Public Hearing: Examining Police Safety and Public Protection in New York City

1 JOINT HEARING BEFORE THE NEW YORK STATE SENATE

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CRIME VICTIMS, CRIME, AND 2 CORRECTION; STANDING COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE AND

PENSIONS; STANDING COMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND 3 GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS; STANDING COMMITTEE ON CODES

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PUBLIC HEARING:5

EXAMINING POLICE SAFETY AND 6 PUBLIC PROTECTION IN NEW YORK CITY 7 ----------------------------------------------------- 8 Senate Hearing Room

250 Broadway - 19th Floor 9 New York, New York 10007-2375 10 February 4, 2014

12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. 11 12 PRESIDING: 13 Senator Patrick M. Gallivan

Chairman, NYS Senate Standing Committee on 14 Crime Victims, Crime, and Corrections 15 Senator Martin J. Golden

Chairman, NYS Senate Standing Committee on 16 Civil Service and Pensions 17 Senator Carl L. Marcellino

Chairman, NYS Senate Standing Committee on 18 Investigations and Government Operations 19 Senator Michael J. Nozzolio

Chairman, NYS Senate Standing Committee on Codes 20 21 PRESENT: 22 Senator Leroy Comrie 23 Senator Thomas Croci 24 Senator Ruben Diaz 25 Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson 1

PRESENT (continued): 2

Senator Andrew Lanza 3

Senator Bill Perkins 4

Senator James Sanders 5

Senator Daniel Squadron 6 7 ---oOo--- 8 9 SPEAKERS: PAGE QUESTIONS 10 William J. Bratton 6 28

Commissioner 11 James O'Neill

Chief of Police 12 Benjamin Tucker

First Deputy Commissioner 13 New York City Police Department 14 Patrick J. Lynch 124 141

President 15 Patrolmen's Benevolent Association

of New York City 16

Edward Mullins 214 221 17 President

Sergeants Benevolent Association 18

Daniel M. Donovan, Jr. 240 247 19 District Attorney

Richmond County, NY 20

Paul E. O'Connell 265 289 21 Professor

Iona College 22

Eugene O'Donnell 265 289 23 Lecturer

John Jay College of Criminal Justice 24 25 1

SPEAKERS (continued): PAGE QUESTIONS 2

Dr. Michael Jenkins 265 289 3 Assistant Professor

University of Scranton 4

Stephen J. Cassidy 317 322 5 President

Uniformed Firefighters' Association 6

Israel Miranda 326 330 7 President

Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics & Fire 8 Inspectors, FDNY - Local 2507 9 Michael Palladino 333 345

