Complaints against abusive and violent cops – which plummeted during the post-9/11 wave of pro-police sentiment – have almost completely returned to pre-attack levels, a new report shows.
A 184-page study released yesterday by the Civilian Complaint Review Board also reported that over the first six months of this year, the NYPD took more time – an average of 508 days – to close CCRB-substantiated cases of police abuse.
During the same period in 2001, the average was 457 days.
“This is not new,” said CCRB spokesman Raymond Patterson. “The NYPD has been criticized about this before.”
Complaints against officers averaged 399 per month from January to August 2001. But for three months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks – which recast many New Yorkers’ views of the police force – the average number of monthly complaints dropped to 234.
Then, for the first six months of 2002, complaints rose to 377 per month.
Despite the higher numbers, NYPD spokesman Michael O’Looney said he was “encouraged” that the numbers were slightly lower for the first six months of this year compared with the same period last year.
“We hope to drive them lower in the future,” he said.
O’Looney did not comment on the increasing amount of time it takes the NYPD to dispose of cases substantiated by the CCRB.
The report also says:
* Blacks – who represent 25 percent of the city population – make up 47 percent of the victims in substantiated CCRB cases.
* Eight of the 10 precincts with the highest complaint rates over the past 18 months are in Brooklyn. The 63rd Precinct had most complaints.
* The largest group of substantiated complaints – nearly 20 percent – are about cops who use “discourteous words.”