For all the pious talk from New York politicians about the Civilian Complaint Review Board’s important work investigating allegations of police abuse, the mayor and City Council have crippled it by leaving five of the 15 commissioner seats vacant.
That has led to major delays in the board’s decision, leaving both accused officers and credible complainants hanging around while their cases are in limbo.
We have long been skeptical that the CCRB is actually needed: the NYPD is reviewed by an independent watchdog as well as by the Council; its tactics are reined in by a host of consent decrees (many of them inappropriate).
But having a board that can’t do its job is even worse.
Two of the vacancies are in the municipal council to be filled; two, on Mayor Eric Adams; the third — the chairman of the board — is on both.
Board members review cases in teams of three; that means only your committees are on the job instead of five, so the backlog continues to build.
The Interim Chair, Arva Rice, resigned in July.
First appointed by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and named interim chief by Adams in 2022, she left after Vice Mayor Phil Banks asked her to step down over the summer.
The municipal council’s rules committee is set to a veterinarian a substitute, Staten Island resident Dr. Mohammad Khalid, on October 9; no word on any candidate for the Bronx seat.
City Hall claims it has an “ongoing process” to fill their seats and to reappoint two councilors before the mess unfolds worse.
Since neither the council nor the mayor can be bothered to keep the CCRB running properly, they should recognize that it has outlived its use—and begin the process of amending the city charter to get rid of it.