President 10 The Detective's Endowment Association 11 ---oOo--- 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Good afternoon. 2 I would like to call this joint legislative 3 committee of the New York State Senate to order. 4 I am Senator Mike Nozzolio, Chairman of the 5 New York State Senate Committee on Codes. 6 I'm very honored to be part of a 7 distinguished panel of legislators who are 8 experienced in law-enforcement matters, and are 9 engaging in a statewide inquiry to examine the -- 10 every aspect of the criminal justice system. 11 That I -- as Chairman of the Codes Committee, 12 as former chairman of the Crime Victims, Crime, and 13 Corrections Committee, I am seated between two of 14 those individuals who have had in the Senate -- a 15 career prior to the Senate in law enforcement. 16 To my right is Senator Martin Golden, who has 17 served in the New York City Council, and also, with 18 great distinction, as a New York State Senator. 19 His first career, though, is as a 20 New York State police -- New York City police 21 officer. 22 And, Senator Golden, thank you for your 23 participation, and for your service to the public in 24 all those capacities. 25 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you. 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: To my left is 2 Senator Pat Gallivan. 3 Senator Gallivan is Chairman of the 4 Crime Victims, Crime, and Corrections Committee of 5 the State Senate. 6 Before that, he was a member of the 7 New York State Board of Parole; a commissioner on 8 that board. 9 Also, prior to that, lengthy service in 10 law enforcement directly; first as a New York State 11 police officer, part of the New York State Police 12 force, who mustered out as a captain. 13 And after that, following, became the elected 14 sheriff of Erie County. Served with great 15 distinction in that capacity, the second-largest 16 county outside of the city of New York. 17 Also during his tenure, was a graduate of the 18 FBI National Executive Institute. 19 To my far left is Senator Carl Marcellino. 20 Senator Marcellino is -- served over 21 two decades in the State Senate. 22 He is head of the Senate Committee on 23 Investigations. That is the Senate committee with 24 subpoena power and authority. 25 And as a part of this important inquiry, 1 Senator Marcellino is a very active participant. 2 With that, we're honored today to have a 3 number of law-enforcement experts. 4 First and foremost, the Commissioner of the 5 New York City Police Department, that we're very 6 honored and pleased that William Bratton is 7 testifying today and helping to elucidate very 8 important issues that this Committee and the 9 State Legislator will be addressing in the very near 10 future. 11 We also have two district attorneys from the 12 city of New York who will be testifying. 13 We have the head of the police union, 14 Pat Lynch, who will be testifying. 15 But we ask the Commissioner, if he would be 16 so kind to step forward, and thank him for his -- in 17 advance, for his generous time and effort to help us 18 in this inquiry. 19 Good afternoon, Commissioner. 20 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Good afternoon. 21 I'm going to be joined, if you don't mind, by 22 my first deputy commissioner, Ben Tucker, as well as 23 chief of the department, Jim O'Neill. 24 I've also brought with me additional 25 executive-staff personnel that would be in a 1 position to answer in more specific detail some of 2 the anticipated questions that you might have. 3 So, first off, we thank you very much for the 4 opportunity to speak to you on these very important 5 matters. 6 I have a brief prepared statement, if I may, 7 that I might read to you, that you've been provided 8 copies of that statement. 9 And, I thank you for, again, the opportunity. 10 First, let me express the thanks of the men 11 and women of the NYPD and the people of 12 New York City for the unwavering support that the 13 State Senate has given us throughout the years, 14 through good times and in bad. 15 New York City, with regard to crime control, 16 we have just finished another banner year. 17 Crime was down 4.5 percent from 2013. 18 Murders, burglaries, and robberies saw lower 19 numbers than in generations. 20 Since 1993, there's been a staggering 21 75 percent drop in major felony crime in 22 New York City. This represents hundreds of 23 thousands of people who do not become the victims of 24 crime. It also represents similar numbers of people 25 who were saved from committing crimes and suffering 1 the consequences of acts that are often rash or 2 intemperate. 3 I might point out that this was also a 4 significant driving factor in the reduction of the 5 state prison population which is significantly fed 6 from the city crime situation. 7 Yet despite this achievement, there are many 8 who question the role of the police and the fairness 9 of our criminal justice system. 10 American policing is going through a 11 difficult time right now. I think we're all aware 12 of that. 13 It's a time of great challenge, but also 14 great opportunity; the opportunity to reevaluate the 15 fundamental manner in which we do our work. 16 The national dialogue about a great divide 17 between the police and the community has been 18 heartfelt and passionate, and has led police 19 departments across the country to recognize, and 20 some of those we serve feel as if they're 21 underserved. 22 But the dialogue has contained significant 23 misconceptions also, because, in many ways, our 24 public approval is quite good. 25 A recent Siena poll showed that 75 percent of 1 New York City residents had a favorable view of 2 their local police department: us, the NYPD. 3 We've done a lot to foster that. 4 Our community affairs bureau is tremendously 5 active with outreach in nearly every neighborhood 6 and group in the city. 7 And at the beginning of my administration, 8 I also created the "deputy commissioner for 9 collaborative policing" position, to prioritize 10 providing services to underserved populations, such 11 as at-risk youth and the homeless. 12 And we also have the 35,000 dedicated men and 13 women of the department who have committed each day 14 to protecting and serving. 15 Nevertheless, public approval is not uniform 16 across the city. 17 Crime is down throughout the city, but in 18 some places it's down less than others. 19 In those neighborhoods where citizens need us 20 most, our approval rating, according to our own 21 polling, is much lower than the 72 percent. 22 Part of this stems from the fact that both 23 sides of the equation, the police and the community, 24 oftentimes don't see each other. Both sides see 25 only what the other represents instead of who the 1 other is. 2 If they could, each would learn that each is 3 the other. 4 If you remember what Sir Robert Peel, who 5 I often reference, described nearly 200 years ago: 6 The police are the public and the public are the 7 police. 8 The national dialogue has led to a new focus 9 on an old maxim, another of Sir Robert Peel's 10 principles, which says: That the ability of the 11 police to do their job is dependent upon public 12 approval. 13 Here in New York City it's inarguable that 14 the police have helped to make the city and its 15 people safer, but safety without public approval, 16 ultimately, is not public safety. 17 There's also another major concern among 18 American police, my colleagues, the police chiefs in 19 America. It is a sense that they are not supported 20 by those they serve, and that both their livelihoods 21 and their lives are at risk. 22 In December, in Brooklyn, we saw a nightmare 23 become real when two of our officers, Detective Liu, 24 Detective Ramos, were assassinated without warning 25 or provocation. 1 The threat of being targeted has always been 2 a reality for the officers, but the assassinations 3 of Detectives Liu and Ramos have brought it to the 4 fore. 5 As a department, we still feel their loss, we 6 still grieve with their families, even as we remain 7 true to their memories and move forward to do our 8 duty. 9 As we do our duty, the opportunity to improve 10 police-community relations, and the chance to make 11 our citizens and our officers safer as we do so, has 12 never been so close to our grasp. 13 The greater the sense of partnership and 14 trust between the police and the community, the 15 better the police and the people can work together 16 to prevent crime and disorder. 17 In making the city safe in this way, the 18 police make themselves safer too, because, after 19 all, the police are the public and the public are 20 the police. 21 This is the definition of "public safety." 22 So I would like to describe for you some of 23 the things the NYPD is doing already to address the 24 challenges we face; both the external issues with 25 community relations and the internal concerns about 1 officers' support and safety. 2 We've begun several initiatives to improve 3 community relations and assist officers in doing 4 their jobs more safely. 5 One of the foremost is an unprecedented 6 three-day in-service training course. 7 We are starting with the 20,000 police 8 officers and supervisors who routinely serve on 9 patrol, and we call the program the "20K training." 10 This will be the beginning of an 11 institutionalization of three additional training 12 each year for our personnel, in addition to the 13 two days of firearms training that they have 14 historically received for many years. 15 The remaining 15,000 officers out of our 16 35,000 will also receive this instruction as part of 17 the new annual in-service training program. And, of 18 course, it has been incorporated into the recruit 19 training for our oncoming police officers. 20 The training includes a highly-praised 21 workshop called "Blue Courage." It is nationally 22 recognized and taught in law-enforcement agencies 23 across the country. 24 The workshop is designed to instill the 25 leadership, cultural sensitivity, and personnel 1 values essential to policing our diverse and 2 democratic society, but the main focus of this 3 training is engagement. 4 The 20K training instructs officers on 5 effectively and safely engaging suspects verbally, 6 and, if necessary, physically. It helps officers 7 take suspects into custody safely by using various 8 escalating levels of force. 9 I would point out that, the NYPD, we are 10 quite proud of this, that our officers have one of 11 the lowest use-of-force rates in America, both in 12 terms of firearms, but also in effecting arrests. 13 It's something we're very proud of, that the 14 training that they've already received is being used 15 effectively. 16 So in addition to Blue Courage, the three-day 17 course emphasizes two core priorities. 18 First, how to talk to a person who is 19 initially uncooperative, with the goal of avoiding a 20 physical confrontation; 21 And, second, how to physically restrain a 22 suspect who continues to resist arrest without harm 23 to that individual or the officer. 24 We believe this training gives officers 25 additional tools for communicating with the people 1 they serve. 2 We are constantly, as a department, a 3 professional agency, watching to see who might be 4 doing something better than we currently do, so we 5 are attempting to ensure that we stay abreast of 6 modern and changing systems that might be of benefit 7 to us and to our officers' safety. 8 I believe that this will help address both 9 our internal and external challenges by 10 reinvigorating officer pride and by promoting 11 effective collaboration with the community. 12 Technology also offers a way to make both the 13 community and our cops safer; and to that end, with 14 the significant help of Manhattan District Attorney 15 Cy Vance, and our mayor, Bill de Blasio, we are 16 making a $160 million investment, asset-forfeiture 17 funds, in making the NYPD, this year, the most 18 technologically-advanced department in the nation. 19 Our information-technology bureau -- 20 Jessie Tisch, our deputy commissioner, is here with 21 me -- will soon begin distributing a smartphone to 22 nearly every cop and a tablet to nearly every car. 23 Here, too, as with our training, we'll start 24 with patrol officers and patrol vehicles. 25 The smartphones will contain mobile apps, 1 giving officers in the field a wealth of information 2 they can currently only access from their desktop 3 computers. 4 The tablets will ultimately replace the 5 mobile digital terminals currently mounted in most 6 patrol vehicles. Like the smartphones, these 7 tablets will contain mobile versions of many NYPD 8 applications currently only available at the 9 precinct station house. 10 Unlike [unintelligible] computers, they have 11 the advantage of being removable from the patrol 12 car. Officers can bring them along as they respond 13 to calls for service, and eventually be able to use 14 them to complete necessary paperwork. 15 Between the smartphones and the tablets, 16 officers in the field will be able to access vital 17 information about the situations and people they may 18 encounter no matter where the officers are; a truly 19 lifesaving development in our profession. But, 20 also, it will allow us to keep our officers in the 21 field rather than having to return to the precinct 22 station house as they so frequently now have to do. 23 We also routinely keep our officers informed 24 of threats to police officers, whether from 25 terrorist sources or otherwise, through advisory 1 messages distributed currently to the precincts. 2 Those messages are then related at roll 3 calls, or, as necessary, to each daily tour of duty, 4 or, sometimes, on radio transmissions. 5 Soon, with the mobile digital platform, 6 distributing advisories and intelligences briefs to 7 officers in the field will be instantaneous and 8 ubiquitous. 9 Beyond the field, all of the department's 10 computers are being upgraded or replaced if their 11 useful life has ended. 12 Currently, some forms are still required to 13 be typed, so we still do have typewriters, a few. 14 But the vast majority of the department forms are 15 now digitized. 16 As of December 2014, over 10,000 desktops 17 have been upgraded or replaced, representing 18 approximately 50 percent of the department's supply. 19 We expect to complete the process of total 20 refurbishing and replacement by December 2015. 21 To go with these mobile devices, new 22 desktops, every police officer will be getting an 23 e-mail address, finally, in the twenty-first 24 century. 25 Our information-technology bureau has tested 1 a new cloud-based e-mail system. The first 2 [unintelligible] of department-wide e-mail began 3 this past Monday. 4 I truly believe that the new mobile digital 5 technology will change our department and 6 significantly improve the safety of our personnel. 7 There's another technology that also promises 8 to change how we police, how we work with the 9 public, and how we work with the courts. 10 Body-worn cameras will permanently alter how 11 credibility is weighed in the criminal justice 12 process. 13 They will enable the full account of an 14 instance to be recorded and reviewed, rather than 15 the out-of-context videos we sometimes see on the 16 Internet or the nightly news, and, they may minimize 17 the conflict of unreconciled testimony. 18 But, body-worn cameras result in many 19 complicated questions, both technological and 20 otherwise. They are not a panacea that they are 21 oftentimes represented to be. 22 We are examining issues like storage 23 capacity, guidelines when the cameras are turned on, 24 how long the data is stored, chain-of-custody 25 issues, whether the images would be available under 1 the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), and, of 2 course, cost. That, for a department the size of 3 the NYPD, it could potentially run into the hundreds 4 of millions of dollars each year. 5 In collaboration with other agencies that 6 already use this technologies, we are working to 7 resolve these issues, and are looking forward to the 8 benefits that the technology will provide. 9 Based on those agencies' experience, we 10 expect we will significantly reduce the number of 11 false claims about police encounters, whether such 12 claims come from the citizen or from the officer. 13 We also think it will improve how the 14 community appreciates our role. 15 At the same time, we believe it will ensure 16 that our officers act responsibly and appropriately, 17 which will ensure and further improve the 18 community's confidence in police legitimacy. 19 The department has just completed the first 20 month of the body-worn-camera pilot program. 21 Currently, 54 officers are wearing the 22 devices in a number of our precincts, and we are 23 looking forward to commencing a wider rollout. 24 While body cameras may help officers keep 25 safe from -- keep them safe from false allegations, 1 a crucial item for their physical safety is the 2 bullet-resistant vest. 3 Contrary to what you may have heard, our 4 vests are not past their replacement cycles. Vests 5 do have a five-year warranty period from the 6 manufacturer, but similar to other pieces of 7 equipment, warranty periods do not determine an 8 item's life cycle. 9 The life cycle for a vest is significantly 10 longer than the warranty period, assuming proper 11 maintenance, care, design, and manufacturing, 12 something that the department assiduously adheres to 13 currently. 14 There are approximately 22,000 members of the 15 department whose vests are over 5 years old. 16 Even though all of the vests are currently 17 within our standards, the Mayor and the City Council 18 have indicated, and will be allocating shortly, an 19 additional $7.3 million in this year's budget to 20 replace all vests that are out of warranty within 21 this calendar year. The money will also facilitate 22 the creation of a replacement cycle. 23 We are grateful for this commitment to the 24 safety and continued support of our officers; in 25 that, that we will be in a position within a year 1 that, within the expiration of the warranty, we will 2 be able to replace the vests. 3 I have an example of the new vests that we 4 are moving toward. 5 [Holds up a vest.] 6 They are lightweight. They have detachable 7 additional panels. 8 The vests, all custom designed. Each officer 9 is custom-fitted for the vest. 10 So as you might appreciate, to do the initial 11 22,000 officers, including about 6,000 officers who 12 have a vest that does not have a side panel, that's 13 of great concern to us. So those 6,000 officers 14 will be the first to be fitted and given the new 15 vests. 16 But the idea is, that we will be in a 17 position to replace all of them with the newer, 18 lighter-weight vests, but it cannot happen 19 instantaneously. 20 They are manufactured after they are fitted. 21 And talking with the various manufacturers, it will 22 take us almost a full year to fully outfit the 23 department with these new vests. 24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Is every line officer, 25 Commissioner, in possession of a vest? 1 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: All 35,000 of our 2 uniformed officers are. 3 We also have additional heavyweight vests, 4 tactical vests, for our emergency-service personnel 5 and other officers who may have to go into 6 active-shooter-type situations, for example. 7 So, again, we are very grateful to the 8 City Council and to the Mayor for the quick 9 turnaround on this item when it was raised by our 10 unions recently. 11 Now that we have discussed some of the ways 12 in which the City and police department are working 13 to enhance police safety and public protection, we 14 would like to discuss some of the ways that our 15 elected officials, yourselves, might be able to help 16 in this effort, and I thank you for your attention 17 to this. 18 First, there's a proposal currently being 19 discussed that would require police vehicles to be 20 retrofitted with bulletproof glass. 21 While we appreciate the concern for officer 22 safety that has inspired this proposal, we do not 23 believe that it would be prudent or workable to do 24 so. 25 It would cost [unintelligible], we 1 understand, approximately $50,000 per vehicle to 2 retrofit with bulletproof glass. With approximately 3 8300 vehicles in our fleet, 2800 of which are 4 marked, costs, as you might appreciate, are of 5 significant concern. 6 Two additional significant concerns are that 7 the bulletproof window would only be able to be 8 opened a few inches, and the glass would not be in 9 compliance with the current highway safety 10 standards. 11 A police vehicle must have breakable, 12 crash-tested glass which is actually safer for the 13 officers. 14 Bulletproof glass is not crash-tested, and an 15 officer trapped in a vehicle would not be able to 16 get out by breaking the vehicle. 17 Reality is, also, our officers are in and out 18 of those vehicles. They're out of vehicles more 19 than they're in. 20 When they're in the vehicles, oftentimes, 21 they have the windows are down so they can hear 22 what's going on around them as they interact and 23 engage with citizens. 24 So, while it's a -- what would appear to be 25 an excellent idea, cost-wise it's not feasible. 1 But, also, day-to-day police work would just not 2 warrant its practicality. 3 And, so, we would respectfully discourage 4 moving too far along in that direction. 5 Alternatively, if State funding were made 6 available, it might be worthwhile to explore 7 installing ballistic panels inside vehicle doors to 8 provide an additional measure of protection. 9 My seven years with the LAPD, every marked 10 LAPD vehicle have these ballistic panels, so that 11 when officers do traffic stops, they can open the 12 door, and, from the waist, down, they have that 13 additional protection available to them, and it has 14 frequently helped. 15 There's also the ability to also put 16 ballistic panels on the dashboard of a vehicle to 17 help if a round is coming through the windshield of 18 the vehicle. 19 We've also discussed the possibility of 20 retrofitting the vehicles with air-cooled seats, 21 somewhat easing the discomfort of officers wearing 22 bullet-resistant vests which can be become 23 uncomfortably hot as one sits in the car. 24 I recently had a vehicle, before coming back 25 into the public sector, that had those type seats, 1 and they are really quite an enhancement. 2 We would further be pleased -- we would be 3 pleased to discuss these alternatives further. 4 Second, there are many gaps in the law which 5 need closing, and many opportunities for new 6 legislation that would help protect law enforcement, 7 many of these you're already aware of. 8 Our primary goal is not punishing offenders, 9 but deferring dangerous and problematic conduct. We 10 are really focused on the prevention aspect of it. 11 We would like to offer a few thoughts for 12 your consideration, and then I will close for your 13 questions. 14 This is by no means comprehensive, but it 15 does provide several ideas we believe deserve 16 further attention. 17 We recommend increasing penalties related to 18 violence and threats against our law-enforcement 19 officers. 20 For example, it's a Class C felony to cause 21 serious physical injury to a police or peace officer 22 with the intent to prevent the officer from 23 performing a lawful duty, but there is no higher 24 penalty if the officer dies. 25 We believe that, in such a case, the crime 1 should be Class B felony. 2 We also recommend that assault against a 3 school safety agent or an auxillary police officer 4 should be upgraded from a misdemeanor currently, to 5 a felony, as has been done for other public 6 servants, such as traffic-enforcement agents, train 7 conductors, and social workers. 8 Regarding the unlawful wearing of a 9 bullet-resistant vest, it is currently an E felony, 10 but only if the offender wears the vest while 11 committing a violent felony offense and being armed 12 with a firearm. 13 We believe this prohibition should apply 14 under other circumstances as well, where the 15 offender has had a prior conviction for a violent 16 E felony offense, or, where the offender possesses a 17 deadly weapon, ammunition, or imitation firearm, or, 18 where the offender is committing any degree of 19 assault or reckless endangerment with a dangerous 20 instrument. 21 With respect to general issues of officer 22 safety, we have four specific proposals. 23 We recommend making it a Class A misdemeanor 24 to disclose personal identifying information about a 25 police officer or a peace officer for no legitimate 1 purpose, knowing that such conduct may cause 2 reasonable fear or material harm. This would 3 address the posting of officers' home addresses and 4 details about their lives on the Internet as a 5 threatening or harassing tactic. 6 We also recommend making the identity of an 7 undercover officer confidential, under the 8 Civil Rights Law, in creating a presumption that 9 disclosure of an undercover officer's identify would 10 endanger the officer or compromise the officer's 11 effectiveness. 12 This would protect the under cops -- 13 undercover officer's identify, and ensure that the 14 officer would be able to testify under his or her 15 shield number rather than having to provide his or 16 her name. 17 One of the most dangerous aspects of 18 conducting a car stop occurs when an officer cannot 19 see inside the vehicle because of blacked-out 20 windows. This is a particular pet peeve of mine. 21 We propose that the law prohibit the 22 installation of window-tinting on vehicles exceeding 23 lawful limits, with a further requirement that 24 measurement of window-tinting be made part of the 25 annual vehicle inspection. 1 I know there's concerns about, the inspection 2 stations, presenting another burden on them, but 3 from an officer-safety standpoint, the millions of 4 car stops that are conducted by the thousands of 5 officers in this city and this state, we owe them an 6 additional level of security as they approach these 7 vehicles. It increases their danger, increases 8 their fear, significantly when they cannot see into 9 that vehicle. 10 Also relating to vehicles, we recommend that 11 the law be changed to eliminate the monetary 12 threshold, currently $250, for a felony charge of 13 criminal mischief when the vehicle damage is an 14 emergency vehicle. Any intentional damage done to 15 an emergency vehicle should receive a serious 16 penalty, notwithstanding the cost of repairs. 17 And our last legislative proposal is a 18 suggestion to protect not only law enforcement, but 19 the general public. 20 We recommend enacting a law specifically 21 protecting the confidentiality of information 22 relating to the security or protection of critical 23 infrastructure. 24 Blueprints and other information about iconic 25 buildings and critical infrastructure should be 1 protected from disclosure. 2 Beyond these legislative proposals, we have 3 identified several instances in which additional 4 funding could help support our officers and enhance 5 public safety. 6 As you work through the budget process, we 7 would appreciate you considering these initiatives. 8 We are -- in the interest of time, I have 9 additional testimony, but it has been provided to 10 you in written form, and so I will close my remarks 11 prior to reading the full content, and in the 12 interest of allowing you to get to the questions I'm 13 sure that you would seek to ask. 14 Thank you so much for the opportunity to 15 present before you this morning. 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you for this 17 outline, Commissioner. 18 Senator Golden. 19 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Commissioner, and 20 thank you my colleagues, for being here today, and 21 all in attendance in this room today. 22 This is going to be more of a dialogue 23 between us and you, and how we can effectively help 24 to move our departments here in the city and across 25 the state, and give them opportunities, whether it 1 be on equipment, whether it be manpower, whether it 2 be morale, whether it be some of the issues that 3 have been pointed out in the different cases across 4 the country where we have a divide within our city, 5 or a perception of a divide within our city. 6 Within the New York City Police Department 7 itself, where we have an inspector general, we have 8 internal affairs, department of investigations. 9 And now we understand the opportunities in 10 the Governor's package to put in a moving away from 11 an area that would cause some, I think, a two-tiered 12 system here in the state of New York: one for the 13 cops and one for the bad guys. 14 But I understand we're moving closer to a 15 monitor that is being talked about, that would be 16 another area of oversight on [unintelligible] in the 17 police department. 18 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: We have a lot of 19 cooks in the kitchen. 20 SENATOR GOLDEN: Pardon me? 21 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: We have a lot of 22 cooks in the kitchen. 23 SENATOR GOLDEN: Yes. 24 And, how do you build morale? 25 How does morale continue to build? 1 And if we have, the stop-and frisk is down, 2 we see the racial-profiling bill, we see all of the 3 cooks in the kitchen, how are we to build that 4 morale? 5 And, how are we to build the community, and 6 bring that divide together? 7 How are we to do that, Commissioner? 8 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Morale is always 9 of importance to our -- any police leaders. 10 Certainly, it has always been foremost in my mind in 11 my 40-some-odd-year career. 12 And, there's no denying that, for a wide 13 variety of reasons, morale in the department, in 14 general, is not where we would like it to be. 15 It does vary, officer to officer, assignment 16 to assignment, that, the issues of the impending 17 increased oversight. 18 The inspector general, who is already on 19 board, has already begun to start working with us on 20 policy-and-procedure review; the federal monitor 21 relative to the "stop, question, and frisk" issues; 22 some of the increased role of responsibility of 23 CCRB; my policy, and that of the leadership team of 24 the department, has been to work collaboratively 25 with each of these entities, understanding that they 1 exist, they're not going away, and better to try to 2 work with them so that the work that they do ends up 3 beneficial to the men and women of the department 4 and to the public we serve. 5 Those relationships at this time are actually 6 very good. We have spent a lot of time over the 7 last year working with them, giving them access to 8 the department. And, I believe that there is the 9 ability to work with them. 10 It's a fact of my life. I cannot change it. 11 I come to this position with the experience 12 of the LAPD where I did have an inspector general. 13 I had a police commission that I reported to. 14 I also had a federal monitor; the 15 largest federal monitorship in the history of the 16 United States for a police agency. 17 And those seven years ultimately ended up 18 with significant benefit, although also significant 19 cost, in terms of dollar cost, for the department. 20 So we will attempt to work with that 21 oversight in a way that it builds morale rather than 22 works against it. 23 To that end, I think that we are clearly 24 seeing that, in recent days, that the city 25 government is conscious of the need to support our 1 officers and the risks they put themselves to. 2 On Friday there was an article in one of the 3 local papers reporting on a case, in which an 4 officer who had been attacked by an individual with 5 a machete, shot the individual. 6 Our internal investigation showed no 7 wrongdoing. If nothing else, exceptional work 8 performance on the part of the officers involved. 9 But the City, continuing a policy that had 10 been in place for many, many years, the City Law 11 Office, was considering that as a nuisance 12 complaint, and settled it for $5,000. 13 I was outraged when I read that article. 14 The Mayor also what was. 15 And working together very quickly with the 16 City attorney, the Mayor changed that policy very 17 quickly; that there will be the hiring of 18 20 additional attorneys in the City Corporation 19 Office, very specifically, to fight every suit 20 that's levied against a New York City police 21 officer. 22 SENATOR GOLDEN: We think that should have 23 been done a long time ago, Commissioner. 24 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: It should have 25 been done 20, 30 years ago. 1 SENATOR GOLDEN: We applaud you on that. 2 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I addressed this 3 issue 20 years ago. 4 SENATOR GOLDEN: It's cost this city already, 5 and the State, it's just unbelievable, and it 6 shouldn't have been to this point. 7 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I'm using that as 8 an example, Senator, of, I'm finding that, as we're 9 going forward, that with the mayor I'm working for, 10 hopefully, as we start dealing more with the 11 City Council, as they mature, that we will be able 12 to address a lot of the issues that are of great 13 concern to our personnel relative to their 14 indemnification -- 15 SENATOR GOLDEN: The morale issue, though, 16 going back to that for a second, Commissioner, we do 17 have a problem, because we see a -- and I don't 18 think it's the morale that's doing it. I just think 19 you just see an increase in crime. 20 And I think the last 28 days on the CompStat 21 show there's an increase in crime. 22 Now, if murder is going up, rapes are going 23 up, robberies are going up, there's a problem. And 24 it's not just in the morale, but it's also on our 25 streets, whether it's the gangs or in our 1 communities. 2 But we have a definite problem. 