbers is stark. So it is particularly troubling that Judge Shira Scheindlin found in her decision denying summary judgment in the Floyd litigation that members of the department may be insufficiently trained in the racial profiling policy. This warrants immediate attention from the department. The department, however, cannot simply train its members and put them on the street. It must ensure adequate and constant supervision, particularly in the area of SQF. The Rand report commissioned by the department in 2007 found that officers were not sufficiently trained in both the implementation and documentation policies around SQF and called for both better training and for officers to be fully conversant in SQF documentation policies. SQF paperwork that is both correct and complete puts the department in the best possible position to evaluate whether a given stop was lawful. Front-line supervisors are in the best position to evaluate whether proper

documentation is occurring. In order to ensure the integrity of the process, front-line supervisors must make such evaluation a focus of their work. The alleged existence of productivity measures for SQF is troubling. Pressure to maximize the use of SQF can lead to its inappropriate use. Officers who feel pressure from supervisors to be more productive may engage in excessive SQF activity. Without taking a position as to whether such productivity measures exist, I urge the department to make certain that such measures play no role in SQF activity. Greater transparency on SQF procedures will increase confidence in the public that SQF is being used fairly and appropriately. As I have stated publicly I believe that SQF is a viable and effective crime fighting tool and it should not be removed from the department's tool box. I do, however, believe that given the concerns raised above, the department needs to improve the practice of SQF in the following four areas: Training, supervision, monitoring and transparency, and discipline. Accordingly, the following steps should be taken: Training The Department should increase and improve its current procedures to ensure that each member, regardless of rank, receives on-going training in cultural sensitivity and is familiar with and agrees to abide by the Departments written Racial Profiling Policy. Supervision The Department must ensure that all personnel are properly following SQF procedures. In Operation Impact Zones experienced officers should work with the recent academy graduates generally deployed in such zones so they have the supervisory resources they need to learn proper procedures. The proper completion of all SQF paperwork must be a priority for supervisors, and commanding officers should be held accountable at CompStat for compliance at their precincts. Front-line supervisors should be responsible for Supervisory review of individual stops. There are concerns that officers are being directed to make stops and achieve certain productivity measures in their SQF activity. The Department must ensure that supervisors are using SQF activity appropriately as a management tool. Monitoring and Transparency I will support legislation that will require reporting to the Council on the Departments audits of SQF activities. Such reporting will include: (i) the number of UF-250s audited by the Quality Assurance Division; (ii) information about the adequacy of the UF-250s; and (iii) information on the number of times furtive movements is cited as one of the reasons, or the only reason, for a stop or frisk. The Department must provide the Council and the public all of the data underlying each SQF

quarterly report in the form of an excel spreadsheet OR a d-Base spreadsheet OR a comma delimited text file. We also require a code book that contains: (i) a complete list of the variables used in the spreadsheet/text file; (ii) the variable format; and (iii) a key to which column contains which specific variable. The Department should comprehensively analyze UF-250s, CCRB complaints, IAB complaints, internal audits, lawsuits against the Department, and other relevant data in order to create an early warning system to flag those officers, precincts, and/or boroughs where out-of the-ordinary SQF activity is taking place in order to identify (i) opportunities for re-training; (ii) the need for stepped-up supervision; and/or (iii) officers who engage in unconstitutional SQF activity and must be disciplined. Discipline Absent extraordinary circumstances the Department should consider an improper stop, question, or frisk a serious matter and should not discipline officers against whom CCRB substantiates such charges merely with low-level discipline such as verbal reprimands, which amount to little more than a slap on the wrist. The department should enter into an MOU with CCRB that would make the administrative prosecution unit at CCRB permanent and ensure that CCRB lawyers are able to prosecute those cases that they substantiate. I look forward to working with you to implement these necessary changes. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely,

Christine C. Quinn Speaker