3 Maybe you can expand on that a little bit. 4 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: We actually don't 5 have a crime problem in New York City, I beg to 6 differ with you, sir. 7 I know you represent the city, but we don't. 8 The murder and shooting increase that we 9 experienced in January, as we're going into 10 February, that increase is already decreasing; and, 11 so, the figures that we reported as recently as last 12 week are already down. 13 Crime in the city is at historic low levels. 14 Has the potential to go even further. 15 So crime is not a significant issue in this 16 city. Certain areas of the city it is. 17 But I think that would be -- to make that 18 statement, it's a detriment to the hard work of the 19 men and women of this department over the last 20 20-some-odd years. 21 SENATOR GOLDEN: That wasn't the intent of 22 it. 23 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: No, I understand 24 that. But the -- 25 SENATOR GOLDEN: The intent of it was, the 1 last 28 days, the CompStat has gone up. Your crime 2 has gone up, Commissioner. 3 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: You're making a 4 representation that is not accurate, that this 5 city -- 6 SENATOR GOLDEN: Well, we had don't have -- 7 the latest date that I have here is the last 8 28 days -- 9 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: We have it as of 10 this morning. 11 SENATOR GOLDEN: -- 1/25. 12 So we're going to be back here in March, so 13 we'll -- hopefully, we want you to be right. We 14 don't want you to be wrong. We don't want the crime 15 to go up. 16 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Well, believe me, 17 on this stuff, I'm always right. 18 SENATOR GOLDEN: We want to make sure that 19 the crime continues to come down. 20 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: And it will. 21 SENATOR GOLDEN: And that's why we're 22 thinking and focusing on these different issues. 23 And another one is going to be your baby 24 which was created, and that's the actual, you know, 25 broken-windows theory. 1 The -- I don't know whose office that is, the 2 IG or the -- is coming out with a report, that was 3 supposed to come out in December, on the 4 twenty-first-century broken-window theory. 5 Is there going to be a change in the 6 broken-window theory, do you think? Or is the 7 broken-window been a tremendous success over the 8 years? 9 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: The mayor and 10 I are both strong advocates and supporters of it. 11 The amount of it that's utilized varies, 12 neighborhood to neighborhood, time to time, 13 depending on circumstances. 14 I think some of the issue is, it's been 15 confused with the "stop, question, and frisk" issue. 16 They're two very different areas of the law. 17 Stop, question, and frisk is reasonable 18 suspicion. 19 Quality-of-life, "broken-windows," is 20 probable cause, where an officer actually sees an 21 offense being committed and takes a police action; 22 summons, or arrest for that action. 23 Stop, question, and frisk is a lesser 24 evidentiary standard. 25 So, there are those that were leading the 1 charge against stop, question, and frisk, that would 2 like to co-join it with broken-windows, but they're 3 two different issues, totally. 4 And the Mayor has been demonstratively 5 supportive of continuing that. 6 And as long as I'm Police Commissioner of the 7 city of New York, it will be a priority of this 8 department to enforce broken-windows. 9 SENATOR GOLDEN: Stop-and-frisk does work, 10 and you agree to that. 11 Stop-and-frisk, when you believe there is 12 somebody that may endanger and give certain 13 [unintelligible] or certain signs to a police 14 officer that this person may be dangerous to him or 15 to others in the community. 16 With the dropping in the stop-and-frisk, do 17 you see a problem with that? 18 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I do not. 19 I was one of those that, prior to my 20 appointment, criticized the level of it. I felt it 21 was too high -- 22 SENATOR GOLDEN: We agree. 23 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: -- for the crime 24 situation in the city. 25 I think my predecessor also supported that; 1 in that, during his time, Commissioner Kelly, 2 starting in 2010, from when it peaked at 700,000. 3 Prior to his leaving last year, the numbers 4 of stop, question, and frisk had declined by several 5 hundred thousand already, while crime continued to 6 go down. 7 Last year we had fewer than 50,000 stops. 8 Crime went down once again to historic low 9 levels. 10 But interestingly enough, with fewer stops, 11 the number of summonses and arrests that were being 12 made increased, the percentage; so that we were 13 stopping fewer people, but we were more frequently 14 stopping the right people, as evidenced by the 15 arrests and summonses we were creating. 16 SENATOR GOLDEN: Okay, I want to move over to 17 one other area, because I want to give opportunity 18 for my other colleagues here: the protests. 19 We talked about communities that believe they 20 might be disturbed as well; and others that believe 21 that our policy on allowing these protests is to 22 leave the permanent area and to march through the 23 streets, without being arrested, without being 24 stopped. 25 There is a concern in communities that we 1 represent, that this is just going to be a practice 2 that's going to continue. 3 Or, are we going to, under -- I understand, 4 an announcement you made the other day, there's 5 going to be a new unit established. There will also 6 be a separate unit that will deal with the 7 protesters. 8 Are we going to have a practice within NYPD 9 that's going to, you know, keep these people within 10 their permitted area? 11 And if they get outside of that permit area, 12 are they going to be arrested? 13 And, if they cause injury to civilians and to 14 police officers after they leave that permanent 15 area, should we be looking at legislation that would 16 increase penalties for people that would leave the 17 permitted area and cause these injuries to 18 civilians, and shut these businesses down, and shut 19 down the city of New York? 20 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I'll ask 21 Chief O'Neill, chief of the department, that -- who 22 was out every day during the period of time when the 23 protests were very active, the various 24 demonstrations, to speak to you relative to your 25 question about the policies of the department, and 1 how we monitor and deal with demonstrations; the 2 various demonstrations that are occurring in the 3 city at any given time. 4 So, Jim, if I could ask you to speak to that? 5 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: Sure. 6 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Commissioner. 7 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: Hello, Senator. 8 SENATOR GOLDEN: Chief. 9 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: I was intimately 10 involved in the process from November 24th, forward, 11 and the policy we had was, we did use restraint. 12 It was our opinion that these protests were a 13 little bit different. 14 I have handled many protests in the past. 15 I did the World Economic Forum. I did the 16 RNC. I did some OWS. 17 But these protests, a lot of it was directed 18 towards the police department, so we didn't want to 19 be the flashpoint. 20 We did show a tremendous amount of restraint. 21 And we did have tremendous resources that we 22 put towards these protests every night; upwards of 23 3,000 police officers on the very busy days. 24 The idea was, that people have an absolute 25 right to protest. And as long as they were not -- 1 there was no civil disorder, we were going to let 2 them march. And then, at the end of the day, they 3 would dissipate and people went home. 4 Absent a few -- a few: Staten Island Ferry, 5 Brooklyn Bridge, and I think at 14th and 8th -- 6 absent a few incidents, I think we did remarkably 7 well. And there were no injuries -- very few 8 injuries to police officers and very few injuries to 9 the people involved in the process. 10 SENATOR GOLDEN: Should we look at 11 legislation, though, that if they break outside of 12 that perimeter and they cause physical injury, or 13 serious physical injury, to a civilian or to a 14 New York City police officer or other 15 law-enforcement official, should we look to enhance 16 penalties? 17 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: I think the 18 penalties that we have with -- when we're dealing 19 with assaults on police officers are fine, but they 20 have to be -- the district attorneys have to fully 21 prosecute them. 22 SENATOR GOLDEN: The last question, and then 23 to my colleague: What is manpower on the street? 24 What is the actual number of police officers 25 in uniform on the streets in the city of New York 1 today in any given -- 2 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I'll ask Jim to 3 give you specifics on that. 4 There are not enough, being quite frank with 5 you. 6 SENATOR GOLDEN: What is enough? 7 I remember when you were the commissioner, we 8 had forty-something-thousand police officers, and 9 that's not including rank. 10 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Something that's 11 not widely known or appreciated, that, right after 12 9/11, that the department was at a record high: 13 41,000. 14 When I was commissioner back in '95, we had 15 38,310. That was a direct result of Mayor Dinkins' 16 Safe-Streets Initiative. 17 I'm currently looking at a workforce of under 18 35,000. 19 So something not widely recognized, was the 20 department declined by over 6,000 officers over the 21 last 12 years, even as 911 calls increased by a 22 million, even as the new threats of terrorism 23 exploded after 9/11. 24 We now have over a thousand officers. And 25 I'm about to put 350 more into 1 counterterrorism-specific issues. 2 311 was not in existence prior to 9/11. That 3 generates a significant number of calls for the 4 department. 5 So we are in discussions that -- as we always 6 are, with the political leadership of the city, the 7 Mayor and the City Council, as to what a more 8 appropriate staffing figure might be. 9 Chief O'Neill has been working, along with 10 his people, on a very fine-tuned CAT scan, if you 11 will, of the department. 12 We've already begun summary organization to 13 maximize people we already have. 14 Before I go hat in hand looking for more, 15 I need to be in a position to justify what I'm doing 16 with what I already have. And I think we are in 17 that position. 18 But, again, these are always ongoing 19 discussions, and concerns with budget. 20 And at the same time, with the workforce we 21 have, as we clearly saw last year, that we were able 22 to continue the 21-year trend of reducing crime 23 every year in the city. And we fully expect that 24 will occur again this year with what we have. 25 SENATOR GOLDEN: So how many men do we have 1 on the street on a given day? 2 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Jim, if you could 3 speak to that, please? 4 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: At any one time, 5 on any one tour, it's approximately 400 cars out. 6 We have 77 precincts, and each precinct turns 7 out, roughly, between 5 or 6 cars. 8 SENATOR GOLDEN: If we have a protest, we 9 pull from those precincts? 10 How -- what do we do with those -- 11 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: There are 12 other -- Senator, as you know, there are other 13 personnel in the precinct besides the people that 14 are assigned to sector cars. 15 So, if we do have a protest, we do pull 16 people from the precincts, we do pull people from 17 narco. 18 SENATOR GOLDEN: It's important that the 19 protestors know that they're going to be arrested, 20 so we don't keep on dragging this manpower into the 21 city of New York or around the city, and that we get 22 the ability to police the city in an appropriate 23 manner. 24 I think you've done a great job, and you 25 continue to do a great job, and I applaud you for 1 that, Commissioner, and your rank-and-file, but, we 2 need to get more accomplished. 3 And I want to thank you for being here today. 4 I hope I get another chance to go around, but 5 there's a lot of colleagues here today. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: That's the concern that 7 we've had: As you have to deploy more and more 8 people to manage -- or, more officers to manage 9 protesting, what does that do to dilute the strength 10 of the police department? 11 I think that's certainly a concern. 12 One of the issues that I would like your 13 opinion on is, currently before, let's say 14 Legislature, discussions about upping the penalties 15 for resisting arrest. 16 It's one aspect of protesting, certainly, to 17 be arrested as part of the official protest. 18 Then it's another aspect of resisting arrest. 19 And, of course, we've had other issues 20 regarding resisting arrest. 21 We're considering raising, currently, from a 22 Class A misdemeanor, to a felony, for resisting 23 arrest. 24 What's your opinion of that? 25 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: You know, 1 anything we can do to prevent our police officers 2 from being assaulted I would definitely be in favor 3 of. 4 We are in a process of doing a study on 5 people we've locked up for resisting arrest and 6 assaulting police officers, to see, actually, how 7 they progress in the court. 8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It will be interesting to 9 see how this training that the Commissioner 10 mentioned, particularly the training for 20K and 11 other types of other instruction to police officers, 12 will be effective in encouraging people not to 13 resist arrest, and, I guess, the issue of the cost. 14 Commissioner, do you have an idea of the cost 15 of that additional training? 16 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: The training 17 budgeted for this year, 2015, calendar 2015, is 18 approximately $35 million, that will allow for the 19 training of the approximately 22,000 officers who 20 routinely work in the field. 21 Going back to your question about laws 22 relative to resisting arrest, I'm very supportive of 23 the idea of increased penalties; that there is no 24 right to resist arrest. 25 The Mayor stated that. I've stated it quite 1 clearly. 2 And, we have many -- too many instances in 3 which arrests are, in fact, resisted. 4 In 2014, out of 388,000 arrests, we had 1839 5 complaints of assaults on police officers, virtually 6 the same as 2013. 7 I am going to be meeting with the district 8 attorneys of -- the five district attorneys, 9 however, that we're going start CompStat'ing that 10 particular situation, because, in the vast majority 11 of these instances, there are no charges filed. In 12 some respects, it's a "get-out-of-free-jail card" to 13 assault an officer. 14 We need to do a better job on our end, giving 15 the district attorneys the evidence they need to 16 help going forward with the prosecution, which we 17 will attempt to do. 18 But at the same time, we are hoping that with 19 that additional support from us, they are able to 20 move forward on these approximately 21 2,000 individuals who, each year, assault our 22 officers. 23 I'd point out that, in 2014, there were 24 7,058 instances of force used during arrest. That's 25 a 16.5 percent drop from 2013. That force is 1 oftentimes to deal with people who are resisting us. 2 And, in 2014, there were 2892 officers 3 injured during arrest, which was also a 15 percent 4 drop from 2013. 5 So, we have several things going for us. 6 The officers are using less force when they 7 are making arrests. They are being injured less 8 frequently. But we still have too many people that 9 are resisting arrest, potential of injury to 10 themselves, as well as our concern of injury to our 11 officers. 12 So an enhancement of penalty, and, on our 13 part, an increased effort to work with our district 14 attorneys to make better cases to protect our 15 officers. 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Commissioner, the numbers 17 you cited earlier regarding crime statistics, in 18 your response to Senator Golden's questions, if you 19 would be so kind as to share those numbers with the 20 Committee, and so that they can review. 21 Senator Marcellino in particular wanted those. 22 Before turning this over to Senator Gallivan, 23 I want to thank the additional Senators who have 24 arrived since your testimony began. 25 On my far left is Senator Andrew Lanza. He 1 represents Staten Island. He is Vice Chairman of 2 the Senate Codes Committee. 3 Senator Croci is Chair of the 4 Homeland Security Committees. 5 Senator Ruth Thompson -- 6 Ruth Hassell-Thompson. 7 Always nice to see you, Ruth. 8 And, Senator Diaz. 9 Question, Senator Gallivan. 10 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you, Senator. 11 Good afternoon, Commissioner. 12 Thanks for being here, and thanks for the 13 work that you and, of course, your entire department 14 does. 15 The Governor recently had several 16 "criminal justice reform" proposals that he put out 17 in his State of the State. 18 And early on in your testimony, you talked 19 about, and the phrase I think is a very appropriate 20 one, is "there are too many cooks in the kitchen." 21 One of the Governor's proposals, though, adds 22 another level of review: an independent monitor that 23 would review all cases where a police officer uses 24 deadly force against an unarmed person. 25 And I would like to hear your thoughts about 1 that proposal. 2 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Well, in the case 3 of the city of New York, we already have, as you've 4 clearly articulated, a significant level of review. 5 We have five very highly qualified district 6 attorneys who, in instances of this matter, are not 7 shy about investigating. 8 We have two U.S. attorneys who also, if it 9 rises to the level of a federal offense, are not shy 10 about entering into it. 11 We now have the inspector general who has the 12 ability to review all of our policies and procedures 13 in all of these instances. 14 And, in the case of the federal monitor, that 15 federal monitor has a pretty wide purview relative 16 to issues arising out of our "stop, question, and 17 frisk" practices. 18 So, what the Governor is appropriating, I'm 19 not intimate with some the details of the initial 20 proposal, but, for the case of the city of New York, 21 that it would seem to me, initially on its face, 22 that it's another level on top of what I would 23 describe as already sufficient levels. 24 I also have a very aggressive and very 25 skilled internal affairs and disciplinary system 1 within the department to handle a lot of these types 2 of matters. 3 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Another proposal of the 4 Governor's would require a municipal police-training 5 council to establish a model policy on use of force, 6 and then mandate that all departments, statewide, 7 including NYPD, follow their use of force. 8 Of course, you can impose further 9 restrictions, according to the Governor's proposal. 10 Do you have thoughts on that? 11 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Once again, that 12 those levels of oversight, each of them has that 13 responsibility currently. 14 So what I would worry about is the dueling 15 recommendations, even with the idea of the provision 16 that the state one would be the overriding or 17 compelling one. The feds may have some issues of 18 concern with that. 19 I also think that the idea of, you need to 20 leave some room for individual discretion at the 21 local level; that one size does not necessarily fit 22 all issues of all types of incidents. 23 SENATOR GALLIVAN: If we can go back to 24 broken-windows, I know that you talked about it a 25 little bit previously, but I'd like to talk about 1 it, and look at, in the past, and compare it to now. 2 So if we can go back in time to your first 3 tenure as commissioner. 4 Of course, we all know the problems that 5 New York City faces related to high levels of crime: 6 people afraid to come here, people to walk across 7 the street, the "squeegee men," and all of those 8 different things. 9 So can you just talk about what the theory 10 is. Go a little bit further than you did before. 11 Talk about what that was, and how you came to 12 implement it in your first tenure 20 years ago. 13 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: The theory is 14 pretty simple. 15 It's, oftentimes, we use the idea of a weed 16 in a garden. 17 You have a beautiful garden. If you neglect 18 to pull the weeds, eventually the weeds will kill 19 even the strongest tree. 20 I would describe New York City as the perfect 21 example of that. 22 In the '70s and '80s, that, as the city 23 went through numerous fiscal crises, social-policy 24 changes; in the '70s and '80s, reductions -- 25 significant reductions in the size of the police 1 force. 2 For a period of time in the 1970s, the size 3 of this police force was 19,000 officers. 4 I don't know how Bob McGuire, the police 5 commissioner at that time, managed to deal with the 6 craziness that was going on in that city at this 7 time. 8 But just take one example: the subway car. 9 6,000 subway cars in the system. 10 Starting back in the late '60s, 1970s, 11 somebody made the decision they were no longer going 12 to deal with graffiti. And by the end of the 13 decade, every one of those 6,000 cars was totally 14 covered, inside and out. 15 Didn't make the passengers feel too safe or 16 secure, the idea that nobody was protecting against 17 that graffiti. 18 Bob Kiley, when he became head of the MTA, he 19 and Ben -- Mr. Gunn, head of the transit authority, 20 made it a very visible effort to get rid of that 21 graffiti, and succeeded. 22 And to this day, you will almost never see 23 graffiti on our subway cars. 24 If you do, by the time the train gets to the 25 end of the line, it's pulled out of service so it's 1 cleaned. 2 They even went so far in the 1980s of having 3 a 10-car train that was painted totally white as an 4 example that you could, in fact, do that. 5 I can remember the sanitation trucks in the 6 city in 1990, many of them which are painted white. 7 You wouldn't know it because they were totally 8 covered with graffiti. 9 So even the city entity responsible for 10 cleanliness had succumbed to broken-windows; 11 neglect. 12 And the one I dealt most effectively with, as 13 an example, fare evasion. 14 250,000 people in 1990 not paying the fare. 15 A buck fifteen, theft of service, who cares? 16 Why bother with it? 17 Well, that was $80 million of tax revenue 18 lost to a desperately-starved-for-funding transit 19 system, that could be used for station improvement 20 or equipment purchase. 21 But just the sense that that gave, that 22 nobody's in charge, nobody cares. 23 And the idea, technically, it's a victimless 24 crime? A buck fifteen, theft of service -- 25 I remember when the fare was a buck fifteen. 1 Now it's a lot higher. 2 -- who's the victim? 3 Well, it's the authorities, so who cares? 4 Well, the problem is, the community ends up 5 the victim. 6 So that's why I'm such a strong proponent of 7 it. 8 And something that needs to be understood, is 9 the vast majority of the broken-windows policing 10 that we do in this city, that I did in Los Angeles 11 or Boston, is we are responding to calls for 12 service; somebody who calls, "A group of kids 13 hanging in my hallway, smoking dope," "There's a guy 14 urinating in my front doorstep," "There's a 15 prostitute working on my corner every night." 16 When you look at our 911 workload, and you 17 look at the calls for service, the significant 18 majority of them are quality-of-life incidents. 19 And if we don't take care of it, the police, 20 who's going to take care of it? 21 So we go where people ask us to go. We 22 address the issues they ask us to address. 23 And, ironically, where do we get the bulk of 24 our quality-of-life calls? 25 In the poor minority communities that, 1 unfortunately, are afflicted most frequently by 2 those broken-window types of crimes and offenses. 3 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Is the application of that 4 theory the same now, 20 years later, or are there 5 things different about it now? 6 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Well, if you're -- 7 SENATOR GALLIVAN: I'm sorry. 8 As practiced by the department. 9 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: -- if you're 10 successful at it, there's less need to do it. 11 For example, we no longer have 250,000 fare 12 evaders every day. 13 Actually, the transit authority stopped 14 counting the number of fare evaders because it cost 15 more to count them, because they became so few. 16 So that, today, you may see fare evasion in 17 the subway system, but not like lemmings rushing to 18 the sea, as we saw in the early 1990s. 19 So that the level ebbs and flows; that, 20 depending on the complaints we receive or the 21 conditions we're addressing. 22 The squeegee pests, for example, when we went 23 after them in the 1990s, it took us all of about 24 2 days to get rid of them. There were about 90 of 25 them, and there were 38,000 of us, so the odds were 1 in our favor. 2 You might occasionally see one on the front 3 page of the "New York Post" that pops up from here 4 to there. But, basically, as fast as they pop up, 5 we're able to get rid of them; and, so, you don't 6 see a tolerance for them that, eventually, they're 7 all over the place once again. 8 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So you'd agree, I believe, 9 and correct me if I'm wrong on that, that, if not 10 the police, who? 11 So it becomes necessary to respond to the 12 quality-of-life issues; whether it is the squeegee 13 men, whether it is the selling of individual 14 cigarettes, whether it's people yelling and 15 screaming on the street, whether it's graffiti. 16 In the first instance, that's a call that 17 goes to nobody but the police. 18 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: It has to go to 19 the police. 20 There's a -- one of the City Council members 21 had an editorial in the "Daily New" the day before 22 yesterday. 23 I had a response today. 24 And one of his suggestions was that: Well, 25 the police don't have to enforce this. Why don't we 1 have somebody else do it? 2 Well, the reason we have to enforce it is the 3 nature of the offenses. That, you put an unarmed 4 person, they're trying to correct that behavior, or, 5 somebody that doesn't have the authority of power of 6 arrest, you can imagine the response that they're 7 going to receive. 8 The reason the police are asked to enforce 9 these laws is, you are very familiar with it, you're 10 lawmakers. 11 When you pass a law, you criminalize it, or, 12 you make it something the police have to respond to, 13 for the purpose that we have the authority, the 14 power, the training, to enforce it, and to enforce 15 it appropriately within the law. 16 If you don't like something, well, then, get 17 rid of the law. 18 I'd like to have to do a lot fewer things 19 than we currently do; but, since they are laws, and 20 since people complain, we have to go and we have to 21 deal with it. 22 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Should there be a time 23 that the police do not enforce the law? 24 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: No. 25 There's a time -- if I may expand on that, 1 there's a time when, at all times, police discretion 2 can be used. 3 In some instances, we cannot use discretion 4 when mandated. 5 Domestic-violence incidents, for example; 6 drunk driving; you would not want us to utilize 7 discretion, which we did utilize in the past and 8 oftentimes abuse. 9 So one of the reasons that a lot of our calls 10 for domestic violence, the increase in arrests in 11 that category is because it has been mandated that 12 we make arrests there, which you would want us to do 13 to try and deter that problem. 14 But what we give our officers is discretion. 15 And quality-of-life, oftentimes, can be dealt with 16 with an admonition. 17 Guy drinking the beer on the corner, you 18 know, "Get rid of it." 19 But, you come back two hours later, he's back 20 drinking again, well, you can move it then up to 21 summons. 22 And if that doesn't work, well, then, you can 23 move it up to arrest, eventually. 24 So we empower our officers, within the law, 25 to use discretion. 1 And, effectively, I think a lot of what 2 you're seeing at the moment, some of our summons 3 activity is lessened. I think a lot of our officers 4 are, in fact, using discretion to not address an 5 offense always with the summons or an arrest. 6 We have a saying that I'm very fond of: That 7 you kind of arrest your way out of every problem. 8 Arrest is appropriate. 9 Fare-evasion arrest was very appropriate back 10 in the '90s when we were making tens of thousands 11 of them. 12 Now we make thousands of them, but we have to 13 make many fewer of them because the offenses are 14 occurring much less frequently. 15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: The last area I wanted to 16 touch on was the New York City municipal ID card; 17 and I'm curious about it's ultimate impact on public 18 safety. 19 The cop on the street being handed this, and 20 concerns that you might have as it relates to public 21 safety, with procedures that had to be put in place 22 to ensure it doesn't compromise public safety or the 23 safety of the cop on the beat. 24 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: We were very 25 actively engaged in the many discussions and 1 meetings leading up to the issuance of that card. 2 Our concerns were addressed, to the extent 3 that we were able to support the issuance of the 4 cards, which are now in process. Not as quickly as 5 it was initially hoped. 6 But those cards, eventually, will be helpful 7 to us, in that, in many instances where an 8 individual does not have identification on them, our 9 officers have to make an arrest; versus, with the 10 municipal ID card, now they will have the ability to 11 accept that as an appropriate form of identification 12 for a lot of the offenses that they would seek to 13 cite someone for. 14 So I think, over time, it will be a great 15 benefit to our officers in the sense of not 16 requiring that they have to resort to arrest. 17 And it will be a great benefit to the 18 hundreds of thousands of individuals who are 19 applying for those cards that would not be subjected 20 unnecessarily to an arrest. 21 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you, Commissioner. 22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Marcellino. 23 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you. 24 Commissioner, thank you for coming, and 25 I appreciate your time. I know you are extremely 1 busy. 2 I taught school in the city of New York for 3 20 years. 4 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: That's where the 5 gray hair came from, I guess, huh? 6 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yeah. A lot of it. 7 I had a mustache, it was dark. The hair was 8 darker. The whole thing. 9 In that school was assigned a police officer: 10 Officer Frank Martins. 11 I am sure Frank, he's an African-American 12 man, I'm sure he is probably retired, and I've lost 13 contact with Frank. 14 But Frank was an integral part of the staff 15 of our school. 16 Our school was built for 3200 youngsters. At 17 one time, we had 6600. We were on triple 18 overlapping sessions in the city, and that was a 19 problem. 20 Frank was an invaluable asset to keeping 21 control, to handling the youngsters. 22 The school was predominantly White in a 23 predominantly White area of Middle Village in 24 Maspeth. And as a Black man walking the streets of 25 that neighborhood 20 years ago, he was, I would not 1 excessively use the term "beloved." 2 The community loved him. The kids respected 3 him and loved him. He was an asset to us all, on 4 that. 5 I'm just wondering -- and I mention this 6 because a lot of people don't understand it, and may 7 not know, that police officers are in -- or were in 8 high schools. 9 And I'm wondering, still are? 10 Are there still police officers assigned on a 11 regular beat to the high schools, or other schools? 12 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: We have almost 13 5,000 uniformed school agents in our schools 14 throughout the city. 15 We additionally have, I'm not sure the exact 16 number, about 300-some-odd, I believe, police 17 officers that are assigned to school-related 18 functions; some of them in some of the schools. 19 But the bulk of the work that you're 20 referring to -- trying to ensure public safety in 21 the schools; ensure, in some instances, that weapons 22 are not brought into the schools -- we rely on the 23 school safety agents who are unarmed but in uniform, 24 and are members of the NYPD. 25 SENATOR MARCELLINO: The asset of having a 1 police officer in the building, and around the 2 billing, especially one of size. Our high schools 3 are huge, compared to the ones that I represent 4 right now on Long Island. My high school is, like, 5 three times the size -- was three times the size of 6 the average high school. It was bigger than some of 7 the districts that I represent at this point in 8 time, the school districts. 9 But Frank was there. 10 So if anybody knows of him, or still keeps in 11 contact with him, I'd appreciate you giving him a 12 shout-out and say "thank you" to him from -- 13 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: He's in Florida. 14 SENATOR MARCELLINO: He is probably. 15 I wish him well, because he deserves it, 16 every bit of it. 17 He made my job a lot easier in the school. 18 I am also concerned, if you would, and just 19 to repeat what Senator Nozzolio talked about before, 20 about the most recent statistics, if could you hand 21 that up to us, or give that to us, when you're 22 finished, or -- in whatever form. We could use that 23 to look at the data that we have. 24 Can I ask you a question about the grand jury 25 procedure that goes on? 1 Now, that seems to, in the most recent cases 2 of notoriety that created some problems with the 3 demonstrations, the release of grand jury data has 4 been requested, and it hasn't been forthcoming 5 because the law prevents, you know, that from 6 occurring. 7 Would you like to see a change in that? 8 And if you're not comfortable with answering 9 that, I would fully understand. 10 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I think we could 11 benefit by additional information being released 12 from the grand jury. 13 I certainly would not want to interrupt or 14 interfere with the secrecy component; particularly 15 as it relates to witnesses, to encourage witnesses 16 to testify freely in the grand jury process. 17 But in instances in which there would be the 18 ability to give clarification, explanation, as to 19 the decision that's reached, as to what the 20 particulars of that would be, would have to be the 21 result, I would assume, of a more significant 22 discussion. 23 But, I think it would be beneficial, as we 24 have seen in some instances here in New York, and 25 some instances around the country, if we had a 1 better understanding of the decision that is arrived 2 at by a grand jury. 3 And, oftentimes, the secrecy works against 4 its original intent. 5 SENATOR MARCELLINO: I appreciate that. 6 Again, thank you for your time, and thank you 7 for your service to the city of New York. 8 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: If I may just ask 9 Chief O'Neill, just to briefly reference what we 10 will provide to you; but also, going forward, how 11 easy it is to access our crime-data information. 12 That, Jimmy has a sheet in front of him that's 13 posted each week on our department website. 14 So, Jim, could you just, very quickly, speak 15 to how they might access that. 16 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: Sure. 17 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: But we can provide 18 that information to you, in any event. 19 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: You can actually 20 go on the NYPD website. And, the stats are a week 21 behind, but I do have the stats for this week, 22 ending February 1st. 23 So, we're down in overall crime, 24 year-to-date, 12. -- that's felony index crime, the 25 seven major crimes, we're down 12.3 percent. 1 If you want, I could go through each 2 category, each one of the seven crimes? 3 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Just submit it for us, for 4 the record. 5 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: Sure. 6 Murder, we are up. We're up 6 raw numbers: 7 18.2 percent. 8 Rape, we're up 6 numbers: 115, to 121. 9 That's 5.2 percent. 10 Robbery, we're down 5.6 percent. 11 Felony assault, we're down 17.4 percent. 12 Burglary, we're down 24.9 percent. 13 Grand larceny went down 9.1 percent. 14 And, GLA, we're down 6.9 percent. 15 We do have a rise in shooting incidents; from 16 80 last year, to 98 this year, which is an increase 17 of 22.5 percent. 18 So, the three categories that were up are: 19 Shooting incidents, rape, and murder. 20 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: In reference to 21 what Jim reported to you, our CompStat information, 22 as of what date? 23 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: February 1st. 24 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Okay. 25 Each morning I get from the Chief of the 1 department, as of midnight the previous evening. 2 So as of midnight last night, to show how 3 quickly these numbers can fluctuate, that, 4 homicides, we have had two more homicides this year 5 than last year. 6 I think you just reported six. 7 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: Right. 8 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: But it just shows 9 how quickly those numbers can change. 10 So last year was a record low year for 11 homicide. 12 And the increase of two into the second month 13 of the year is not an issue of great concern, in the 14 sense that, as far as trending, that we are working 15 against extraordinarily low numbers from last year. 16 Even in the area of shootings, that, as of 17 midnight last night, we have had an increase of 18 15 shootings, which is about a 17 percent increase, 19 versus the 22 that Jim just referenced. 20 So the numbers ebb and flow, and we are very 21 focused on them, so that we are continually, if we 22 start seeing a spike, we move on that spike. And, 23 we're very good at this. 24 I would also point out that the -- relative 25 to the homicides and shootings, in New York City it 1 is more unusual than usual to have an individual who 2 is shot or murdered in the city who does not have a 3 significant criminal record. That the majority of 4 people involved in committing the homicides have 5 criminal records. The majority of those being shot 6 are murdered. 7 With the singular exception of 8 domestic-violence incidents, [unintelligible] the 9 victim oftentimes have no record; or, in some 10 instances, the perpetrator. 11 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Commissioner -- 12 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: When you're 13 dealing with a population of violent people, that 14 we're continually trying to focus on. 15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Commissioner, under your 16 early watch, your first watch, your first tenure, 17 I don't know what you call it, but your first 18 tenure, we saw, and we watched your numbers, the 19 most significant drop in vital crime that any state 20 has ever experienced in the history of our country. 21 Congratulations for that. We applaud you. 22 We all, from -- Governor Pataki was governor 23 at the time. It was a transition between 24 administrations. 25 We just -- I was chairman of the Crime and 1 Corrects Committee. 2 We were just so pleased with the efforts. 3 And that we applaud you and everyone that was 4 responsible for that drop. 5 It was quite a success story. 6 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Especially the 7 cops. 8 And, we also work with, in this city that 9 I can I speak to -- 10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: We're just concerned -- 11 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: -- the district 12 attorneys' offices are essential to working with us 13 on this. 14 That, can't do it without them. 15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you for mentioning 16 that. 17 And it -- but we don't want to see those 18 numbers change back to where we were. We don't want 19 to go back to the past. 20 And that's a big reason why this panel is 21 conducting its business over the next few weeks. 22 And we have been joined by Senator Comer. 23 SENATOR COMRIE: Comrie. 24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And, Senator Lanza wishes 25 to speak. After him, it will be 1 Senator Hassell-Thompson. And then Reverend Diaz. 2 SENATOR LANZA: Thank you, Chairman. 3 Thank you. 4 (Taps microphone.) 5 SENATOR LANZA: Thank you, Chairman. 6 Commissioner, it is truly great to see you, 7 and thank you for your service to our city. I truly 8 believe that, given these difficult times we face, 9 you are the man for the job, and I have great faith 10 in you. 11 You spoke briefly about the morale of the 12 New York City Police Department, and you said that, 13 in fact, it is a challenge, and you attributed it to 14 a variety of reasons. 15 Is there one that stands out to you, one 16 primary cause, for the challenging-morale situation 17 here with the New York City Police Department? 18 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Well, I think a 19 significant mitigating factor in the -- December and 20 January was certainly the demonstrations that were 21 conducted nightly, that were directed against the 22 police specifically. And within those larger 23 demonstrations, some of the smaller demonstrations 24 that were absolutely abhorrent, with demands to kill 25 police, et cetera. 1 To police those demonstrations -- policing 2 demonstrations -- crowd management, crowd control -- 3 is difficult at any time, but when it's being 4 directed against you, that it can have a wearing 5 effect. 6 And, I'm very complimentary of the men and 7 women of the department, and the extraordinary 8 restraint that they exhibited. 9 And, also, the concerns that we all spoke 10 about, about the -- that the fueling of this 11 anti-police sentiment, and the result, the murder of 12 our two officers, which clearly was a spin-off of 13 those demonstrations in terms of the inspiration of 14 the murderer in this instance. 15 So it's understandable that the morale of 16 officers was impacted by feeling it. 17 So many members of the community were so 18 distrustful of them, so angry at them, individually, 19 and collectively, and from my own perspective, 20 unjustifiably, that you can understand why morale, 21 which ebbs and flows all the time, but particularly 22 over the last several months, that was impacted in a 23 very negative way. 24 I think on the other hand, the rebound was, 25 coming out of the murders, the outpouring of 1 support; not only within the police profession, the 2 two largest police funerals ever held in this 3 country were held within two weeks of each other in 4 the city. 5 So support from within the profession, but 6 support from the many communities that do respect 7 the police, that I think that helped to, I won't say 8 level the playing field, but certainly appreciated 9 by the men and women of the department. 10 SENATOR LANZA: I agree with you, 11 Commissioner. I believe that those murders were a 12 result of this anti-police climate that was created, 13 and has existed, and I think contributed toward by 14 many elected officials, not just here, but across 15 the country, who are supposed to be leading, who 16 I think contributed toward that, and have continued 17 to contribute toward that climate. 18 You said in your statement that there's a 19 perception among some who we serve, that they are 20 actually -- that they are underserved. 21 Do you think that is an accurate perception? 22 Do you believe that there's anyone in the 23 city who is not properly served by the New York City 24 Police Department? 25 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: No, the irony is, 1 that the bulk of police services tends to be focused 2 on that underserved population; "underserved," in 3 the sense of, areas. 4 In our case, New York City, they're the most 5 economically distressed. In a city that is doing so 6 well economically, there are still distressed areas, 7 clearly. 8 In our areas -- in our public housing areas, 9 and specifically with some of the conditions they're 10 dealing with. 11 You know, unemployment issues. 12 Some of the poor-rated schools. 13 That, if you start matching all of that up 14 against where our violent crime is still occurring, 15 where our most significant calls for service, 16 quality-of-life or otherwise, come from, there are, 17 quite clearly, areas in the city where they are 18 underserved in many respects, in the sense that 19 the -- despite many of the best efforts of the City 20 and government, that, you know, levels of poverty, 21 levels of unemployment, levels of poor schooling, 22 quality of housing, all suffer. 23 SENATOR LANZA: Commissioner, as you know, 24 I hail and I represent -- I hail from and represent 25 Staten Island. And we, unfortunately, lived through 1 the terrible Eric Garner tragedy. 2 When the grand jury on Staten Island decided 3 to hand up a no-true bill, the mayor of our city 4 held a press conference, and you were there; and 5 I listened to him. 6 And he is a colleague and a friend of mine. 7 It seemed to me, in his statement, that he 8 clearly disagreed with that decision from that 9 grand jury. 10 And to disagree with that decision, you would 11 only do so if you had already prejudged innocence or 12 guilt in that case. 13 So, it was clear to me that the Mayor 14 believed that that police officer was guilty of a 15 crime, and that's why he held that press conference 16 and expressed disappointment in the decision. 17 Do you think it's proper for -- it was proper 18 the Mayor to express that feeling; to tell the 19 people of the city of New York, in essence, that he 20 had prejudged the guilt of that police officer, and 21 that's why he disagreed with the decision? 22 And do you believe that that press conference 23 contributed to this anti-police climate and the low 24 morale of the New York City Police Department? 25 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Well, it's quite 1 clear you have your belief. 2 You have your belief about what the Mayor's 3 beliefs are -- 4 SENATOR LANZA: Whoa, whoa, Commissioner -- 5 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: -- and I suggest 6 you take it up with him. 7 SENATOR LANZA: What do you mean, it's 8 quite -- what belief? 9 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: You quite clearly 10 believe that he had an opinion. 11 SENATOR LANZA: Well, he said he did. 12 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: So you've 13 expressed that, and I'm suggesting to you: That's 14 your opinion, you take it up with him. 15 I'm not going to comment on it. 16 SENATOR LANZA: So then I'll ask this 17 question: Do you believe that the statement made by 18 the Mayor in that press conference contributed 19 toward the anti-police sentiment in the city? 20 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I personally do 21 not, no. 22 SENATOR LANZA: During the protests, you said 23 that police officers exercised restraint. 24 Were the police officers instructed not to 25 make arrests for certain offenses they witnessed? 1 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I will let 2 Chief O'Neill speak to that since he was there every 3 night, and you were not. 4 So I will let him, who was on those lines 5 every night. 6 SENATOR LANZA: Commissioner, that's why I'm 7 asking the question. I was not -- 8 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: But I will let him 9 address that line of questioning. 10 SENATOR LANZA: Thank you. 11 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: He will address it 12 very aggressively. 13 SENATOR LANZA: Chief, I wasn't there, that's 14 why I'm asking the question. 15 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Well, that's why 16 I'm having the person who was there every night, for 17 12 hours a night, address it for you. 18 SENATOR LANZA: Perfect, great. 19 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Jimmy? 20 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: The instructions 21 that were given to everyone involved in the protest 22 and demonstrations over, again, November and 23 December, was we were leaving it up to the field 24 commanders on the ground. The decisions were made 25 at a very local level. 1 If there was disorder, if there was criminal 2 mischief, if there were assaults, obviously, we're 3 locking people up. And we did. 4 We had, I think, and I may not have the 5 number absolutely correct, that we made about 6 350 arrests during the course of those protests. 7 [Inaudible/non-working microphone] -- so 8 anything that we saw that rose to the level of 9 crime -- [inaudible/non-working microphone]. 10 SENATOR LANZA: So police officers on the 11 street were not told to ignore certain crimes that 12 they may have witnessed? 13 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: 14 [Inaudible/non-working microphone.] 15 No, they weren't. 16 SENATOR LANZA: Staten Island is the safest 17 part of New York City, and there are a lot of 18 reasons for that. 19 It's because of your police department. 20 It's because of the citizens who live there. 21 It's because we have I think the best city 22 attorney in the city, Dan Donovan, who I see in the 23 audience. 24 It's also because, I believe, we have more 25 police officers who live on Staten Island than just 1 about anywhere else. And these are my neighbors and 2 these are my friends. 3 And when we talk about police morale, in 4 talking to my friends, there's a sense to me that 5 they feel that the City doesn't have their back, in 6 terms of the elected officials, the Mayor, and 7 possibly brass. 8 Do you think the City has their back? 9 Do you think the Mayor has their back? 10 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I personally do. 11 I think, and I can speak for the Mayor, I can 12 speak for myself, I can speak for my leadership 13 team: We do have their back. 14 In terms of actions that we have taken to 15 address the many concerns that were voiced to me 16 before I took over as Commissioner, and the many, 17 many countless meetings that we had have had with 18 officers, with their elected officials, their union 19 representatives, this is a police-leadership team, a 20 police department, that does have their back; is 21 continuing to fight on their behalf for their issues 22 and interests and concerns. 23 I believe strongly that this mayor does 24 support them, as evidenced by many of his actions 25 over the past year that I've worked with him. 1 Everybody is entitled to their opinions. 2 And -- but I don't necessarily share those opinions 3 as it relates to the department or the Mayor having 4 their back, if you will. 5 SENATOR LANZA: And, Commissioner -- 6 POLICE CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL: Excuse me. 7 I was lucky enough to have the privilege to 8 be a precinct commander for 6 1/2 years, in 9 Manhattan North and in the Bronx. 10 I was also lucky enough to be a 11 vice commander, a narco commander. I was in the 12 detective bureau. I was the chief of patrol. 13 Now I'm Chief of the department. 14 I unequivocally have the back of all of the 15 brave men and women of this police department; and 16 I think they know that. 17 SENATOR LANZA: I know you do, Chief. 18 And, I am the son of a former New York City 19 police officer. 20 I was a prosecutor in the city, in Manhattan, 21 in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, for 22 five years. 23 So, I have worked with our police department 24 for many years. 25 And, Commissioner, the reason I asked these 1 questions, I know sometimes it's uncomfortable for 2 all of us here, but, it's because I agree with you, 3 that we have the best police department on the face 4 of the earth. 5 And I was very disappointed, and disturbed, 6 that for a period of time there, the people of the 7 city were led to believe that we did not. 8 And we've got to make sure that we do all we 9 can, as leaders, to let the people know that they 10 are properly served, that they do have the best 11 police department in the world. 12 And sometimes emotions run high, but we can't 13 lose site of that view. 14 And so one last question, with respect to the 15 grand jury proceedings: Do any of you believe that 16 there should be different grand jury rules for 17 police officers than we have for anyone else? 18 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I don't quite 19 understand your question. 20 SENATOR LANZA: Well, there have been 21 proposals; for instance, by the Governor, and 22 others, that, perhaps, when police officers are 23 involved, we should have a special set of 24 criminal-procedure law in terms of our grand jury 25 proceedings. 1 Do any of you believe that we should have one 2 set of criminal-procedure law for police officers, 3 and another one for everyone else? 4 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Well, the way you 5 phrased that question is slanted toward your 6 perspective, quite obviously. 7 That, in terms of, we're very fortunate in 8 this city that we have five very capable district 9 attorneys who have shown no reluctance, when 10 appropriate, to move matters into grand juries. 11 Grand juries make decisions, and we abide by 12 those decisions. 13 And so, in terms of the debate, you're all 14 going to be engaged, based on the Governor's 15 proposal. 16 You'll have input as you go forward, and from 17 those district attorneys, as well as the police 18 officers. 19 And I will be happy to engage in that 20 discussion when the time's appropriate, when, in 21 fact, we have hearings relative to those matters. 22 SENATOR LANZA: Commissioner and Chief, thank 23 you. Thank you so much. 24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. 25 Senator Hassell-Thompson. 1 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank you, 2 Mr. Chairman. 3 Good morning -- or is it afternoon? 4 Commissioner, first let me compliment you. 5 You came up to the Bronx a few day ago and 6 met with many of the clergy from around the 7 boroughs. And I understand it was standing room 8 only, and -- but it was an extraordinary experience. 9 Many of the clergy are people that I work 10 with, not just in my borough, the Bronx, but across 11 all five boroughs, particularly when it comes to 12 policing issues. 13 As the Ranking Member, and after 14 years of 14 serving on Crime, Crime Victims, and Corrections, 15 I have become a lot more familiar with policing than 16 I really ever wanted to be, obviously. 17 But these are some very troubling times. 18 And some of the questions that I will ask, 19 I think just to -- are just kind of important for to 20 us really understand, from a policy perspective: 21 Where do we go from here? 22 And what kinds of things we ought to be doing 23 in the State Legislature that ensures, that while 24 people have a right to expect to be protected, that 25 they also don't want their constitutional rights to 1 be violated in that process. 2 And so it's a very delicate balance that all 3 of us try to achieve in order to prevent that from 4 happening. 5 In your testimony, I had to read, because, 6 unfortunately, I missed the majority of it, but 7 I quickly saw that you referenced the 20K training, 8 where officers are taught to take suspects into 9 custody safely by using various escalating levels of 10 force. 11 Could you elaborate on those levels of force, 12 and how they're applied to a street encounter with a 13 citizen? 14 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I'm going to ask, 15 if you don't mind, First Deputy Commissioner 16 Ben Tucker, who, until recently, was the deputy 17 commissioner for our training. Was very 18 instrumental in the creation and development of the 19 three-day course that's now being given to our 20 officers. 21 And now, in his first-deputy capacity, has 22 oversight over the police academy, so he will be 23 still intimately involved with that evolution. 24 If I could ask him to basically speak to 25 that, and the focus of what he developed there. 1 COMM. BENJAMIN TUCKER: Hello, Senator. 2 Good morning -- or, good afternoon. 3 So, with respect to the levels of force, 4 I mean, the three-day training that was referenced 5 prior to your arrival, that you referenced, is 6 designed to focus on a variety of issues; but, in 7 particular, to focus on the issue of use of force, 8 and, also, on the use of the officer's ability to 9 deescalate a situation before it gets to the point 10 where force has to be used, or may be necessary. 11 So that's really the goal, and -- that we 12 have. 13 I mean, but let me just preface by, having 14 been a police officer, I was a police officer for 15 22 years, and I worked the streets in Manhattan, and 16 also in Brooklyn, and spent some time out there, and 17 you have to make these decisions about, you know, 18 how you engage with the public. 19 And when you do, you do it in a manner that, 20 always, hopeful, that if you have to make an arrest, 21 you want to make that arrest, where the individual 22 who has to be arrested is going to comply, and where 23 you don't have to use force. 24 So that's always the principal goal, and 25 that's the baseline from which I always worked, and 1 it's the baseline from which we ask our officers to 2 work today. 3 And the training is designed to focus on it 4 in that regard. 5 And so the training -- the three-day training 6 focuses on the foundations of policing, as a 7 reminder to police officers of why they became 8 officers. 9 And, it focuses on tactics, which are 10 important, to the extent that officers have to make 11 those decisions. They make those decisions 12 beginning, as I said, at the lowest level of use of 13 force that may be necessary, and it escalates only 14 as the circumstances might dictate. 15 And then the third day of training focuses on 16 giving officers some tools that help them exercise 17 their -- sort of be more resilient in the way in 18 which they make decisions, and exercise their 19 discretion as they take action, and determine -- 20 help determine when they take action, how they take 21 that action, and to be aware of the traps that 22 sometimes get you into trouble, which all have to do 23 with your ego, and not letting your ego get in the 24 way of dictating what's reasonable under the 25 circumstances; which sometimes happens with our 1 officers. 2 And so, being aware of that, we want to put 3 them through, and put them into, what we call 4 "scenario-based situations," that remind them of 5 what the traps are. 6 And as they walk through those exercises, 7 they get to make those mistakes, to the extent that 8 they make any, as they go through the exercises in a 9 setting that is not real, and it's not during street 10 encounters with individuals that they come into 11 contact with when they're on patrol. 12 So that's really the framework in which we're 13 trying to remind our officers what's needed, and to 14 have them recognize that the citizens have a right 15 to expect to be treated with respect and -- as they 16 do their job. 17 And in every encounter that's the goal. 18 Of course, the realities don't always allow 19 for that as it relates to arrest circumstances. 20 And depending on the circumstances, the 21 officers have to make decisions in split seconds 22 about how they have to react. And then, in reacting 23 that way, the goal is always to use the least amount 24 of force that they think is necessary. 25 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Would you say, 1 then, Commissioner Tucker, that the Blue Courage 2 program also includes sensitivity training -- 3 cultural-sensitivity training as a part of that? 4 COMM. BENJAMIN TUCKER: Well, we provide, 5 Blue Courage focuses on that, and not specifically 6 around cultural-sensitivity training, as much as it 7 focuses on the exercise; putting officers in a 8 position and having them sort of think about how to 9 interact with any individual that they come into 10 contact with. 11 We also teach conflict resolution as part of 12 that discussion. 13 We also teach our officers, as they go 14 through the academy, they get conflict resolution as 15 well. 16 So what we want to do with Blue Courage is 17 heighten their awareness. 18 And the other thing that Blue Courage does 19 is, which I think is unique in terms of training for 20 police officers, at least until recently, is this 21 idea that we're trying to give them skills and give 22 them information that speak to their own wellbeing 23 as individual officers. 24 So I said, you know, I talked about 25 foundations of policing, and why they joined the 1 police department. 2 And, typically, if you speak to officers and 3 ask them that question, it always focuses on their 4 ability to help the citizens that they're charged 5 with policing. 6 That's their focus, and that's what they're 7 interested in doing very often. 8 We try to remind them of that as they go 9 through this training, and put them in situations 10 where they get to test those skills and use those 11 skills in that manner. 12 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: The question of 13 cultural sensitivity becomes very important, because 14 I know that the Mayor received a lot of criticism 15 from people because of the comments that he made 16 about his son. 17 But, you know, the world may not be aware of 18 this, but every Black family tries to teach their 19 Black son, and daughters, that their behavior in the 20 street is seriously important and their life is 21 always threatened. 22 And people think that's the anathema to what 23 the relationship with the police department has 24 been; but, historically, that's a place where we 25 find ourselves. 1 And so there's not a parent who does not have 2 those kinds of conversations with their children in 3 terms of, how do you behave when you're confronted 4 by the police department, and how you can behave 5 that must be different from any other ethnic and 6 cultural group. 7 So that's why it becomes important to us to 8 understand how much of an emphasis is put on the 9 cultural beliefs and biases that other ethnic groups 10 bring to the encounter as well, which is very 11 important out there in the field to understand. 12 COMM. BENJAMIN TUCKER: I don't disagree. 13 I think you're right on target. 14 I mean, listen, I grew up in Brooklyn, 15 New York. And, so, as a young African-American kid 16 growing up on the streets of Brooklyn, I know 17 exactly what you're talking about. You know, and my 18 mother didn't have to have that conversation with 19 me. I was old enough, as a teenager, and I saw it 20 day to day. 21 So I can certainly relate to that, and 22 understand the importance of it. It's not lost on 23 me. 24 And we do build that into our training, and 25 we do teach our officers about those issues. 1 Let me give you some examples of what we've 2 been trying to do. 3 Working with -- as part of a -- in addition 4 to our training platform, there's a program called 5 "Cops and Kids," that you may or may not be familiar 6 with. 7 It's -- Lenora Fulani, who is a psychologist, 8 and who works with -- is sort of the creator of this 9 program, recognized the point that you made. 10 And so, in 2006, she began these 11 conversations with cops and kids; primarily, and 12 almost exclusively, youngsters from communities of 13 color and New York City police officers that work in 14 their communities. 15 And it's been, I think, eyeopening for the 16 officers. 17 And what it really is, is you have 18 five officers and, typically, five cops, and -- from 19 a particular neighborhood, policing a neighborhood, 20 and five youngsters from that neighborhood, and they 21 get together and, you know, have a conversation 22 about the concerns that both bring to the table. 23 Cops sometimes don't understand what drives 24 our young people, and why they make the choices they 25 make. And sometimes the kids don't understand why 1 officers hassle them, as they say, and why they have 2 to stop them, or tell them not to do this or not to 3 do that. 4 So those conversations have continued. 5 And when I arrived in March of last year and 6 learned of the project, we are -- you know, it has 7 merit. 8 We're going to continue it, we're going to 9 expand it, because those conversations seem to 10 produce that understanding that you're referencing, 11 and has an impact, I think, on those individual 12 officers. 13 So we are seeking to expand that and make 14 that part of the training, in addition to the 15 training that we -- that they normally get through 16 the four-hour recruits in the police academy. 17 And just this past Thursday, we had another 18 session, where we take -- we had 450 of the most 19 recent graduates of our academy, close to 20 900 officers who just recently assigned to precincts 21 and PSA's and transit districts around the city, 22 half of those officers were in one of these 23 sessions, where, up at the Apollo Theater, in fact, 24 is where it was hosted, and went through that 25 exercise. 1 And so they had the opportunity to witness 2 what I just described to you: Five officers, 3 five youngsters, engaged in that sort of an 4 exercise, overseen by Ms. Fulani. 5 Very effective. Very effective tool. 6 And it reinforced for those new cops what 7 they learned in the academy, and they saw it in 8 action, and had the opportunity, at least in the 9 case of the five officers and those five individual 10 youngsters, to actually see it up close and 11 personal. 12 But even that's a very powerful message to 13 send. 14 And all of the officers witnessed it, as well 15 as a number of community members who were in the 16 audience. 17 So that's just an example. 18 But I would agree that that's an important 19 factor, and it is certainly -- you can rest assured, 20 it is certainly something that we are paying close 21 attention to as we train our recruits; but also in 22 the 20 day -- the 20K training that we're doing for 23 officers who are already on the streets and in 24 service. 25 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank you. 1 Commissioner, my final question to you. 2 Currently, the District Attorney controls the 3 presentment of evidence before the grand jury. 4 Do you think, that in the case of unarmed 5 civilian deaths, that a representative of the 6 deceased should be able to offer evidence at the 7 grand jury? 8 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: I'm not going to 9 speak to that. 10 Again, you're going to be going into 11 discussions. 12 I understand the Governor has proposed 13 legislation, so I think that would be the more 14 appropriate forum to, once I've had the opportunity 15 to understand fully what's being proposed, to speak 16 in a more informed way to the recommendations, or 17 recommendations I might seek to make, as you look at 18 potential legislation controlling this. 19 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: But I think you 20 also fail -- sometimes people fail to recognize 21 that, while the Governor may propose, the 22 Legislature has responsibility for policy. 23 And this is the body that actually formulates 24 that language, so it's helpful to us also, as we 25 review any language that comes from the Governor, or 1 any other the source, when we're developing 2 policies. 3 We are the policymakers, and sometimes people 4 tend to forget that. 5 I don't allow people to forget that that's my 6 primary role. That's what I'm elected to do. 7 And so as a policymaker, it's important for 8 me to be able to ensure that the process of the 9 grand jury is one that there is the apparent 10 transparency without loss of vital information. 11 Certainly, as we look at the discovery law, 12 as we look at Brady Law, and some of the things that 13 we've been looking at, all of these become important 14 because we want the public to have trust in the 15 decisions. 16 I heard the discussion between you and 17 Senator Lanza, and part of that discussion stems 18 from the fact that people don't have complete trust. 19 That because of the role of the DA with the 20 grand jury, and because there is so much closure, or 21 closed-door discussion with the grand jury, that the 22 grand jury comes away with the decision that's 23 already presupposed without really having all of -- 24 we believe, the kind of transparency that's 25 necessary. 1 So not everybody is in agreement that what is 2 being proposed by the Governor is, in fact, the best 3 policy for the state of New York, and that's why the 4 basis of my question. 5 I'm not asking you to get in the middle of 6 that, but I'm trying to help you to understand why 7 it's important for us, as the Legislature and the 8 policy body, to ensure that as we look at 9 legislation, we consider that transparency goes a 10 long way toward making everybody feel much more 11 comfortable that the process is open and in such a 12 way, that when a decision is handed down, that there 13 is no undue influence that is brought by any party 14 on that decision. That it is a decision that's 15 really predicated on all of the evidence, and 16 everyone has the opportunity to present that 17 evidence in a way that gives the grand jury the 18 opportunity. 19 Thank you, Commissioner. 20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Senator. 21 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank you, 22 Mr. Chairman. 23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Diaz is next. 24 Commissioner Bratton and his team have been 25 generous with their time. 1 I ask those that have asked to speak after 2 Senator Diaz -- that's Comrie, Sanders, and 3 Perkins -- to summarize what you would like to say. 4 Commissioner, thank you for your -- 5 listening. 6 Senator Diaz, you have the floor. 7 SENATOR DIAZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, but, 8 I have to object of what you're saying, because we 9 in the democratic society, now you cutting our time, 10 and you on the other side, you have all the time in 11 the morning, so it is not fair. 12 Just for the record. 13 Commissioner, thank you for being with us. 14 I mean, we -- I heard today things talking 15 about what started the anti-police feeling that 16 ended with the death of two police officers. 17 I heard people say that "the Mayor said." 18 Some people asked the Commissioner, Do you 19 agree with what the Mayor said? 20 The fact of the matter is, ladies and 21 gentlemen, that when we all are guilty, especially 22 also elected official, we're guilty because, when 23 those riots started, and that rally, people 24 chanting, "What do we want? A dead police officer. 25 "When do we want it? Now," not one elected 1 official, including myself, not one single elected 2 official, and I am not blaming anybody else, we were 3 so -- we are so guilty of keeping quiet. 4 Nobody came out. No one could 5 [unintelligible] those -- 6 SENATOR GOLDEN: I was out there, sir. 7 SENATOR DIAZ: I don't know. I didn't see 8 you. 9 SENATOR GOLDEN: I was out there. All right? 10 SENATOR DIAZ: Then I say my apologies. 11 I stand corrected. 12 SENATOR GOLDEN: Then don't speak for the 13 rest of us. Speak for yourself. 14 SENATOR DIAZ: I just said, I stand 15 corrected. 16 But we cannot come here now and questioning 17 everybody else, when we didn't do what we were 18 supposed to do and came out. 19 If you did, congratulations. 20 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you. 21 SENATOR DIAZ: But the rest of us, I don't 22 think we did. And that's something that we have to 23 be ashame of. And I don't come here now to try and 24 to blame everybody else for the -- 25 SENATOR MARCELLINO: No, I'm going to call 1 this one, too, because I spoke out in my community 2 and I spoke out as much as possible. 3 I do not feel guilty -- 4 SENATOR DIAZ: After -- 5 SENATOR MARCELLINO: -- in any way, shape, or 6 form in taking action after that. 7 I condemned it. I didn't like those 8 statements. They're outrageous. They should never 9 have been made. Cast aspersions on one of the 10 finest police departments in the state, and in the 11 country. 12 So I spoke out. Whether the media covered it 13 or not, that was their choice. 14 But we certainly spoke out against it. And 15 I heard several other Senators on both sides speak 16 out against it. 17 So, Senator, speak for yourself, and don't 18 cast it on anybody else. 19 SENATOR DIAZ: Not everyone is defending 20 themself. We are guilty of -- 21 SENATOR MARCELLINO: You attack, you're going 22 to get -- 23 SENATOR DIAZ: That's okay, I live with that. 24 I'm -- Senator, please. 25 I am grown enough that I know what I say, and 1 I always stand for what I say. And I put in writing 2 what I say. 3 So we are guilty. Now we're going to say, 4 Oh, I said it, I said it. 5 Okay, if you -- if you think that you said 6 it, fine. 7 But when that demonstration came, nobody came 8 out. 9 After the death of the police officers, we 10 all came out. 11 But we got to be honest enough to be sure of 12 what we're doing. 13 Okay, and next, Commissioner -- I just want 14 to congratulate you and the -- you and your police 15 officers; the Bronx, which I represent a section of 16 the Bronx. 17 In 1963, '64, that was the last time when 18 the -- [inaudible/non-working microphone] -- less 19 than 100 homicide, two years in a row. 20 After 50 years, after 50 years, 2013, 2014 -- 21 [inaudible/non-working microphone] -- gotten two 22 year in a row, and it's less than 100 homicide. 23 That count for something. 24 I mean, less than 100, still much. But, 25 after 1964, the homicide rate went to 700, 500, per 1 year in the Bronx. 2 Now, for the last two years in a row, I say 3 you are keeping down. 4 Congratulations. 5 I'm not only a Senator. I'm also a pastor of 6 the Christian Community Neighborhood Church in the 7 Bronx. 8 I'm the president of the New York Hispanic 9 [unintelligible] that is composed of more than 10 150 Hispanic minister in the city. 11 I also would like to thank you, because we 12 had a problem that I learned because of the 13 "Daily News." 14 The "Daily News" wrote an article, where the 15 crime statistics in Rikers Island, committed by the 16 inmates in Rikers Island, were being applied to the 17 41st Precinct in the Bronx, increasing the amount of 18 crime statistic in the Bronx. 19 I presented in the Senate a piece of 20 legislation to do away with that. 21 My colleagues didn't do anything about it. 22 But your department, you send -- I never got 23 that kind of response for any other commissioner 24 before. 25 You send a high-ranking staff commissioner 1 and high-ranking [unintelligible] to my office in 2 the Bronx, and you did something internally to do 3 away with that problem. 4 Thank you for that, and I appreciate that, on 5 that. 6 On the other hand, we all know that crimes 7 are committed in our neighborhood; Black and 8 Hispanic neighborhood. 9 Crime are not committed in White 10 neighborhood. 11 So the crimes is committed in Black and 12 Hispanic neighborhood by Black and Hispanic peoples, 13 so we are committing crimes on our own people. And 14 because of that, it is -- it is -- it would be 15 ironic not to say, that, Why you are arresting, or 16 why you are stopping so many people in our 17 community? 18 We are the ones committing the crimes, we 19 are -- we are the ones committing the crimes, so, 20 I am not one of those. 21 But I will join saying, Why are you stopping 22 so many people in our community? 23 However, as a minister, as a pastor also, 24 I will say that people would not get angry to be 25 stopped, decent people, if they are treated with 1 decency, with courtesy. People would not be -- 2 people would not get angry to be get stop, people 3 would not object to that. 4 The only thing that people that I know are 5 object to the searching or to the stopping is 6 because in the way some police officers stop them 7 and address them. 8 If they -- if there would be another kind of 9 way in which people are addressed with decency and 10 respect, I think that whole thing would change 11 [unintelligible]. 12 Congratulations on the issue on the ID cards. 13 That's something to the Mayor's credit, to your 14 credit. We welcome. 15 And to end my statement -- 16 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you. 17 [Laughter.] 18 SENATOR DIAZ: -- let me say -- no. 19 Oh, no. I came here to say -- I also 20 supposed [unintelligible]. 21 I came here to say this: And I have to say 22 that, every year, every year, we in my district, we 23 do toy distribution. 24 I have to congratulate the police department, 25 the Police Benevolent Association, with the -- 1 Patrick Lynch and all his staff, because every year 2 they come to the Bronx. 3 Every year. 4 Not now, because [unintelligible]. 5 For the past, maybe five years in a row, they 6 have been coming to the Bronx, taking care of 7 children, bringing toys to the South Bronx, the 8 worst part, like the people, to the South Bronx, to 9 the Black and Hispanic children of the Bronx. 10 So I come here to say [unintelligible], thank 11 you, Mr. Patrick Lynch; thank you, police 12 department; and Mr. Commissioner. 13 Start again the squeegee program. 14 Thank you. 15 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Senator Diaz. 16 Thank you very much, very much. 17 Senator Comrie, please. 18 SENATOR COMRIE: Good afternoon, 19 Commissioner. 20 I just wanted to -- I'm not going to go into 21 a long soliloquy. 22 I want to just say that, as a new 23 representative for the 14th District in the 24 State Senate, I was honored to serve 12 years in the 25 City Council in the community, and I was honored to 1 have a strong relationship with Queens South and all 2 of the precincts that comprise Queens South. And 3 that's the area that I still represent now. 4 I want to congratulate Chief Barrere and all 5 of the precinct commanders in Queens South for 6 everything that they've been trying to do to make 7 sure that the community understands the relationship 8 between the police and the community. 9 And I can say that our community, which is 10 primarily a homeowner community, enjoys a respectful 11 relationship with the police department. And as you 12 have probably noticed, has done everything they 13 could to show their support during these times. 14 I wanted to just bring up, and I don't know 15 if anyone else spoke to it, but I read your 16 statement. I'm sorry I was running late and 17 I didn't hear the entire statement. But I would 18 hope that we adopt all of your recommendations for 19 additions and services and supplies that you needed, 20 especially the upgrades to the bulletproof glass; as 21 opposed to doing the bulletproof glass, the 22 ballistic panels; as opposed to the other state 23 funding that you're asking for, to make sure that we 24 have -- just to go through your other issues that -- 25 the escape hoods that you require; the issues of 1 making sure that, also, your weaponry that you need; 2 and, basically, all of the supplies that you need to 3 have, to make sure that you have not only the 4 technical support, but the enhancements to the 5 police departments as well. 6 At one point they had increased our money for 7 capital upgrades for police departments. 8 I hope that that is still happening, because 9 I know some of the station houses were in severe 10 needs of just electrical upgrades to keep up with 11 the technology. And I hope that that's going on as 12 well. 13 I just wanted to really ask you one basic 14 question, and after complimenting Queens South and 15 Chief Barrere, and letting you know that people in 16 our community want to be supportive of a real 17 dialogue between the police and the community. 18 And while community affairs is trying to do 19 as much as they can, anything that I can do to help 20 install that and improve that, you have my support 21 to make that happen. 22 We need to make sure that there's clear 23 community dialogue, not just between the police and 24 the 400 people that go to all the meetings, but the 25 community people that reach down from the barber 1 shops, to the houses of worship, to the hair 2 salons...everywhere that we need to go to ensure 3 that the police can have had a real dialogue with 4 the community. 5 I have one question for your consideration, 6 and I would hope that every rookie police officer 7 spends at least two weeks in a community-affairs 8 position, where they could go out and meet the 9 community one-on-one. As opposed to just going to a 10 training or listen to some lectures, that they could 11 at least spend some time in their new role, actively 12 working with community affairs, going out and 13 meeting all of the different locations in a 14 community that people are aware of. 15 And I would hope that you would consider that 16 as part of your training policy for new officers 17 when they come in as well. 18 And since we're short on time, and this is -- 19 I'm trying to be respectful of the Chair and be 20 focused, I would hope that we had could delve into 21 that more succinctly and more detailed at another 22 time. 23 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: What I would 24 suggest, sir, is probably a discussion between 25 yourself and Commissioner Tucker would be 1 appropriate. 2 The program he's designed, that we're 3 implementing for our new officers as they leave the 4 academy, for their first six months out in the 5 field, now they'll be assigned with 6 specially-selected field-training officers, as well 7 as working with community partners; volunteers who 8 have volunteered to help assimilate them into the 9 precincts. 10 They are no longer going to operation-impact 11 assignments initially out of the academy. They're 12 going right into precincts. And the most recent 13 class of 900 are in all 77 precincts around the 14 city, working with those field-training officers. 15 For two months they work days, for two months 16 they work evening tours, and for two months they 17 work the overnight tour, so that they do get a full 18 feeling for all that goes on in the precincts. 19 So, effectively, what you're talk about we're 20 already in the process of implementing. It's been 21 designed by Commissioner Tucker. 22 So, that conversation I think would be 23 beneficial to you. 24 I also would like to extend to the members of 25 the Committee, this Committee, but also the other 1 elected officials, both Assemblymen and Senators, 2 for New York City, the opportunity, as we have 3 recently done for our City Council, two 4 presentations: 5 One, to come out to the new academy, 6 $750 million academy in Queens, to see firsthand the 7 training that's underway out in that beautiful 8 facility, the multiplicity of training. On my given 9 day, we have 2,000 personnel in training at that 10 academy. 11 And, in addition, that we recently gave a -- 12 John Miller, our commissioner of counterterrorism, 13 gave a presentation to the City Council on what 14 we're facing currently with ISIS and other threats 15 in the city. 16 So I would like to extend that offer to you, 17 and we can coordinate it through the leadership, to 18 have you come in for those two presentations. 19 I think it would be very beneficial to all of you. 20 SENATOR COMRIE: I look forward to attending 21 both presentations. 22 SENATOR GOLDEN: Following up on 23 Senator Comrie's remarks there, I don't know if 24 you've set the time to sit down and present anything 25 to the Senate Finance Committee. 1 SENATOR COMRIE: [Unintelligible.] 2 SENATOR GOLDEN: Or have you sat with the 3 Governor's people yet for finance for dollars for 4 the NYPD? 5 Have you -- your finance team? 6 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: We have not. 7 Commissioner Grippo is here with me. 8 Vinny, I'm not sure if we have any of these 9 meetings up at the state level. 10 SENATOR GOLDEN: I would do that as soon as 11 possible, on both levels, and the Assembly level as 12 well. 13 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Thank you, 14 Senator. 15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I serve as Chairman. 16 Senator Crocie, Senator -- 17 SENATOR COMRIE: I'm sorry. I'm kind of new 18 here. I'm not used to being cut off. 19 Is that a normal thing? Or is this -- 20 SENATOR GOLDEN: No, Senator Leroy Crocie. 21 I was just adding to your comments, that I believe 22 that the Commissioner should have the opportunity to 23 present to the Chairs in Albany and to the Governor 24 for help in finances for the NYPD. 25 And I don't think you got the answer to that 1 question. 2 SENATOR COMRIE: No, I think I had started my 3 statement by saying, I would hope that everything 4 that he has proposed here is adopted by us in the 5 State Senate, at least, and, hopefully, adopted by 6 the Governor in the budget. 7 I think that making sure that he has all of 8 the -- making sure the police department has all the 9 technical equipment and supplies, and especially the 10 list that the Commissioner stated here -- 11 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Senator. 12 SENATOR COMRIE: -- I think is important. 13 And I think we should all commit to making sure that 14 that happens. 15 And if you haven't given dollars to all of 16 these issues, to the respected Finance Department or 17 the Governor's Office, I would hope that that is 18 done quickly, and so that we can have it adopted for 19 the budget, which we should be starting our process 20 now, and bringing it to the co-committees and the 21 other committees that are important. 22 But I would hope that -- and I'm saying that 23 I'm committed to doing everything I can, as a new 24 Senator, to try to make sure that everything on your 25 list is in the budget for 2016. 1 And I would also just say that, you know, as 2 we try to work to make sure that the department has 3 what it needs, that we also work to make sure that 4 the department has an opportunity to communicate 5 effectively to the entire community, as I was saying 6 earlier. And I would welcome the opportunity to 7 talk to Commissioner Tucker about that. 8 I was proud to be in the council when we had 9 voted for the new police academy, and part of 10 [unintelligible] committee that did that. 11 And as head of the Queen's delegation at the 12 time, making sure that the College Point facility 13 was put in place was important to the whole city. 14 SENATOR GOLDEN: Is there a question? 15 SENATOR COMRIE: I'm trying to wrap up, but 16 you guys interrupted me. And I was done, actually. 17 But, I just wanted to say that, at the end of 18 the process, we need to make sure that there's no 19 opportunity for other entities to try to interrupt a 20 clear communication between the police and the 21 community. 22 I think that's really what happened over the 23 past few months. And if we can find ways to 24 mitigate that on a regular basis, we could survive 25 bad media. 1 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 2 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Senator. 3 Senator Sanders. 4 SENATOR SANDERS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 5 First, let me applaud the Chairs for this 6 meeting; Commissioner, to your worthy staff. 7 I sit before you as a person who is no 8 stranger to a uniform. 9 I am a Marine Corps vet, infantry; and, 10 I have friends and family who have been in the 11 police force, so I'm very sympathetic to the police. 12 I understand what it's like to walk a post, 13 and have the joy of going home at the end of that 14 tour. 15 So I certainly am no stranger. 16 Yet I also am -- I must admit, I'm 17 flabbergasted by some in the city who feel that 18 those who are saying that we have to clean up our 19 ranks is somehow an attack on police. 20 I'm flabbergasted. 21 I understand that in any group that you have 22 there's going to be some bad apples. 23 If you have priests, there's going to be some 24 bad apples in the priests. 25 If you have preachers, you're going to have 1 bad apples. 2 If you have -- believe it or not, I know 3 people don't believe this, but if you have 4 politicians, there's going to be some bad apples in 5 the group. 6 I know you don't believe it, but it is true, 7 and that we also need to clean up our ranks. 8 I feel that the same is true with the police 9 department. And I don't think that it's any shame 10 to say that we need to police ourselves. 11 We need to find who is not obeying and 12 upholding the highest standards that we set forth. 13 And that anybody who isn't needs to be disciplined 14 severely. 15 I think that it shows a sign of strength. 16 And so I'm really confused at people who are 17 saying that -- coming up with one a false dichotomy: 18 you either have to be police right or wrong, 19 seemingly, or you hate the police. 20 And that doesn't give much room. 21 The forced dichotomy pushes it so that the 22 really question that we have to answer in 23 New York City, and America, is a question that 24 I believe that you guys at that table already have 25 committed to: 1 Can we obey the Constitution and enforce the 2 law for everyone? Or is it that the Constitution 3 must be a guideline when policing certain 4 communities? 5 Now, I don't believe that there's a soul at 6 that table who will say that the Constitution of 7 this great country is one that we should just throw 8 away whenever it is convenient. 9 I believe that there should be one law and 10 everyone should obey it, either side of the great 11 divide. 12 I'd never say that we should protect any type 13 of criminal. 14 Indeed, my officers work very hard to root 15 out criminals in our -- whenever we can. 16 But as one who has marched, who will march, 17 and say that there must be one law, and that we need 18 to figure a way to clean ranks, I urge everybody to 19 pull back from this false dichotomy; a dichotomy of 20 splitting people and saying -- that actually 21 protects people who are not upholding the highest 22 standard that we want. 23 I, too, have had to have a conversation with 24 my son. 25 May I remind you that, my son, never been in 1 any trouble, except with me. A college grad. Great 2 guy. Better guy than I will ever be. 3 Yet I have had to have a conversation with 4 him, and tell him, Hey, man, here is how you have to 5 behave in a -- when the police come up to you, 6 because I want you home. 7 And this assumes that he is not doing any 8 wrongdoing. 9 If he is, I will have been the first one to 10 turn him in. 11 If he isn't, I will be the first one to stand 12 with him. 13 But everyone -- to say that this is not a 14 real conversation that we've had to hold with our 15 children means that we're speaking from two 16 different worlds. 17 So I -- respecting the Chair, and respecting 18 your time, sir, which you and your staff have done, 19 given so generously, I end with a question that is 20 the question of the day; and that is: Can the 21 Constitution of the U.S., can the rules and 22 regulations, laws of this great state and city, be 23 observed by all, and, can we have policing of 24 certain communities? Or, is it that those rules 25 must be thrown away when we police certain 1 communities? 2 I end with that question, sir. 3 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: A very brief 4 response. 5 The basic -- [inaudible] -- for our officers 6 always has been, is, and always will remain that you 7 cannot break the law to enforce it. 8 The laws are there to be obeyed by everybody, 9 whether it's the enforcers/police, or the public. 10 And that's what we would seek to insist: that 11 police behave appropriately. 12 And the public also has an obligation to 13 behave appropriately. That you cannot resist 14 arrest. That a resolution of that issue is in the 15 courts. 16 But we are committed to that, that we are not 17 lowering any constitutional thresholds. Those 18 thresholds have to remain very high. 19 SENATOR SANDERS: Thank you very much, sir. 20 You have warmed my heart to know that there 21 are those who say there's one law in every side; 22 whether it be people in the community; every side 23 should obey the same law. And if you don't, you 24 have to take what goes with it. 25 Thank you very much, sir. 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, 2 Senator Sanders. 3 Senator Perkins. 4 SENATOR PERKINS: Good morning. 5 And I want to thank Chairs Nozzolio, Golden, 6 Marcellino, and Gallivan, and for this convening of 7 this important hearing. 8 I know that the Chair is pressing us to take 9 time into consideration, so I will. 10 But I just want to, first, commend you for 11 the work you're doing so far. 12 And I want to especially commend you for how 13 you handled the recent controversy, if you want to 14 put it that way, between the Mayor, who I think is 15 doing a good job and means well, and the 16 police-department union. 17 You know, the Black community is not 18 anti-cop, but there is some concerns, historically, 19 and even presently, that have been raised about how 20 that -- the community is being policed. 21 And so it's remarkable to me that the manner 22 in which the differences between the police union 23 and the Mayor were exercised in a way that they 24 turned their backs on him. And it almost, to me, is 25 not what I would want my child to even see. 1 I had -- like has been said by others, I had 2 to teach my sons and my nephews, as well as other 3 young men in the neighborhood, about how to handle 4 themselves because of the police-community 5 relations. 6 And that is an honest, I dare say, common 7 concern of many folks in our neighborhoods. 8 And for us to ignore that or to assume that 9 that is anti-cop is to miss the point entirely. 10 In fact, quite frankly, it is to aggravate 11 the problem as opposed to addressing the problems. 12 So I want to commend you for the role that 13 you were trying to play, to make sure that that 14 disagreement did not get out of hand as it was 15 heading to become, because it did get out of hand. 16 And it wasn't the kind of thing, that no one would 17 want to see young men, perhaps aspiring to be 18 law-abiding, and maybe even become police officers, 19 turning their backs on the Mayor. 20 You know, if the military turns its back on 21 the President, that would be considered treasonous, 22 mutinous. 23 So, I know there's a difference between a 24 police department and a military; but, nevertheless, 25 it seems to me that that kind of mutual respect and 1 that kind of cooperation is very, very important, 2 especially from the perspective of the public 3 perception. 4 We seem to be out of hand, and it was a great 5 concern in the neighborhood that I represent to see 6 that kind of behavior taking place. 7 It did not help police-community relations in 8 the neighborhood. Quite the opposite. 9 And if it was intended to be helpful, it did 10 quite the opposite. 11 So, I just want to hope that you will 12 continue to move forthright in the direction that 13 you're moving, and try to get that type of situation 14 as part of our past, never to be repeated again. 15 Thank you. 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Squadron. 17 SENATOR SQUADRON: Thank you very much. 18 And, just briefly, thank you for all of your 19 time, and for the tone you've been setting. I echo 20 that. 21 We're here at a hearing on one side of this 22 significant, sometimes tragic, sometimes horrific, 23 issue: police safety, community relations. 24 One simple question: Do you have any advice 25 for us, for the public, for the press, on how to 1 move this entire conversation forward, all aspects 2 of it, productively, in a way that leads to a safer, 3 but also a fairer city that feels better? 4 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: The suggestion is 5 one that I have voiced the idea of -- what we all 6 need to do is try to find some common ground, some 7 platform, to have what you engage in, certainly as 8 politicians and in your respective roles, the idea 9 of, try to engage in dialogue rather than rhetoric. 10 To have the rhetoric move toward dialogue, 11 where you actually find compromise or collaboration. 12 And so this is an issue that I think really 13 cries out for, trying to find common ground, trying 14 to find what I believe is, in fact, resolution of 15 the many different points of view and perspective 16 and life experiences. 17 And shame on us if we miss this opportunity. 18 Out of crises comes opportunity. I have 19 always looked at it that way. 20 And, God knows, we have had a horrific crises 21 over these last couple of months, and the peaking, 22 certainly, with the death of our two officers. 23 So wouldn't it be wonderful if the legacy of 24 their deaths was, in fact, to move this discussion 25 forward to where we did find resolution, rather than 1 confusion or continued differences of opinion. 2 We in the police department are committed to 3 that. That we are committed to fulfilling our roles 4 and responsibilities, as difficult as they are. 5 And so the answer to your question is really: 6 For all of us to try to find that common ground so 7 that, as we remember Officer Liu and 8 Officer Ramos -- Detective Liu and Detective Ramos, 9 that their sacrifice, the sacrifice of their lives, 10 will not have been in vein. 11 SENATOR SQUADRON: Thank you. 12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And with that, 13 Commissioner, thank you very much, for you and your 14 team. You have been extremely responsive to our 15 questions. 16 Senator Golden. 17 SENATOR GOLDEN: One quick question. 18 You put it up earlier, Commissioner, on the 19 ISIS. 20 Is there -- and you put a new team together 21 only recently. 22 It would be malpractice for us to let you 23 walk out that door and not to ask you: Is there any 24 credible threats or credible conversations going on 25 for, both, the creation of this new task force, and, 1 is there any chatter on -- for New York City or the 2 country, that your office is listening or hearing 3 to? 4 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: The continuing 5 reorganization of the department and some of its 6 units, which continue all the time in the NYPD, more 7 in response to trending, and nothing at all in 8 response to any specific threat known that's being 9 directed against the city or any of its people or 10 any of its facilities. 11 No, the ISIS threat is most significant in 12 its inspirational capabilities, as evidenced by the 13 hatchet attack on four of our young officers several 14 months ago, that so-called "lone wolf," or, the 15 increasing concern we have in a country that has so 16 many firearms, the idea of the individual that might 17 engage in use of firearms rather than a hatchet. 18 So, no, no credible threat at this time. 19 And we have, I think, as you're all well 20 aware, a very robust counterterrorism capability. 21 SENATOR GOLDEN: Last and final quick 22 question, we talked about the morale earlier. 23 Where is the contract negotiations? 24 Are the contract negotiations almost 25 completed with the NYPD, or is that still ongoing? 1 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: We have, as you 2 are aware, five unions that represent our various 3 uniform members. 4 Three of those unions have reached agreement. 5 One of the three has ratified. 6 The fourth is in, I believe, close to final 7 discussions. 8 And Pat Lynch from the PBA is present here. 9 His organization is in arbitration at the moment. 10 He can speak more specifically to his issue. 11 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you. 12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Again, thank you very 13 much, Commissioner. 14 COMM. WILLIAM J. BRATTON: Thank you for your 15 attention. Appreciate it. 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Members of the Committee, 17 if I just may indicate that we have spent two hours 18 discussing these important issues. 19 I certainly appreciate your passion and your 20 participation. 21 We have 10 more witnesses, and that we ask 22 you to focus your questions to the witness. 23 And with that, we welcome 24 President Patrick Lynch, president of the 25 Patrolmen's Benevolent Association of the city of 1 New York. 2 President Lynch, welcome to the Committee. 3 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Senator, thank you. 4 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: We have, as you could 5 tell, a lot of questions that need to be asked -- 6 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Fair enough. 7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: -- and we appreciate your 8 participation. 9 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And we appreciate the 10 invitation here. 11 But before I start, let me just introduce the 12 ladies and gentlemen that are with me as well. 13 On my right is Mubarak Abdul-Jabbar. He's 14 our second vice president and our legislative 15 director. 16 This is Mike Murray, from our legal division. 17 We also have Valerie Debas [ph.], behind me, 18 also from our legal division. 19 We have Nancy Picknally with us as well. 20 And, Frank Tramontano, who's our legislative 21 assistant as well. 22 Out of respect for them, I wanted you to know 23 who was sitting in front of all of you. 24 And I have more extensive testimony that 25 I passed up to each and every one of you, that you 1 can review at your leisure as you move forward with 2 the keeping the time frame in mind here. 3 And we appreciate this. 4 But, nonetheless, I have some read testimony, 5 and then, of course, I'll answer any type of 6 questions that you may all have for me. 7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. 8 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Good afternoon. 9 I would like to thank you, Senators, and 10 members of your respective Committees, for holding 11 these hearings on these urgently important issues, 12 and for considering my statement as well. 13 And I would also be submitting a more 14 detailed version of my remarks into the record for 15 all of your consideration. 16 New York City police officers perform their 17 jobs today in an environment that is more difficult 18 and dangerous than any in recent memory. 19 We recognize that today's discussion has come 20 about because of the assassinations of 21 Police Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, but 22 their murder is only one tragic example of the 23 recent wave of attacks on and the threats against 24 New York City police officers, not only here in 25 New York City, but also in our great state; but, 1 unfortunately, across the country and around the 2 world. 3 These attacks have underscored the obvious 4 need for the equipment, training, and increased 5 staffing that will allow police officers to better 6 protect themselves and the public from these 7 threats. 8 I will share some of our specific proposals 9 in this area with you as we move forward here today. 10 But I also believe that we must address these 11 threats at their source, which is the current 12 climate of hatred and violence directed at police 13 officers. 14 So many of these recent attacks, including 15 the murders of Police Officers Ramos and Liu, and 16 the terrorist hatchet attack on four police officers 17 in Jamaica, Queens, last October, have followed the 18 same pattern. 19 The calls for violence against police 20 officers find their way to the fanatical and 21 unstable who, unfortunately, then carry them out. 22 We must put an to end these calls for 23 violence. To do that, we must put an end to the 24 anti-police climate in which they are able to 25 circulate and, unfortunately, gain traction. 1 In New York City, as in many places around 2 the country, some elected officials and activists 3 have advanced the narrative that depicts police 4 officers as racially biased and habitually abusive. 5 While we strongly disagree with this and the 6 conclusions that have been drawn from it, police 7 officers understand why this perception exists. 8 It is at least partially the result of 9 policing policies that police officers have no role 10 in creating, and many times we have actively opposed 11 them. 12 The PBA, for example, pressed for state 13 legislation in 2010 to make quotas for stop, 14 question, and frisk, and all other types of police 15 activity, illegal, which was passed with the 16 assistance of many in this room and many others of 17 your associates. 18 But numerically-driven policies that deprive 19 police officers of their discretion, persisted. And 20 in the past number of years, we have seen the 21 predictable backlash in the form of court decisions, 22 and legislation introduced at the local level. 23 But rather than address in the failed 24 policies that are at the heart of the issue, these 25 misguided reform efforts have invariably shifted the 1 burden onto the police officers on patrol on our 2 streets. 3 The message behind all of these efforts is 4 that police officers are bad actors and must be 5 scrutinized, controlled, and punished so that they 6 don't victimize the public. 7 And that's just wrong and misguided, 8 I believe. 9 Some of our elected leaders may have 10 repeatedly proclaimed their support for police 11 officers, but their actions and policies have 12 amounted to official support of those who spread a 13 message of distrust and disdain for law enforcement. 14 Once that message has reached an unstable 15 individual with the means and opportunity to attack 16 police officers, it becomes an act of violence, 17 unfortunately. 18 In order to prevent another tragedy like the 19 assassinations of Police Officers Ramos and Liu, we 20 must break this cycle, and we must break this cycle 21 together. 22 We must treat threats against police officers 23 as threats against our society as a whole, each and 24 every one of us, as we're -- wears uniform, or are 25 walking down our streets, and, we must punish those 1 who make such threats accordingly. 2 And we must provide our police officers with 3 the resources they need to simultaneously protect 4 themselves as we go out and do a dangerous job, but 5 also the public in which we serve and we so want to 6 protect. 7 At the same time, those who are responsible 8 for setting public-safety policy must align 9 themselves behind the clear mission and set 10 broadly-supported goals. 11 It's widely acknowledged that the dramatic 12 crime reduction we have seen in New York City has 13 been to the keys to this city's current prosperity. 14 But now that we've restored public safety in 15 this city, some have wondered whether the 16 public-safety mission has changed. 17 If the public, through their elected 18 representatives, decided that priorities have indeed 19 changed, police officers need to have that message 20 clearly communicated to them. 21 The current debate over the so-called 22 "broken-windows" policing strategy is an example 23 that needs some clarity. 24 Our leaders can't, on one hand, say that, 25 "support broken-window-style policing"; while on the 1 other, are carve-out exceptions that swallow the 2 original concept as it's been explained to the 3 police officers. 4 It is no longer support -- if it's no longer 5 supported, or no longer supported in its previous 6 form, police officers need to know what remains, and 7 must be provided with the coherent guidance on just 8 how they should conduct themselves and the policies 9 we should follow. 10 In our view, the twin objectives of 11 protecting police officers and preserving our public 12 safety can and must be addressed simultaneously. 13 We believe that these -- there are several 14 specific actions that you can take, along with your 15 fellow legislators, in order to help further these 16 goals, and I'll put some of them on the table, and 17 they are also in the longer version. 18 Number one: Declare a moratorium on local 19 legislation in the area of criminal justice and 20 police procedure. 21 Criminal-procedure law, particularly those 22 laws that impact certain police practices, has 23 historically been a function of the state 24 government. 25 Recently, however, some local governments, 1 including New York City, have attempted to usurp the 2 State's traditional role through ill-considered 3 local legislation that is fashioned and enacted in a 4 response to the latest headlines without any 5 consideration for its long-term public-safety impact 6 or its relationship to the surrounding body in law 7 that should be included. 8 Importantly, issues of criminal justice 9 deserve more careful, deliberate, and reasoned 10 consideration, and we believe that the Legislature's 11 statewide purview leaves it better equipped to play 12 that role. 13 For that reason, we will seek a law, 14 specifically consigning the area of the state -- to 15 the State Legislature, effectively declaring a 16 moratorium on all local legislation impacting 17 criminal or policing procedures, and invalidating 18 any existing law or legislation of this type. 19 Two: Protect due process for police 20 officers. 21 Police officers spend their entire careers 22 protecting the rights of those we serve. 23 We must be afforded the same legal processes 24 that are guaranteed to the civilian population, 25 especially where liberty interests are implicated. 1 As the U.S. Supreme Court has said, in 2 quotes, Policemen, like teachers and lawyers, are 3 not relegated to a watered-down version of 4 constitutional rights, end quote. 5 Recently, we have heard calls for changes to 6 the way the criminal cases involving police officers 7 are handled. 8 Many of those proposals would effectively 9 place police officers in a separate justice system 10 with the express purpose of indicting police 11 officers on charges that would not stand under 12 normal operational law. 13 This is a blatantly unjust and inequitable 14 concept. 15 We urge you to oppose any legislation that 16 may come before you, that we would create a separate 17 justice system for police officers, who are also 18 citizens of our great city and state. 19 Three: Increase penalties for threats and 20 assaults against police officers. 21 As I noted earlier, an attack on a police 22 officer is an attack on society as a whole, and the 23 penalties for such attacks or threats of attacks 24 must reflect that. 25 For that reason, the PBA is calling for four 1 changes to existing law. 2 The first change would make it a B felony to 3 assault a police officer and cause physical injury 4 while at a public assembly, making it punishable by 5 up to 30 years in prison. 6 The second change would make it a D felony to 7 menace a police officer with a dangerous instrument, 8 strengthening a statute that currently covers only 9 threats with a deadly weapon. 10 The third change would make it a D felony to 11 encourage imminent violence against a police 12 officer. 13 A second component of this charge would make 14 similar threats against police officers, issued in 15 connection with the terrorist group, a C felony, 16 punishable by up to 15 years in prison. 17 Our hope is that these four changes will not 18 only serve to punish the perpetrators who may carry 19 out these threats and attacks, but will help prevent 20 such threats from happening in the first place, 21 which would stop violence in the future. 22 Four: Increase NYPD staffing. 23 Since 1999, the NYPD's uniform headcount has 24 declined by roughly 7,000, while the city's 25 population has grown by almost 1 million. 1 These cuts have been most deeply felt in the 2 local precincts and patrol commands that provide the 3 basic police services that New Yorkers rely on every 4 day in our neighborhoods around the city, as an 5 increasing number of police officers have been drawn 6 away from patrol to fulfill critical 7 counterterrorism needs. 8 The PBA has warned for years that the -- this 9 reduced staffing level is a -- is detrimental to 10 public safety, and also puts our members at risk. 11 It was also one of the key factors that led 12 to the aggressive quota-driven policies that 13 I referenced earlier in my statement. 14 As the city's population and demand for 15 police services continue to grow, our 16 policing-policy resources are already approaching 17 the breaking point. 18 We believe that the Legislature can play a 19 role in ensuring that the situation never occurs. 20 Accordingly, we ask for legislation that 21 mandates a return to the NYPD's 1999 staffing 22 levels, as that sets a minimum threshold for 23 staffing that will rise with the city's growth in 24 the future. 25 This restoration in police staffing could be 1 funded by a targeted tax similar to those that 2 funded similar staffing increases under the 3 "Safe Streets, Safe Cities" program in the early 4 1990s which was very effective. 5 Five: Provide steady funding stream for 6 bullet-resistant vests. 7 The City Council's recent decision to 8 allocate additional funds to purchase new 9 bullet-resistant vests for some police officers who 10 are currently wearing outdated or expired vests is a 11 good first step, quite frankly, but it has also 12 highlighted the need for a steady stream of funding 13 to guarantee that replacement vests will be 14 purchased on a routine basis moving on into the 15 future. 16 The risk posed by worn-out or ill-fitting 17 vests, or vests with outdated technology, as well -- 18 is well documented, and the law requires an employer 19 to provide, in quotes, reasonable and adequate 20 protection to the lives, safety, and health of its 21 employees, end quote. 22 That's our members. 23 For that reason, the PBA is planning to seek 24 legislation that will compel the City and the NYPD 25 to pay the cost of issuing bullet-resistant vests 1 with the latest technology and maximum coverage, as 2 well as the cost of replacing any vest that's 3 damaged, does not fit, or that has passed a given 4 expiration date. 5 Six: Fund an anti-terror assault kit for all 6 New York City police officers. 7 Recent events have demonstrated that 8 active-shooter-style attacks are becoming a 9 preferred tactic for terrorists around the world, 10 and they have already been a grim reality of 11 American policing, unfortunately, for some time. 12 The NYPD and many other departments now 13 instruct police officers to engage the suspect as 14 soon as possible to end the threat and prevent any 15 further loss of life. 16 This means that the first police officers on 17 the scene, usually our patrol officers equipped only 18 with handguns and standard bullet-resistant vests, 19 are expected to confront a heavily-armed shooter, or 20 even, many times, multiple-shooter situations. 21 That is why the PBA has called, for many 22 years, for the NYPD to equip all police officers, 23 both those on patrol and those stationed at fixed 24 locations, with an anti-terror assault kit 25 consisting of, at the very least, an assault rifle, 1 tactical body armor, including a ballistic helmet, 2 for our members. 3 Today their need for this equipment is even 4 more urgent, and we intend to seek legislation that 5 would provide funding for this equipment, and compel 6 the NYPD to provide it to all its members and train 7 them in it. 8 Seven: Equalize line-of-duty disability 9 benefits. 10 All of the measures I have discussed so far 11 are aimed at proactively protecting police officers 12 and ensuring their safety, moving forward, and 13 nothing should diminish that focus. 14 But New York City and New York State also has 15 a moral obligation to care for those police officers 16 who have been seriously injured in the line of duty, 17 whether through direct attacks, or any variety of 18 other hazards that we face on our job. 19 As you may be aware, New York City police 20 officers and firefighters hired after July of 2009 21 have been placed into the Tire 3 pension plan as an 22 unintended consequence of former 23 Governor David Paterson's veto of the Tier 2 24 extender bill. 25 Tier 3 includes a reduced accident-disability 1 pension benefit for all of those who are permanently 2 disabled in the line of duty. That benefit is 3 significantly less than the benefit provided to 4 their more senior colleagues under Tier 2, and that 5 benefit afforded to every police officer and 6 firefighter in New York State under Tier 5 and 7 Tier 6. 8 Tier 3 police officers who were recently 9 injured in the line of duty may be subjected to this 10 diminished benefit in the near future, 11 unfortunately. 12 It is not only a matter of basic fairness to 13 protect them and their families against the 14 financial risk that they may incur on our behaves, 15 it is also a matter of public safety. 16 I ask you to put yourselves in the position 17 of New York City police officers and firefighters 18 who are unsure whether they will be able to provide 19 for their families if they are hurt on the job. 20 Would you hesitate to put yourself in harm's 21 way knowing that may well happen? 22 The PBA will continue to back legislation 23 that would give New York City police officers the 24 same level of line-of-duty disability benefits as 25 all other police officers in our great state. 1 This legislation already has strong local 2 support. 3 As of today, 35 members of our City Council 4 have signed on to a resolution in support of such a 5 change. 6 And I hope that you and your colleagues in 7 the Legislature will give it your support as well. 8 I would like to conclude my remarks today by 9 stressing once again, that protecting our police 10 officers, and ensuring that they are treated fairly, 11 are essential components to the safety of the city, 12 and New York State as a whole. 13 Public safety must remain a top priority, and 14 how we go about implementing that priority is 15 ultimately the decision of policymakers, like 16 yourselves. 17 But we believe that it cannot be maintained 18 by a government that does not support its police 19 officers; that procedures them with criticism and 20 ill-considered oversight; that subjects them to 21 unprecedented and unwarranted levels of discipline, 22 and relegates them to a different and more 23 burdensome system of justice than the rest of our 24 fellow Americans. 25 Most importantly, we cannot expect our police 1 officers to effectively protect us unless we do 2 everything in our power to protect them as well. 3 We have seen some hopeful signs recently that 4 our leaders in New York City may begin to move in 5 that direction, but our police officers still need 6 the words of support, which we appreciate, to be 7 backed up by more meaningful and consistent actions. 8 We believe the proposals and measures we've 9 outlined will serve to maintain and increase the 10 safety of police officers, and enhance public safety 11 as a whole. 12 And I ask once again that you give all these 13 proposals your support. 14 And I thank you, with all respect again, for 15 hearing and considering my testimony here today, and 16 I would gladly answer any questions you may well 17 have. 18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, 19 President Lynch. 20 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Golden. 22 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 23 Thank you, Pat Lynch, for being here today. 24 And the group that you're with here, your 25 leaders in the PBA, thank you for being here as 1 well. 2 We heard the Commissioner speak earlier about 3 crime, and it was focused in the last 28-day report 4 that crime was up in murder, rape, and robbery. 5 And in the last week, which we're not privy 6 to that, but we should be privy to, we get it -- 7 I think we got it now, that, actually, robbery is 8 not up any longer, but murder and rape are still up 9 across the state -- across the city. 10 What is the -- what is your feeling on the 11 street? 12 And, do we see an increase in crime 13 continuing? 14 And we're going to ask, two areas: 15 (a) morale, and (b) manpower. 16 We understand that the Mayor has announced a 17 new organization, a new group out there, that 18 350 men. That's 350 men that's coming from 19 another -- from the street again, so that's less men 20 and women on the street. 21 I believe we need that 350-man operation to 22 be able to go out there and to deal with the ISIS, 23 and other high-potent issues that may affect the 24 city. 25 But those two areas, right there, morale, and 1 manpower, do we have -- what are we going to do, and 2 what can we do about it? 3 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I think they're 4 intricately connected, quite honestly. 5 Staffing, we're down between 6,000 and 6 7,000 New York City police officers on our streets. 7 That makes it more dangerous for our members as they 8 go out and do their job, and also for the public as 9 well. 10 And then it requires for us to makeshift, or 11 Band-Aid, to go to different neighborhoods where 12 there's spikes in crime and put out the fire, and 13 then move to someplace else. 14 The CompStat program was a creative program 15 that's effective. 16 It knows where crime is. 17 You give the commanders the responsibility to 18 go after that crime, and hold them responsible for 19 it, but also giving them the staffing that they 20 need. 21 So one piece of that puzzle is now missing: 22 the staffing that we need. 23 We're down 7,000 police officers. 24 So every time there's an event, whether it 25 could be a festival or a parade or something joyous, 1 or something more dangerous, God forbid, happens in 2 the city, the police officers that are pulled to 3 police that issue are pulled from our neighborhood 4 precincts. 5 That makes it more dangerous for us, and 6 makes it more difficult for us to keep those crimes 7 down. And one crime is too many. A spike in murder 8 is one life too many. 9 And our strive should be, always, to make 10 sure that there's none. 11 I'd rather have my members bored because 12 there's not crime than both the public and the 13 police officers in danger. 14 So we need to fix that staffing problem. 15 Also, that staffing problem I believe led to, 16 and we were very vocal on this, so the quota-driven 17 system that led to the problem with the stop, 18 question, and frisk. 19 We were one of the first groups to come up 20 and say, there's a problem. 21 It's polluting our relationship in the 22 neighborhoods, because there's a certain numerical 23 number or a goal or quota put on each individual 24 police officer to come in with a certain number of 25 stop, question, and frisk, as we call "250s," or, 1 arrests, or summonses. 2 It takes the discretion away from the police 3 officer, who know the folks in the neighborhood, 4 know the good folks in neighborhood, and, 5 unfortunately, also know who may be a criminal. 6 But if you drive them to come in with a 7 certain number, and punish them if they don't meet 8 that, what they call "productivity goal," I call it 9 "a quota," that creates and pollutes the 10 relationship in the neighborhoods. 11 So with the help of many in this room, we 12 passed legislation to make quotas illegal. 13 We want to make sure that numerical problem 14 does not continue, because, again, it pollutes every 15 aspect, and also to go to the morale problem. 16 Our police officers want to go out in the 17 street and feel supported. 18 They also noted, a policy that says you need 19 to bring in five collars, or five arrests, or 20 five UF-250s, they know that pollutes the 21 relationship with the public we're serving. That 22 affects morale, because our members truly believe in 23 truth, justice, and the American way. We want to go 24 out and do our job, and make it safe for everyone. 25 So the staffing problem has tentacles that 1 reaches into all the different issues that we're 2 speaking of here today. 3 SENATOR GOLDEN: Is the broken-windows 4 theory -- what is the broken-window theory today? 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: To go after -- what I'm 6 concerned with, is that there's a clear message of 7 what we're going after, and, what are those crimes? 8 Look, we want to go out and do our job 9 effectively, but we can't go out and do our job and 10 go after a crime, and, then -- with police officers, 11 there's never a script for a police officer. Things 12 don't always go exactly as they should. It's not 13 all written in a book. You're dealing with 14 circumstances that are fluid on the street all the 15 time. 16 And then, after there may be a tragedy or a 17 question, then to blame the police officer for the 18 policy we have no ability to control, but we're sent 19 out there, because the community complained, or the 20 department sent us out to do it, we cannot walk away 21 at that point. 22 So, if the policy is not to go after a 23 certain crime in this broken-windows theory, 24 articulate that to us so we know what we should be 25 doing. But, certainly, don't hold the individual 1 police officers who didn't create that policy 2 responsible for it. 3 SENATOR GOLDEN: So would a change in 4 broken-windows, with the stop-and-frisk on a 5 downturn -- considerable downturn, racial-profiling 6 bill, all these add to -- I believe, a lower arrest 7 process here in the state -- in the city of 8 New York, and, a morale situation that is untenable 9 right now? 10 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Well, it creates the 11 morale issue because, what happens is, if you look 12 at many of the pieces of legislation and discussions 13 that go on, it always ends up with "discipline the 14 police officer." 15 Now, we are not the ones that create the 16 policy out in the street. 17 If there's a problem with the policy, go 18 after the policy, and hold the policymakers 19 responsible. 20 But what we find, the discipline always falls 21 on the individual police officer standing on the 22 corner, rather than those that made the policy. 23 SENATOR GOLDEN: Do you think there are too 24 many cooks in the kitchen as well? 25 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I have to agree with the 1 Commissioner. 2 Too many cooks in the kitchen that, again, 3 puts the focus on the individual cop on the corner, 4 rather than the policymaker. 5 Look, if the policy is changed, we'll follow 6 our orders and do our job effectively. 7 SENATOR GOLDEN: I had remarked at earlier 8 about the crime statistics, but when you see crime 9 going up in the coldest days and snow storms, that's 10 not a good sign. 11 Crime should be down in the month of January; 12 not going up. 13 PATRICK J. LYNCH: That's right. 14 SENATOR GOLDEN: That, I think is a serious 15 problem. 16 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And it is, because it's 17 pulling the police officers. We're already 18 short-staffed. 19 We have the increased threat of terrorism 20 that is real here in New York City. Then all the 21 circumstances that happen on a regular basis, those 22 police officers are pulled, and it makes it 23 difficult for us to do our job. 24 Look, we need and want the resources to 25 effectively do our job. 1 I've been a police officer for 31 years. It 2 was a much different neighborhoods out there. I was 3 assigned to the 90th Precinct, the Williamsburg, 4 Brooklyn. It's a place now where our members can't 5 afford to buy a home. 6 When I had gotten there, we would be standing 7 on the corner in full battle regalia. That's how 8 crime had eroded everything that we do, the tax 9 base, all the policies that we make. 10 We don't want to slide back to doing that. 11 But the problem in policing is this: If the 12 problem gets ahead of you because of the staffing 13 problem, you cannot ramp up a police department by 14 just saying, Go ahead, hire them up. 15 You have to test them, train them, recruit 16 them, six months in the academy, six on the -- 17 six months on the street, before they're effective 18 police officers. 19 So once the problem gets out of control, it 20 can't be stomped down too quickly. It's not like an 21 assembly line. 22 We need qualified police officers who want to 23 do this job, to go out in the street, and we need 24 help doing it. 25 SENATOR GOLDEN: The CompStat here, you can't 1 tell a drug arrests. I don't know how drug arrests 2 and how drugs are dealt with in CompStat, but I do 3 know that we've seen the number of summonses, the 4 number of arrests, on marijuana use is down. 5 But I do know, in the communities across my 6 district, and across the state of New York, we see 7 an increase in opium and heroin deaths, which we 8 have to go to the Department of Health to get those 9 numbers. 10 And we need to get more of those numbers. 11 Are you seeing more drug sales on the 12 street -- 13 PATRICK J. LYNCH: We are, we're seeing many 14 of our neighborhoods, the increase in heroin and the 15 like, and the calls that we have for overdoses. 16 And that sort of thing is a better question 17 for the department on those statistical numbers. 18 But, yes, we're doing that. 19 But more importantly, the issue is not just 20 the numbers. It's also the feel on the street, the 21 perception on the street, of, it's not safe. 22 Now, we can look at the numbers and say, 23 Well, the numbers say it is. 24 But if you're on the street corner and you're 25 not feeling safe or supported, that permeates every 1 aspect of the life that we live here in this great 2 city. 3 And as the Commissioner said, we're part of 4 the -- 60 percent of my members live in the confines 5 of New York City. 6 I was born and reared here. I reared my 7 family here. 8 We're part of the communities that we serve 9 as well. 10 So we want to have effective policing, but we 11 need help in staffing to get that done. 12 SENATOR GOLDEN: Want to change the hat 13 quickly. 14 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Sure. 15 SENATOR GOLDEN: Binding arbitration. 16 Where are you in binding arbitration? 17 And is there an opening here for the -- 18 PATRICK J. LYNCH: We're in binding 19 arbitration to resolve our contract. 20 SENATOR GOLDEN: What date -- 21 PATRICK J. LYNCH: We're waiting for dates to 22 get that done, but we're in the process. 23 But the unfortunate part here is we haven't 24 learned from history in the past. 25 In the past, New York City police officers 1 were given zeroes. It was called a "zeroes for 2 heroes" contract. 3 That created many of the problems we had, 4 where we couldn't recruit qualified candidates to 5 stay on this job. Senior-veteran-experienced 6 officers to remain on this job, and pass that along 7 to our younger veteran officers. 8 And that created all the problem, and, 9 unfortunately, sometimes scandal as well, when you 10 didn't have the resources. 11 So it's unfortunate that, once again, the 12 City of New York is offering New York City police 13 officers 18 months of zeroes. 14 We've lived through that. Been there, done 15 that; it doesn't work. 16 We have a responsibility to our members to 17 pay them so that they can live in the communities 18 that they serve, but we also need to make sure we're 19 recruiting qualified candidates to come on this job. 20 How you do that, is by paying a market rate 21 of pay. 22 Because, what's happening now, and has 23 happened in the past, when we're not at a market 24 rate of pay, we recruit the police officers, we 25 train the police officers, we put them on the 1 streets for six months, they pack their bags, and 2 they move to a different community where they can 3 pay for their family, educate their family, and also 4 do it in safety. 5 And I think that's unfair, and I think it's 6 short-sighted. 7 It should be a reasonable pay for police 8 officers for the difficult job we do. 9 SENATOR GOLDEN: Because of the number of 10 members that -- and I have one last question -- 11 I want to ask my last question. 12 The -- and I think it's important that you 13 focus -- you talked about equalizing the 14 line-of-duty disability benefits. 15 Could you just put that into a focus, on the 16 two officers that ran into a fire in Coney Island. 17 Or, if there's a better -- 18 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Well, we have a number, 19 unfortunately. 20 We have the police officer, Rosa Rodriguez, 21 that ran into that fire in Coney Island. 22 Unfortunately, her hero partner lost his life. 23 She is a wonderful woman, a family woman, a 24 police officer, lives and resides here in this city 25 and serves the city, but she can't walk very far 1 without hooking herself up to oxygen. 2 But the reality is, two police officers in 3 that same circumstance, if you were on the job 4 before July of 2009, if you're in that disability -- 5 and no one wants that. It's not a benefit. Your 6 life has changed. -- you'll get three-quarters, and 7 maybe you'll be able to take care of your family. 8 But the police officer that's right next to 9 them, in Tier 3, will get $27 a day. Won't be able 10 to take care of their family. 11 It's not just that. 12 We had a terrorist attack in the middle of a 13 shopping district in South Jamaica, Queens, in the 14 103rd Precinct, where a madman following the climate 15 that I spoke of earlier, hit a police officer in the 16 head with a hatchet. 17 Police officer -- when we talk about serving 18 the community, four police officers that were 19 standing there, having their picture taken by the 20 community, interacting with the community, and while 21 they were doing that, this madman, with absurd ideas 22 in his head, came and hit that police officer in the 23 head with a hatchet. 24 That police officer, and we hope, and we 25 pray, that he comes back to full duty, and full 1 capacity, but he's a long way to do that from 2 getting out of the hospital and all the rehab. 3 That police officer will be in Tier 3, won't 4 be able to take care of his family, or any other 5 police officer. 6 It's a matter of fairness. 7 If we're both in the -- 8 if Mubarak Abdul-Jabbar and myself are in the radio 9 car and we're responding to that same danger, and we 10 get injured, we should be treated the same. 11 All we ever asked for in any of these issues, 12 as police officers, and our union, is fairness. 13 We're asking for fairness. 14 This is not right. 15 SENATOR GOLDEN: Senator Hassell-Thompson and 16 myself are partners in a police radio car. 17 And if she were in Tier 5, and she were to 18 get hurt, she would get a disability. 19 And if I were to get hurt in that same car 20 accident, or, responding to a crime, and we got into 21 a shooting, and both us, unfortunately, may succumb 22 to some of our injuries, or -- well, let's not go 23 that far; not succumbed -- injured in the line of 24 duty, I would get $27 a day, to be able to pay my 25 rent -- 1 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Exactly. 2 SENATOR GOLDEN: -- or my mortgage, or my 3 kids for school -- 4 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Right. 5 You'll get 50 percent of your salary. 6 SENATOR GOLDEN: [Unintelligible] 7 three-quarters today -- 8 PATRICK J. LYNCH: But, also, look at the job 9 that we're in. It's a very young job. Most people 10 are not even at top pay. 11 So it's based on the level of pay that 12 they're at at the time. So that brings it down. 13 And we use the example of the $27. Those are 14 the newer police officers that have got injured. 15 If you go out, there's not a lot of gray hair 16 out there on street. It's a young, vibrant police 17 department. 18 We have a responsibility to take care of them 19 so they can take care of their family. 20 But we have a moral obligation. 21 We're asking them to go out and put 22 themselves at risk? We have a moral obligation to 23 take care of them. 24 There's a pact between society and police 25 officers, saying, Put yourself at risk. 1 And we're willing to do that. 2 But with that pact comes, if you're injured 3 and disabled, we will help you take care of your 4 family. 5 These young police officers will not be able 6 to take care of their family, will not be able to 7 live in the city that they serve. And in many 8 times, gave up the life they that knew, moving 9 forward. 10 And, again, it's a matter of fairness. 11 SENATOR GOLDEN: The majority of the people 12 on the street today are those guys today. 13 That's why another piece of morale is down. 14 I would like to go on, but I can't. 15 I think -- I thank you again for coming out 16 here today and pointing out some facts to us. 17 I got to tell you, the stuff you have in this 18 document, is tremendous. 19 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Hopefully it's helpful, 20 sir. 21 SENATOR GOLDEN: And we are definitely going 22 to look at it. 23 My colleagues, in each one of our different 24 settings and our different committees, we'll take a 25 look at this and see what, in fact, we can, and work 1 with the Assembly to get passed this law here in the 2 state of New York. 3 We think this is a good piece of legislation. 4 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And I respectfully thank 5 you. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Gallivan. 7 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you, Chairman. 8 Good afternoon, President Lynch. Thanks for 9 being here. 10 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 11 SENATOR GALLIVAN: And thanks -- thank you, 12 and all of your members, for the work that you do to 13 help keep the city safe. 14 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, sir. 15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Your testimony was very 16 extensive, and answered many of the questions that 17 I had, so I'll forgo those. 18 But it was quite interesting, the one that 19 I hadn't anticipated, or even thought of, is your 20 recommendation for a moratorium on local legislation 21 in the area of criminal justice and police 22 procedure. 23 So, I completely understand it from the 24 perspective of the law, the criminal-procedure law, 25 and how, essentially, that governs the -- well, 1 governs arrest procedures after arrest warrants, and 2 so on. 3 The Governor had a -- one of the Governor's 4 recommendations in his so-called "criminal justice 5 reforms," he called for a statewide use-of-force 6 policy, where it would require the municipal 7 police-training council to establish a model policy 8 on use of force, and mandate all departments 9 statewide to follow that. 10 Does your recommendation on calling for the 11 moratorium on the legislation on the laws extend to 12 policy issues? 13 And -- 14 PATRICK J. LYNCH: It should. 15 And, of course -- 16 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Get specific to -- 17 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And it could. And you 18 have to look at each specific law. 19 We don't want to broad-brush every proposal 20 that any legislator or governor puts forward. 21 So you have to look at the detail. The 22 devil's in the details always. 23 But you have to look at how it affects 24 New York City police officers, and all of these -- 25 and we speak about oversight, and the like, and I'm 1 sure we will, moving forward, as well. 2 It puts police officers, that they're in a 3 different justice system than anyone else, where, if 4 we don't find what we need here, we move to 5 another -- 6 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Clearly, let me just 7 jump -- clearly, you've articulated that well. That 8 was an area I was going to ask about, that I don't 9 need to. 10 But just this one specific policy that the 11 Governor has called for, regarding a statewide 12 uniform use-of-force policy. 13 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Yeah, well, it ignores -- 14 well, I would be against it, and I'll tell you why. 15 It's -- it doesn't -- it's a solution in -- 16 and looking for a problem, as they say. 17 The New York City Police Department is the 18 best trained in the country. We have the best 19 training. We're the most restrained in the country. 20 We're the most interactive with the community of any 21 place in the country. 22 So, to say there needs to be a standard as if 23 we're doing something wrong, and that's the problem 24 that runs through all of the pieces of the 25 legislation and proposals that we're talking about, 1 it starts from the point of view that police 2 officers are doing wrong on a regular basis. 3 And that's just not the facts, and the 4 numbers don't speak to that, at all. 5 You can go across the country and try to 6 compare other departments to the NYPD. 7 We're -- we're -- 8 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Point well-taken, so let's 9 move on for the sake of time. 10 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Fair enough. 11 We're meeting that goal. 12 Thank you, sir. 13 SENATOR GALLIVAN: One other area. 14 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Yes. 15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: We all -- I think it's 16 safe to say that all of us up here, in the room, the 17 Commissioner testified a little bit to it, you 18 alluded to a relationship with the public, have a 19 concern about police-community relations. 20 In your view, sitting there representing the 21 officers across all the boroughs of the city, where 22 do police-community relations now stand, in your 23 eyes? 24 And, can it be better improved? And if so, 25 how? 1 And going one step further, how can we be 2 helpful? 3 PATRICK J. LYNCH: It can always be improved. 4 Every -- every issue can always be done 5 better and improved. 6 But the community -- police-community 7 relations are at a good place, and it has always 8 been at a good place, and you can always improve on 9 that. 10 I come from a background in community affairs 11 as well, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 12 And what you do is, you'll hear the dialogue 13 that goes on, when demonstrations that go on that 14 are trying to paint police officers as anything but 15 good. 16 And that kind of permeates how people are 17 thinking. 18 But then when you go from community to 19 community, and we would go to community council 20 meetings, and you would -- you would speak to the 21 folks, the community, and it's made up of community 22 members, you would say, Oh, there's -- they would 23 say: Oh, there's a problem in the NYPD. Well, not 24 with my cops in my precinct. They're terrific. 25 Then you move to next neighborhood, the next 1 precinct, the next community council, and they'd say 2 the same thing. 3 So then when you finally take all those 4 neighborhoods in which we're proud to serve, and put 5 them together, you'll say, You know what? They do 6 support New York City police officers. There is 7 good police-community relations. 8 The community in every neighborhood, whether 9 it's a wealthy neighborhood or a difficult 10 neighborhood or a financially-difficult 11 neighborhood, each one of those people in each of 12 those neighborhoods deserve to walk down the block 13 in safety. 14 You know, we as police officers, and I teach 15 this myself to the police-academy recruits, saying: 16 Let's not get jaded when we're standing on 17 the corner dealing with that drug dealer, or, a 18 criminal on that corner. Don't be jaded and think 19 everyone's like that, because they're not. 20 Think of, while you're focused on that 21 person, think of the person that just left their 22 apartment, walked behind you, walked to the subway, 23 went off to work, they're trying to put food on the 24 table just like we are. Spends their day at work. 25 You don't seem them till the 4-to-12. They walk 1 back from the subway, back to their family, back to 2 their apartment. 3 Those people? They appreciate New York City 4 police officers, because while they walk behind us 5 and we're dealing with that criminal, they realize 6 we're standing between the good hard-working people 7 in every one of our neighborhoods and the criminal 8 that tries to destroy what we're doing. 9 So that's what we find when we talk to the 10 folks out there in the neighborhood. 11 The poorest communities need the police the 12 most to make sure they're safe. And they are 13 entitled to it. 14 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you. 15 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much for 17 your very helpful suggestions. 18 That the members of this Joint Legislative 19 Committee decided to go about and conduct these 20 hearings for the very purposes that you're 21 mentioning. 22 First and foremost, when we talk about the 23 precipitous, significant drop in violent crime of 24 New York City, and New York State, of any state in 25 nation, you were likely to be Officer Lynch at the 1 time. 2 And I want to thank you, your colleagues; and 3 please convey that message from our 4 State Legislature, to you, and to your organization. 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Senator, thank you. And 6 I appreciate those comments. 7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: We're here to let you know 8 that we appreciate the job you've done. 9 We want to provide you with the tools to make 10 sure you're safe as you make the public safe. 11 And that is, first and foremost, the mission 12 of this Task Force. 13 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And we appreciate it. 14 We look forward to a dialogue, and working 15 with you on it. 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I won't belabor questions, 17 all of my colleagues want to ask, but let me focus 18 on one question; and that's, whether you support or 19 reject, and, articulate if you reject it, the 20 concerns that you may have regarding the Governor's 21 proposal of establishing what's so-called 22 "independent monitor" over grand juries that 23 investigate police-officer conduct. 24 And I'm not talking about internal-affairs 25 conduct. 1 I'm talking about in-the-line-of-duty 2 conduct. 3 PATRICK J. LYNCH: We oppose that. 4 And the reason for it is, there's oversight 5 upon oversight, that New York City police officers. 6 There's no profession, and there's no 7 department within that profession, that has the 8 number of and amount of oversight that New York City 9 police officers have. 10 If the citizens feel like they're not being 11 served, there's a number of different areas in which 12 they can go to to complain. 13 And we went over, in earlier testimony with 14 the Commissioner, the different levels of monitors 15 and IGs and federal monitors, internal affairs, 16 the district attorneys. On the federal level 17 there's a number of levels there. 18 It's duplicative. 19 And all we ever ask for is fairness in the 20 process. 21 If there's a problem with that process, let's 22 fix it. Let's not just try to solve it by putting 23 more oversight and more process on it that doesn't 24 get to the core of the issue, when we already have 25 that. 1 Plus, it also creates a problem with 2 priorities. 3 Each one of these become a cottage industry 4 that needs money to create, to rent, to hire. And 5 that takes money away from the city coffers that can 6 be better used in helping New York City police 7 officers protect them, and other priorities which 8 I believe are more important. 9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And the issue of closure, 10 and I don't want to belabor this issue, but, to me, 11 that was something lacking here as well: that the 12 officer really doesn't know when the case is closed. 13 PATRICK J. LYNCH: That's right. 14 And they feel like, even though, technically, 15 maybe not, they feel like it's double jeopardy. 16 We go through this process, and we may be 17 exonerated, or unsubstantiated, then there's another 18 level. 19 It feels like it's a "gotcha." 20 We have to get rid of the "gotcha" 21 discipline. 22 Investigate it. We're not saying don't 23 investigate an allegation. 24 Investigate that allegation. Do it fairly, 25 because we're citizens as well. Don't put us in a 1 separate justice system, or separate rules for us. 2 We want the same rights that we protect on 3 the street every day for everybody else. 4 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Based on the list we have, 7 Senator Marcellino, Senator Sanders, and 8 Senator Hassell-Thompson. 9 Anyone else wishing to speak? 10 SENATOR LANZA: [Raises hand.] 11 SENATOR PERKINS: I had made a request 12 earlier. 13 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Perkins. And, 14 Senator Lanza. 15 Seems like our entire Panel. 16 Senator Marcellino. 17 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you for coming 18 down. 19 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 20 SENATOR MARCELLINO: My voice to the people 21 who -- thank you to the men and women of the 22 New York City Police Department. 23 For that matter, I represent Nassau, so 24 I have to take those police departments into 25 consideration as well. 1 Anybody willing to put their lives on the 2 line on a daily basis to protect their neighbors 3 I think are in line for our credit and our support. 4 The Commissioner raised an issue about extra 5 equipment that they want to put with the police 6 officer on the beat. 7 He mentioned, obviously, iPhones that we're 8 going to go into, and he mentioned cameras that are 9 going to be worn, and probably are being worn at the 10 present time by some police officers. He's talking 11 about computers that can be removed from cars and 12 taken with them. 13 And it went on, the list. 14 Is that just too much? 15 PATRICK J. LYNCH: You know, it -- there's 16 nothing that prevents crime better than a 17 New York City police officer standing on our street 18 corner. 19 We cannot make crime go away with technology. 20 Some technology is extremely important, and 21 we understand that and we support that. And we 22 always support the training aspect of it. 23 But if we don't have the police officers, it 24 doesn't replace. 25 For instance, a camera on the corner or on 1 your chest doesn't stop a crime. It may solve a 2 crime down the road, but our police officers are 3 [unintelligible] present. 4 We want to stop the crime before it happens. 5 We need to do that. We should be focusing on 6 the staffing, and the training of our members. Not 7 for issues that try to cover up for the fact we 8 don't have enough of us on the street to effectively 9 do the job, back to Senator Golden's, where you see 10 those spikes going on. 11 It may just -- a few numbers, they say. It's 12 just a few numbers. 13 Well, that's a few lives, it's a few rapes. 14 Well, that's a few people that were sexually 15 assaulted. 16 Those few, those numbers, are our family 17 members. 18 So we need the staffing there. 19 The most effective crime-preventer is a 20 New York City police officer. 21 The most effective community-relations person 22 is a fully trained police officer on the corner. 23 So I think we need to focus on that first, 24 and then look on the other issues. 25 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Your concerns, or your 1 consideration, for the recommendation before, about 2 bulletproof glass in patrol cars. 3 The Commissioner wanted panels -- 4 bullet-resistant panels put in the doors. 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Right. 6 SENATOR MARCELLINO: The union's concerns? 7 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Yeah, we're all about the 8 safety. We look at all of those aspects. 9 We think the more layers of safety we have in 10 protection the better we are from it, so I think we 11 should try to go about doing both -- both of them. 12 What we -- we always look at in the police 13 department, is if it's a budget piece. 14 I think that it's important that we realize 15 that the public safety and police officers on the 16 street is what puts the money in the coffers of the 17 city, and the state as well. 18 That safety factor you cannot overestimate. 19 One time there was -- tourism was down in the 20 city, for obvious reasons. 21 It's not now. That brings money. 22 Businesses that want to do business here, 23 residents that want to live here, that's all goes to 24 the tax base. 25 So I think we should do everything we can to 1 make our police officers safe so we can effectively 2 serve the public as well. 3 And I think that also goes to the bottom 4 line, so we shouldn't always look at, it a will cost 5 this much, we can't do it. 6 Well, because the dividends will be paid 7 moving forward if we do equip and train our police 8 officers, to help them be safe, so we can help you 9 to be safe, Senator. 10 SENATOR MARCELLINO: I appreciate your 11 comments. 12 And I just wanted to state for the record, 13 that Senator Golden had mentioned before, that if he 14 was in a police car with Senator Hassell-Thompson, 15 that they might be -- I have no doubt that 16 Senator Hassell-Thompson would have protected 17 Senator Golden. 18 [Laughter.] 19 PATRICK J. LYNCH: It was at your expense. 20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Perkins. 21 SENATOR PERKINS: Thank you. 22 I want to acknowledge, as you pointed out 23 earlier, that we are here today with memories of 24 Officers Ramos and Liu in our hearts. 25 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Yes, sir. 1 SENATOR PERKINS: But I would also like to 2 say that we remember with equal passion and 3 solemnness so many that have died as a result of 4 excessive actions of police officers, such as 5 Eric Garner, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, 6 Patrick Dorismond, Tony Baez; and in particular, 7 I am concerned about those who were a part of the 8 "Central Park Five." 9 My neighbors, who -- young men that were 10 falsely accused of the "Central Park jogger rape" 11 case. 12 And it turns out that, having suffered the 13 false confessions; and, therefore, imprisonment, 14 those young men spent a lot of time in prison. And, 15 ultimately, evidence proved that they were coerced 16 into confessions of guilt. 17 So incidents like that, especially, do a lot 18 to harm the community's perception of the good work 19 and the good intentions of the police. 20 It's hard very often to restore that kind of 21 faith and concern and support. 22 I believe that, in some instances, those 23 confessions should be videotaped; so that, 24 therefore, they can come with some integrity; and, 25 therefore, help restore some of the confidence and 1 trust that the community wants to have and should 2 have by those who are -- [unintelligible]. 3 So I wanted to understand your position about 4 the videotaping of interrogations as a tool, that 5 could be, I believe, an opportunity to bring some 6 faith and some trust in terms of the techniques and 7 tactics of the police. 8 PATRICK J. LYNCH: First off, we'll 9 respectively agree to disagree on some of your 10 statements, sir. 11 But the part of videotaping confessions is 12 better asked of those that -- detectives. 13 I represent police officers, white-shield 14 police officers, on the street that really aren't in 15 that realm. 16 So someone else might be better able to 17 answer that particular question. 18 SENATOR PERKINS: You don't think that that 19 process has any bearing on people's perception of 20 the police -- 21 PATRICK J. LYNCH: But anytime with a 22 perception, the perception and reality, whether it's 23 true or not, and I don't want to give a false answer 24 to something that I'm am not an expert in, quite 25 frankly. 1 There's others that do that job, and they may 2 have a better answer, and a policy might affect 3 their members more than mine. 4 SENATOR PERKINS: Okay, thank you. 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, sir. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, 7 Senator Perkins. 8 Senator Sanders. 9 SENATOR SANDERS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 10 Good to see you; good to see you all. 11 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Good afternoon, Senator. 12 SENATOR SANDERS: I also want to throw in the 13 name Clifford Glover. I don't want young Clifford 14 Glover to be forgotten. 15 First let me say that, I, in my local 16 community and other communities, we actually aid to 17 police; not just by word, but we're out there on the 18 front line with you guys. 19 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And that's important. 20 SENATOR SANDERS: I have helped people turn 21 themselves in. And, I have helped identify folk who 22 should have been brought to justice. And I make 23 no -- I'm not ashamed of that. I'm very proud of 24 that. 25 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Nor should you be. 1 SENATOR SANDERS: I think that anyone who 2 breaks the law should take whatever goes with it. 3 My sympathies are for the victims. 4 I have very little sympathy for people 5 selling poison. I very little sympathy for people 6 hitting grandmothers upside the head, and doing all 7 this other stuff. 8 I -- you know, perhaps it's my Marine Corps 9 background. 10 PATRICK J. LYNCH: No doubt, honorably. 11 SENATOR SANDERS: Yeah. 12 So we -- you know, so I'm not your 13 run-of-the-mill liberal. 14 There is a problem with the police and the 15 community, my friends. 16 If we don't see that, we are -- what we're 17 doing by this is allowing criminals shelter. We're 18 allowing them to hide behind bad feelings that have 19 been come about, and people won't speak. 20 This "broken-window," this stop-and-frisk, 21 I agree with you, we're -- maybe at a point they 22 were smart strategies, but after a while, the point 23 of declining value was reached. It became stupid 24 strategies, where, if you take any hundred people 25 and turn them upside down, five or six of them, 1 something's going to come out of their pockets that 2 shouldn't be there. 3 However, however, you made 95 guys who are 4 saying that "I was mistreated." 5 It's a bad policy. 6 A better policy, we do have to attack the 7 question of adequate policing, which I agree with 8 you is at the basis of much of this. 9 It forces the police department into what 10 I call "drive-by policing"; where, you drive by, you 11 see a group of people, you grab them, you shake them 12 up because something's going to come out of one or 13 two of their pockets, et cetera. 14 But, we really have a problem. 15 Let me ask you -- first of all, let me say, 16 I am so in agreement with you on most of the things 17 that you said, sir, and we'll come back to that 18 point of agreement. 19 But let me go a step further. 20 In days gone by, I have been endorsed by the 21 PBA, and I look forward to being endorsed again. 22 So I'm not here as an anti. I'm here with 23 great love and admiration. 24 But at the same time, the truth is the truth, 25 and we all should figure out what it is and obey it. 1 Maybe by asking two or three questions, we 2 can come to certain truths. 3 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Fair enough. 4 SENATOR PERKINS: And this -- this myth of, 5 Pat Lynch, the bad guy, we're going to dissolve that 6 myth today. We're going to do it right here in this 7 place, because we're going to give you a chance to 8 really state who you are, and what you believe in. 9 Let me start with this one, easy question: 10 Are there any bad apples in the NYPD? 11 PATRICK J. LYNCH: The NYPD is no different 12 than any other profession in any other world, in any 13 other country, in any another city. 14 SENATOR SANDERS: Including politicians? 15 PATRICK J. LYNCH: In -- well, okay. 16 Yes. 17 Every, every occupation has them. 18 But, with politicians, it's wrong to say that 19 all of you are bad. 20 SENATOR SANDERS: I agree. 21 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And it's also wrong to say 22 that all police officers are bad. 23 And it's also wrong to blame the individual 24 police officer for a policy that we didn't have a 25 hand in creating. 1 And that's what I think part of the problem 2 is. 3 And we've been very vocal. Sometimes it gets 4 lost in the discussion. Sometimes it gets lost in 5 those may want to discuss it as something different 6 than it was. 7 But we were the first to come out and say 8 this policy will pollute. The policy is not the 9 stop, question, and frisk, because that's a real 10 tool. 11 Stop, question, sometimes frisk, is a real 12 tool, and we're not afraid to articulate why we made 13 that stop, and we should articulate that reason. 14 But, when you put a quota on it and say, 15 "Kid, we need five; and if you don't, you're 16 disciplined," that's the problem. 17 And that didn't get addressed. 18 SENATOR SANDERS: All right, I -- 19 [Technical difficulties/video and audio 20 lost.] 21 -- that many people in this city felt that, 22 when many police turned their backs on the Mayor, 23 that it was, in essence, felt like they were turning 24 their backs on the city, or many parts of the city. 25 And, incidentally, as a marine, if we turned 1 our backs on the commander general, we would be 2 breaking big rocks into little rocks. 3 I can't even dream of turning my back on the 4 commanding officer. 5 But are you aware -- this is not the 6 Marine Corp, I can see this -- are you aware, sir, 7 that many people felt it was that, those police, and 8 not all police, but those police were turning their 9 backs on a whole segment of the community which felt 10 in a different way. 11 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I can see, and 12 I understand, that that may be that perception, but 13 that's not the reality or the message that was 14 intended that day. 15 That message was, those who attack New York 16 City police officers, those that label New York City 17 police officers. Not those on the street that are 18 going about their business, doing their job, in any 19 segment of any community across the city. 20 That was not any intention or thought 21 whatsoever. 22 It's a very emotional time, and we do have a 23 right, also, to express ourselves. 24 Some folks think -- and I'm an advocate for 25 police officers, and I proudly do that job whether 1 I get criticism or not. That's my job. And our 2 members have a right for me to speak on their 3 behalf. 4 So when I'm speaking, I'm speaking on their 5 behalf, to be able to say: There's a problem here. 6 We need to draw attention to it. 7 The dialogue needs to say, that: Folks are 8 safe because of police officers. Folks can walk 9 down the street and the city is not what it was 10 because of police officers. And it's because of 11 police officers working with our communities out 12 there, each and every day. 13 And that still goes on, and has gone on. 14 SENATOR SANDERS: I was going to add that 15 last point, that -- we're safe because the police 16 and the community have joined hands against crime. 17 And that is the danger I was suggesting that 18 this is happening; that those hands are not joined 19 as firmly as we need them to. 20 Let me take an issue that some people have 21 raised. 22 10,000 people marched. 50 people made 23 stupid, harmful, disgusting statements; and, yet, 24 the whole crowd is branded as -- 50 people, perhaps, 25 say, "Kill the police," or whatever they were 1 chanting; and, yet, that whole crowd of 10,000, or 2 whatever they are, are branded as wanting to kill 3 the police, or whatever. 4 Would that be -- wouldn't that be as wrong as 5 if a few cops do something wrong and all police are 6 blamed? 7 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Well, police officers, 8 every day, police demonstrations by the thousands. 9 No other group, no other department, does it 10 like New York City police officers do. And we 11 protect the right. 12 Most demonstrations that we're policing, we 13 may not agree with the message that's there, but we 14 pride ourselves on policing it. 15 But with that, we need our leaders to be able 16 to say, "those statements are wrong." 17 And we want, we came out and said, those 18 statements must be condemned. And they weren't. 19 We said the atmosphere on the street is 20 getting dangerous for police officers. And it was. 21 And we said this may happen. 22 SENATOR SANDERS: I actually did make 23 statements -- 24 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I'm sorry, no, and I don't 25 go down an individual line any more than, and 1 I don't expect you to come down the line of my 2 members either, quite frankly. 3 But we warned that the atmosphere was getting 4 polluted, and we warned that police officers were 5 going to get hurt, and it fell on deaf ears. 6 And you know what happened? Police officers 7 got hurt. 8 Whether it was on the Brooklyn Bridge, or, 9 God forbid, and it did, it went to a further thing 10 in Woodhull Hospital that day. 11 So, that's what we warned against. 12 It wasn't listened to. 13 It wasn't spoken out against by all. Not 14 painting anyone with a broad brush, of course. 15 But it should have been every one of us. 16 No matter what end of the spectrum, political 17 or otherwise on, we should not be calling for anyone 18 to be killed. 19 No one; whether we agree or not. 20 We should be strengthening our laws to make 21 sure when there's threats against police officers, 22 that it's stopped. 23 There's a case that happened yesterday, where 24 there's pictures of police officers with guns to 25 their heads. And then they didn't get disciplined 1 for it. 2 We have defenders in the Bronx whose job is 3 to be officers of the court, that are in videos, 4 with guns to a police officer's head, calling for 5 their death, in actions, as well as words. 6 That needs to be condemned. 7 That wasn't condemned. That was funded. 8 That needs to be disciplined, and it wasn't. 9 Those are the things I'm talking about. 10 I'm not speaking about the honest, good, 11 working person, of any color, in any neighborhood, 12 of any economic status, in any neighborhood. 13 That's not what we do as police officers. 14 But it is our role to say, This is happening. 15 It needs to be stopped. 16 And I'm speaking on behalf of my members. 17 SENATOR SANDERS: Isn't it also a fact, or 18 could it -- let me use it a different way. 19 Couldn't it also be said that the lack of 20 apparent discipline to police are also driving a 21 type of extremism? 22 And I quote the CCRB, which gave a report, 23 and the inspector general who also came up with a 24 report, saying that there is little discipline 25 coming in certain cases. 1 In certain cases. 2 Those reports are new. 3 This is not me saying this. 4 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I strongly disagree. 5 We are the most disciplined department or 6 agency in this city. 7 Look at the numbers. 8 When you're disciplining police officers all 9 the time, that happens. 10 That's part of the morale problem that your 11 previous colleague spoke of, also. 12 SENATOR SANDERS: Then are you aware of what 13 the CCRB reported? 14 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I am. And it's a short 15 report that doesn't effectively look at all of it. 16 It talked about the chokehold policy. 17 And we can debate whether it was a chokehold 18 or not in Staten Island. 19 But it looked at some cases that weren't 20 completed. It wasn't a complete investigation. 21 So then to take that investigation and say, 22 "Well, there's a problem," I think it's wrong, and 23 I disagree. 24 SENATOR SANDERS: Well, I will respectfully 25 differ with your disagreement, sir. 1 I think that the CCRB has been almost 2 toothless in their -- and until recently did not 3 have the powers necessary to go further. 4 Now we have a new CCRB. We will see where 5 this comes. 6 We will see what the inspector general, or 7 whatever his title is, we will see these things. 8 Now, let me end with agreements with you. 9 Agreements. 10 You gave seven different things. And, I see 11 agreement with 3, 4, 5, 7. 12 Especially 4. 13 Possibility of 6 in there, Number 6. 14 But especially 4, that we certainly need to 15 look at staffing. 16 You couldn't possibly have community 17 policing. We don't have enough police to do it. 18 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Right. 19 SENATOR SANDERS: And somebody should say, we 20 couldn't possibly do it in New York City. 21 So all of those who want that, you either 22 have to increase the amount of cops and change the 23 policy, or at least stop talking about it, because 24 you simply don't have the staff to do it. 25 I would add with this: I differ with you 1 that an inspector general, or an inspector over the 2 police, would be a separate criminal justice system. 3 I think that very -- no organization should 4 police itself. And the DAs, even with my friend 5 being in here from Staten Island, the DAs are 6 simply too close to the police. And that we 7 certainly need an independent monitor. 8 Again, the points of agreement that we have, 9 let's first things first: Get a real number of 10 police here, and continue the dialogue of, what do 11 we mean by fair policing, good policing? 12 These are good arguments that we should have 13 after we establish a basis of what -- put your money 14 where your mouth is. 15 If you say that you want community policing, 16 then give enough cops so that we can police the 17 community. 18 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And I agree. 19 And the best, when we have the proper 20 staffing, we have police officers that staff the 21 radio cars, we have police officers that staff our 22 post in our schools, and the like. 23 And that is the best community-relations 24 officer because, we're in the street, we know the 25 community, good and bad, and that's important. 1 But we also, on the second point, where we'll 2 disagree, we can't just look at it as one agency and 3 one oversight. 4 We have to look at all the oversight that we 5 have. 6 We can't take one report from one agency and 7 say, Ah ha, there it is, and then say there's not 8 enough oversight, when we have layer upon layer of 9 oversight, and people recommending more, sir. 10 And thank you for your service in the 11 Marine Corps, sir. 12 SENATOR PERKINS: Thank you. 13 Thank you, sir. 14 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 15 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Senator. 16 Senator Hassell-Thompson. 17 Following Senator Thompson will be 18 Senator Lanza. 19 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank you, 20 Mr. Chairman. 21 President Lynch, I'm a little bit confused, 22 and I hope you will help me clarify this. 23 In your statement, on page 2, you allude to 24 the fact that the person responsible for the police 25 murders was deranged; and, therefore, you understand 1 that -- you understand that set of circumstances. 2 But then you go on to say, "But no matter how 3 mentally unbalanced he may have been," you later 4 infer that "narratives by elected officials and some 5 others," you almost infer that we're responsible for 6 helping to drive that. 7 And I resent it; I have to tell you that 8 I do. 9 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I understand. 10 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: And I resent it 11 because, those of us in the elected body have called 12 for a review of stop-and-frisk, not because we don't 13 believe that it's a good tool, but it is very 14 difficult for us to believe that, with 55,000 15 arrests, that the numbers of verified incidences are 16 so minuscule, that 55,000 Black and Brown young men 17 being arrested, having ongoing police records, is 18 not a good enough tool to be able to advance what 19 the police department believes is an accurate tool. 20 So we're not saying that you throw out the 21 baby with the bath water. 22 But we're saying, somehow, the use of that 23 tool is disadvantaging some ethnic populations 24 within the city that you're responsible for 25 protecting. 1 Also having said that, your concerns that you 2 raise about the policy, the illegality of your 3 requirement to reach quotas as a result of that is 4 what's driving, because that's what you also infer, 5 is driving police officers to come down on these 6 numbers in the manner that they are. 7 But it's interesting to note that nobody 8 voiced the illegalities of those until after the 9 Legislature called for this investigation. 10 There's no way that we can know that you're 11 being forced to carry out a policy that even you 12 believe is driving you in a direction that is 13 helping to foster the very atmosphere that you're 14 trying to blame everybody else for today, and negate 15 to include your police officers in that atmosphere. 16 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Ma'am, we were one of the 17 first ones to come out and say the quota is the 18 problem and it needs to be addressed. 19 That police officers are being made to make a 20 numerical number of stops, and being disciplined and 21 their livelihoods threatened if they do not meet. 22 We were the first ones to say that. And we 23 were the first ones to say that it's polluting the 24 relationship in every neighborhood that we serve. 25 So, I respectfully say my words were spoken 1 towards that quota, strongly, when no one was 2 listening. 3 And then we finally, with the help of many in 4 this room, got that law passed. 5 And that was the issue in the stops. 6 The stop, question, and sometimes frisk is a 7 tool. It should be used in policing. It should be 8 used constitutionally. 9 We believe that, and we should articulate why 10 we make that stop. We're not afraid to do that. 11 But when the police officers are constantly 12 beaten down and made to get a number, and it's not 13 just on the stop, question, and sometimes frisk. 14 It's also summonses, it's also collars. That 15 polluted the thing. 16 So I think we agree on some, and disagree on 17 others, ma'am. 18 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: The other thing, 19 the other piece I think that is somewhat disturbing, 20 too, is that when you -- I think earlier we heard 21 the Commissioner talk about, and somebody raised the 22 question, of the relationship of a police officer 23 and attitude. 24 It was more about attitude of the police 25 officer when they make a stop and they make an 1 arrest. 2 And I continue to hear the brass say that -- 3 or give the impression, that the police officers 4 were within this right to make the stop and 5 whatever. 6 And while I may not disagree with any of 7 that, my concern is, I get too many reports in my 8 office, when you are stopped, you are not told why 9 you are stopped. 10 What in your -- what in the Constitution, 11 what in your book of rules, disallows you from 12 telling the citizen why they're being stopped? 13 Because, in most of the incidences, it's: 14 I can do what I want to do. I can stop you and you 15 can't -- you can't do anything about it, you can't 16 say anything about it. I don't have to tell you why 17 you're stopped. 18 And that's part of what ignites the kind of 19 disrespect and disregard that you see. 20 And I know that this is the case. 21 I've been personally involved. And, 22 certainly, the reports that I get in my office are 23 stemmed from that kind of attitude and behavior. 24 Nobody questions it if you're wearing the 25 badge. You're the sheriff, nobody questions that. 1 What we do question is the constitutionality 2 of whether you have a right to stop me when it 3 appears that I have done nothing to break the law, 4 and where is my right to ask you, and expect a 5 response, when you do stop me? 6 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Some folks do question 7 that we're the sheriff because we have the shield on 8 our chest, and that does happen on the street as 9 well. 10 And it then goes back to that quota system 11 that polluted that relationship, the climate we're 12 working in which makes things turn into 13 confrontation rather than discussion and dialogue. 14 And that's what I've been talking about 15 throughout this thing, is about the climate that 16 creates problems on the street. 17 And then policies or laws that don't address 18 the core of the problem, but look at everything else 19 and then try to have it land on the individual 20 police officer. 21 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: You cannot have it 22 both ways, President Lynch. 23 PATRICK J. LYNCH: But we can have a dialogue 24 on what problem is and how we solve that problem. 25 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: And I want us to 1 continue that dialogue because, certainly, as 2 somebody who is supportive, I mean, I have 3 five precincts in my senatorial district. I am 4 known to all of my commanders and to most of my 5 officers. 6 I make it my business, when the new commander 7 is assigned, that I make it clear that I am 8 supportive of the work that they do in the 9 community. 10 But I am also very clear that I will not 11 allow, in the performance of their duty, the 12 constitutional rights of my constituents to be 13 violated. 14 And so that, in order for us to come to the 15 meeting of the minds, I do everything that I can to 16 foster those kinds of relationships, but it 17 continues to be very difficult for me when the 18 police officer is the bad sheriff. 19 And in certain precincts, the numbers of bad 20 sheriffs are higher than they are in other 21 precincts. 22 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And I think -- 23 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: And I want to tell 24 you that it is hard for us to believe, for those of 25 us who represent large ethnic populations, to 1 believe that that is accidental. 2 I happen to represent a community in the city 3 of Mount Vernon with one precinct, 92 different 4 languages. 5 And I keep repeating this because it is 6 important for people to understand that almost every 7 culture, every language, across the world is being 8 spoken in my neighborhood every day. 9 And I know that there are people who run the 10 gamut of respect for, as well as fear for, the law 11 that enforces that community. 12 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And my department, which 13 I proudly serve and work, also speak those same 14 languages, also live in those same neighborhoods; 15 60 percent in the neighborhoods, and all the police 16 officers don't look like me. But they're out there 17 serving the communities, color-blind. 18 And that gets lost sometimes in discussion 19 that's there. 20 It gets lost sometimes, again, it's looked at 21 the police officer. 22 When another agency or policy doesn't work, 23 it lands on the shoulder of the police officer to 24 deal with on the corner. 25 We need to equip and support them, and 1 understand, also, the atmosphere and the climate in 2 which they're working, ma'am. 3 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank you, 4 Mr. Chairman. 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Senator. 7 Senator Lanza. 8 SENATOR LANZA: Thank you, Chairman. 9 Great to see you, Mr. Lynch; President Lynch. 10 It's always difficult to follow my good 11 friend, Senator Hassell-Thompson. She is such an 12 intelligent and articulate member of this body. 13 President Lynch, there's been discussion 14 today concerning the incidents with police officers 15 turning their back. 16 And, I respect the conversation, and the fear 17 with respect to what message that may have sent. 18 And without commenting on that, I want to say 19 this: 20 I have talked to many police officers, many 21 of whom, as I've said before, are close personal 22 friends. 23 There was this feeling that certain city 24 leaders turned their backs on them first. 25 And I have to tell you, as an observer, 1 that's what I saw too. 2 And so I'm concerned that that sent just as 3 dangerous a message as what the police officers did. 4 And, so, that is why I think this dialogue is 5 important, because there are some who see it only 6 one way, and there are some who see it only the 7 other way. 8 And I think it's important for all of us, as 9 elected officials, and the police department, and 10 that's what you've offered to us, is to continue 11 this dialogue and this discussion with the Mayor and 12 the elected officials, and that's vitally important. 13 So I want to thank you for that. 14 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 15 SENATOR LANZA: Your comments concerning the 16 quota system, and the fact that they polluted or 17 created a wedge between the police department and 18 the community, is very -- it makes a lot of sense to 19 me, and it's something I've heard before. 20 And, I listened very attentively to what 21 Senator Hassell-Thompson said about it. 22 And that's something that I think that we 23 need to understand and appreciate as we go forward 24 with respect to those issues. 25 And what's fascinating to me about that is, 1 every single mayor has always denied the existence 2 of quotas. Not a single one, Republican, Democrat, 3 has ever said they are in effect. 4 They have all said, "They do not exist." 5 And, of course, every one of us living in 6 this city, every one of us, knows that that is not 7 true. 8 So I'm not asking for a comment. Don't want 9 to get you in trouble. 10 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I'm going to give one 11 anyway. 12 SENATOR LANZA: That's a fascinating part of 13 that issue. 14 PATRICK J. LYNCH: It certainly is. 15 And I have 31 years on the job, and there's 16 been a quota. 17 They can call it "goals" and "productivity 18 goals," they can call it what they like, but if you 19 don't come in with a number and you're disciplined, 20 or your evaluations are bad, or you're transferred 21 from one tour to another, or one neighborhood to 22 neighborhood, that's a quota. And that's what we've 23 had. 24 SENATOR LANZA: And I think that's -- that 25 [unintelligible], that is consistent with what 1 people living and breathing in this city every day 2 know to be the truth. 3 Two more comments. 4 The Commissioner said to this Panel that 5 there was no instruction, there was no directive, to 6 the police department, to the police on the streets 7 during those demonstrations, not to make arrests in 8 the face of offenses being committed. 9 He said that did not happen. 10 You don't have to comment. 11 But that seems to run contrary to things that 12 I have heard, and runs contrary to things that 13 I have been told by people who were there on the 14 street. 15 And so that's something that I ask this 16 Panel, and that I will continue now, after hearing 17 that denial, I want to look further into that. 18 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And that's fair enough. 19 And then when you look at folks taking over 20 the Brooklyn Bridge, and folks taking over the 21 FDR Drive, and name the road on the 22 West Side Highway, it asks that question: Why? 23 SENATOR LANZA: And I think we need to 24 continue to ask that question, and I'm going to do 25 that. 1 And, finally, I just want to say, remind you, 2 as always, I look forward to working with and your 3 members as we go through the, both, budgetary and 4 legislative process in Albany, to make sure -- and 5 all my colleagues are united here on this, to make 6 sure that we have the criminal laws, and the police 7 have the resources, to ensure the safety of both the 8 police and our citizens across the city. 9 So, thank you. 10 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 11 I appreciate that. 12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Senator Lanza. 13 Senator Squadron, to close. 14 SENATOR SQUADRON: Thank you very much. 15 And, thank you for being here. 16 And, thank you to your members for what they 17 do for our communities or neighborhoods every day. 18 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, sir. 19 SENATOR SQUADRON: I'm just going quote, 20 actually, a little bit of your written testimony, 21 so, I hope you don't blush too much. 22 [Laughter.] 23 SENATOR SQUADRON: But, "In New York City, as 24 in many places around the country, some elected 25 officials and activists have advanced the narrative 1 which depicts police officers as racially biased and 2 habitually abusive." 3 I'll skip a little bit. 4 "While we strongly disagree with the 5 conclusions that have been drawn from anecdotal 6 examples around this, which, in many cases, have 7 been misconstrued or mischaracterized, 8 police officers understand why this perception 9 exists: It's at least partially a result of 10 policing policies that have been questioned by the 11 communities we serve. 12 "Police officers had no role in creating 13 these policies. In many cases we have actively 14 opposed them." 15 The reason I ask, is we have here some 16 proposals from you that we're going to look very 17 seriously at on the issue of police safety. 18 And, you know, certainly, the horrific murder 19 and the tragic loss of life of Detectives Liu and 20 Ramos demands that we do so. 21 There is also this piece of what's going on 22 in the conversation that you referenced in your 23 testimony. 24 So I wanted to really -- I know we talked 25 about quotas, some, but I wanted to really ask 1 specifically: What policies do you think can change 2 that perception in communities where it's strong, or 3 among, you know, elected officials or activists, as 4 you point out, who you think are sort of stirring 5 the pot? 6 PATRICK J. LYNCH: It should go -- first, it 7 should go back to the way it was when I came on the 8 job, where the discretion was left in the hand of 9 the police officer. 10 Whether it was a summons or an arrest or some 11 other type of action, or a UF-250, where, you went 12 out and saw an issue, sometimes that issue can be 13 resolved with a conversation. It doesn't have to be 14 a summons. 15 Most times, in my particular precinct, it was 16 2.7 miles wide. 17 So if you were able to say to a kid or 18 someone that may have made a bad choice: Kid, this 19 one's on me. Tomorrow it's on you. 20 So you let that kid go or that person go, 21 without a record, without a summons, without a 22 problem. 23 Now, of course, if you see that same person 24 doing something on your next tour or the tour after 25 that, then so be it; then you'll take that step 1 because it didn't work. 2 But when it's made to be just a number; you 3 need a number, a productivity goal, which is a 4 quota, and you're disciplined, you're taking that 5 discretion away from the individual police officer 6 and they're forced to write that summons, write that 7 250. 8 If we leave it in the discretion of the 9 police officer, they'll do the job. 10 How do we know that? 11 Because that's, effectively, how we have done 12 the job for many, many years. 13 Again, it also goes back to our staffing 14 issues, where you have to keep crime down, but if 15 you don't have the staffing, you can't get it done. 16 The commanders are held responsible. 17 They come down on the police officers, and 18 they're sent out on the street. 19 Use the CompStat process the way it was 20 intended: 21 Know where the crime is. 22 "Cops on the dots," as the Commissioner says. 23 Give the responsibility to those police 24 officers and the commanders. 25 Give them the resources and staffing that 1 they need. 2 That's where it's broken, and then it forces 3 them to go into this quota-driven policy because no 4 one wants to have a number that's lower. 5 I say, if the number is lower, but the 6 problem is solved, so be it. 7 We're in the problem-solving business. 8 We're not there in the numbers or the revenue 9 business. 10 The police department should not be looked at 11 as a revenue-gatherer. 12 We should be going out to solve the problem. 13 If we can do it with a discussion, so be it, 14 problem solved. 15 If it takes further action, so be it, we'll 16 take that action. 17 But it should not be looked at as a number, 18 and we surely shouldn't be looked at as, we need to 19 bring in revenue. 20 SENATOR SQUADRON: So let me ask, then: You 21 know, as we see the 250s -- stop, question, and 22 frisk, stop-and-frisk -- go from a high of high 23 hundred of thousands down to less than 100,000 last 24 year -- 25 And I want to just be very clear about this, 1 because it's inconsistent with what some of what 2 I've read. Of course, you're here to speak for 3 yourself, which is good. 4 -- so you think that's a positive change? 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Sure. 6 I think the change should be left, again, to 7 the discretion -- as my previous answer -- to the 8 discretion of police officers. 9 We're not afraid to say: I see the problem, 10 I'm going to make this stop, and I'm going to 11 articulate why we made that stop. 12 That's where it's supposed to be. 13 First off, we came out against the quotas 14 first, and that got lost in the mix as well. 15 We also came out on the 250s, when these laws 16 were being passed, saying: Police officers, do it 17 constitutionally. 18 We said that. 19 That gets lost as well. 20 So, it's easy to demonize me or the 21 organization for speaking out for my members. 22 That's okay, that's what we do. It's part of 23 the process. 24 But in reality, if you actually look back, we 25 spoke out against them. 1 SENATOR SQUADRON: And do you think that 2 those of us who spoke out against those 3 extraordinarily high numbers that you got to at the 4 end of the last administration, those numbers are 5 way down, crime -- 6 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Yeah, I think the 7 problem -- the numbers should be based on the 8 problem, whether it's high or it's low. 9 SENATOR SQUADRON: Let me ask another 10 question. 11 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Sure. 12 SENATOR SQUADRON: Do you think those of us 13 who did that were -- I'd like to turn to another 14 part of your quote here. 15 You say that, "Those parties" -- talking 16 about elected officials and leaders -- "stir up 17 emotions in the street in order to further their own 18 agenda." 19 Do you now, do you believe, sort of looking 20 at -- the point that you make, that makes a lot of 21 sense to me, about the kind of neighborhood 22 policing, the ability to say, "Look, that's crazy, 23 don't do it again," as opposed to entering people 24 into the criminal justice. 25 Now looking at what's happened with 1 stop-and-frisk, do you look at those of us who 2 highlighted the problem of those extraordinarily 3 high numbers "as stirring up emotions on the street 4 in order to further our own agenda"? 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I think part of is yes. 6 And part of is, too, is looking at the individual 7 police officer. 8 If we look at a lot of the dialogue that's 9 gone on back and forth and the vitriol that's gone 10 on back and forth, it always ends up with 11 "discipline the police officer." 12 We don't make the policy. 13 Have we ever seen -- we see numbers and -- 14 huge numbers of police officers getting disciplined, 15 and I believe unfairly many, many times. 16 Do the policymakers ever get disciplined? 17 Do those that put that policy, and put folks 18 on the streets to that follow that policy, are they 19 ever disciplined? 20 That's all I'm asking. 21 Any of these processes, when I speak out on 22 any of these issues, is about fairness. 23 My members are entitled to due process and 24 fairness; not separate due process because it's for 25 a cop. 1 It shouldn't be that way. 2 The system should be: Make -- there's an 3 accusation, investigate, and then prove it. 4 Not accusation, investigate, prove it. If we 5 don't get what we want, let's change the law. 6 SENATOR SQUADRON: I mean, look, the idea 7 that you have officers our there, given a directive, 8 risking their lives in the first place, and also 9 trying to save their career, and then they get 10 personally attacked for it, I think it's every bit 11 what you've described it as. 12 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And that's exactly the 13 reality. 14 SENATOR SQUADRON: So, I just really want to 15 get into the core of this, because I think finding a 16 little common ground, here, you know, I asked the 17 Commissioner what he would advise. And he used 18 words like, "common ground," and "dialogue, not 19 rhetoric." 20 In fact, today, you used some of those words, 21 too, and I appreciate that you have. 22 And it seems very wise, that advice. 23 It seems like there's common ground, that, 24 the idea that officers on the street were required 25 for years to go out there and stop-and-frisk up the 1 wazoo, to the extent that we had nearly a million 2 stop-and-frisks in a year, something that, you know, 3 these elected officials and activists that, you 4 know, clearly, prior statements, your testimony 5 today, you've got a problem with. 6 You, I mean, sitting here talking about the 7 "quota" issue; certainly, communities out there on 8 the street, you know, most importantly, those who 9 are impacted by this, officers and communities; all 10 agree that was bad policy. 11 It put an unfair burden on officers. 12 It turned communities and officers into 13 opposition where they needn't otherwise be. 14 So can we agree, just, again, in the 15 interests of a little common ground today, that the 16 vast reduction in those 250s being issued is a 17 mutual step in the right direction that we all think 18 is positive? 19 PATRICK J. LYNCH: I think the numbers should 20 relate to the crimes that's going on. 21 So you can't say it's too low or it's too 22 high. 23 What I'm saying, do it constitutionally to 24 solve the problem. 25 So whether it's high or low, it shouldn't be 1 based on a quota. And none of it should be based on 2 the "blame the cop that doesn't do the policy." 3 SENATOR SQUADRON: I'm not sure we quite got 4 to common ground there, but -- 5 PATRICK J. LYNCH: That's okay. 6 SENATOR GOLDEN: You didn't get your answer. 7 PATRICK J. LYNCH: You didn't get the answer 8 you want. 9 SENATOR SQUADRON: Out of respect for my 10 colleagues, I will not try again, but, I do hear 11 what you're saying here. 12 I would say, that the policies that you 13 proposed, as I said, critical that we take a look at 14 and take seriously, for all of the reasons that have 15 been discussed today. 16 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And I look forward to 17 discussing them with you. 18 SENATOR SQUADRON: And I appreciate that. 19 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 20 SENATOR SQUADRON: It is also critical, 21 though, that we hear from those on the ground who 22 know what they're being pushed to do that is 23 stirring the pot, to use your words, and how to fix 24 that practically. 25 And that, sometimes, a criticism of the 1 department from an elected official or an activist 2 isn't a criticism of the officer. 3 You know, it's always surprising to me that 4 you can't have an elected official, an activist, and 5 an individual officer, or the president who 6 represents them, together saying: Don't put us in 7 that position. 8 Don't put us in that position in communities, 9 especially where young men of color were just 10 rampantly targeted. 11 Don't put us in that position as officers who 12 need the trust and relation with the community to be 13 safer. 14 Don't put us in that situation with elected 15 officials who are just beating up anyone we can, 16 just so we can get listened to. 17 I mean, don't you agree with that statement, 18 anyway? 19 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And, you know, a lot of 20 this, too, is also, when I speak out and we speak 21 out, you have to realize that we're speaking out, 22 going back to the feeling that Senator Lanza spoke 23 of, but also the avalanche we see coming of the 24 criticism. 25 We can't look at the oversight as individual 1 oversights, we can't look at the criticism as 2 individual criticism, because the police officer on 3 the street is standing on the corner saying, What 4 now? 5 And we can't blame the cop. 6 But in all these discussions it comes down to 7 "discipline the police officer." 8 30 years on the job, I'm 16 years the 9 president, it always comes down to the discussion 10 as, "we need more discipline." 11 SENATOR SQUADRON: And, look, and maybe 12 that's the other side of it. 13 Maybe it's, these policies, [unintelligible] 14 the department, especially under the former 15 administration, was driving these activities 16 shouldn't happen. And, when they do, or when they 17 drive people into bad circumstances, we should look 18 at the department and not the individual. 19 That's an important point. 20 I would just conclude by saying, I know that 21 you believe that there's a certain stirring of the 22 pot that happens from folks like those of us on the 23 Panel and others in elected life. 24 In my experience, for better, and sometimes 25 for worse, those of us in elected life respond to 1 what we're hearing from our constituents, and don't 2 create it. 3 So I do think that there's a real danger in 4 suggesting that some of these -- some of what we've 5 seen out there comes from the mouths of elected 6 officials, were that folks listen to us that much. 7 And I don't think -- 8 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And sometimes, and many 9 times, union presidents also are voicing the 10 opinions of the members who elected us, and we have 11 a responsibility to speak for them as well. 12 So while you're speaking for your 13 constituents, as am I. 14 SENATOR SQUADRON: And I think that's 15 actually a really important point. I appreciate you 16 making that. 17 PATRICK J. LYNCH: Thank you, Senator. 18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Senator. 19 And, President Lynch, you've been extremely 20 demonstrative in your discussion. 21 We look forward to working with you. 22 Your proposals are concrete, and we will be 23 addressing those, and that we look forward to 24 working with you in the future to achieve the 25 mutually-shared objectives. 1 Thank you very, very much. 2 PATRICK J. LYNCH: And thank you for 3 considering my testimony. 4 And thank you for the discussions that we 5 had. 6 And thank you for putting this joint meeting 7 together. 8 SENATOR GOLDEN: We're very happy to hear 9 that Senator Squadron will be on all these bills as 10 we pass them around. 11 SENATOR SQUADRON: I look forward to a 12 collaborative effort, Senator Golden. 13 SENATOR GOLDEN: Oh, it will be 14 collaborative, all right. 15 [Laughter.] 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Our next presenter is 17 Edward Mullins, president of the 18 Sergeants Benevolent Association. 19 President Mullins, good afternoon, and 20 welcome. 21 Please, for the record, identify the people 22 that you have brought with you at the table. 23 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Thomas Gearon, counsel 24 with the SBA. Teresa Shall [ph.], assistant with 25 the SBA. 1 Mr. Chairman, I know you're running behind on 2 time. 3 If you would like, I could skip reading 4 through the statement. I could save you some time 5 for questions. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Your testimony, which 7 looks very extensive, we will submit that in its 8 entirety for the record. 9 And if you would be so kind as to summarize 10 your concerns. 11 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Several concerns. 12 We all have discussed, we talked about, 13 summons quotas, stop-and-frisk, terrorism. 14 As you know, right now, the city of New York 15 is being confronted with the public report that was 16 issued by Police Commissioner Kelly in the past. 17 It was thrown out of federal court by a 18 federal court judge, obviously, who found no 19 wrongdoing on behalf of the NYPD. 20 The report made reference to home-grown 21 terrorists and threats, and now there's a debate 22 whether it should be kept on a website. 23 I think this is an area that this Committee 24 needs to look at. 25 The report serves several different purposes. 1 It supports the concept of, if you see 2 something, say something. 3 And it helps to educate the general public, 4 and information from one of the largest police 5 departments in the world that can be shared with 6 police departments throughout the country. 7 Something to consider. 8 The topics of profiling and racial profiling, 9 it has been a long debate of stop-and-frisk. 10 I think it needs to be noted that the NYPD is 11 not a racist police department, contrary to the 12 beliefs of Judge Scheindlin. 13 He have members in this department who were 14 born in 106 different countries. 15 After 11 years of police in this city under 16 the Bloomberg-Kelly administration, the department 17 had a 70 percent approval rating. 18 In the past year, that approval rating has 19 gone down to 59 percent. 20 Now, that's not to say that there shouldn't 21 be consideration given to the feeling and the 22 perception that's occurring within the communities 23 and the city. There's ways to address those issues. 24 But this has had an impact on policing, and 25 it's created an atmosphere of concern for both the 1 police and the community. 2 There's a topic within my presentation that 3 addresses the issue of Google, who has an app known 4 as "Waze." 5 If you look at the app, it identifies the 6 location of police officers. 7 Now, this is a traffic app. It's a pretty 8 helpful app to identify areas of heavily backed-up 9 roadways. 10 But on that app it identifies the locations 11 of where highway patrols or police officers may be, 12 and it has the ability to identify whether the 13 police are invisible or visible. 14 It serves really no purpose when you think 15 about that if the overall concept is to provide 16 information to traffic. 17 But we would be kidding ourselves to 18 disregard the belief that that information is 19 exposed to criminals, terrorists, and members of the 20 public who are trying to get away with, you know, 21 roadway infractions, speeding. 22 They are harmful to public safety and the 23 police. 24 The issue that -- I'll just skip through real 25 quickly. 1 We talked about terrorism. 2 In France we saw terrorists with 3 heavily-armed body armor, assault rifles, firing 4 away at police officers backing up down the street 5 who did not have the firepower to withstand such a 6 terrorist threat. 7 I think we need to explore the safety of 8 police facilities should they be overrun, the 9 readily-available weapons of assault rifles to 10 members of the NYPD to address incidents that we 11 have seen in France. 12 Now, this is a sensitive topic because, 13 really, what you're doing is you're arming police 14 with higher-powered weapons. 15 But, the flip side of it is, that we need to 16 suppress an immediate threat, and that may not be 17 readily available to the first responding officers 18 that are on the scene. 19 Most recently during this attack in France, 20 you know, our secondary cycle of sending personnel 21 to backup the emergency-service personnel and the 22 counterterrorism people, their job is to suit up, 23 heavily weapons, and to go to the gun lockers and 24 get those assault rifles. 25 Well, unfortunately, the policies in the 1 police department, certain people have keys, and if 2 they're not available, you don't have access to 3 those weapons. 4 So, in many ways, we're creating a false 5 sense of security to the members of the public. 6 We talked a little bit earlier about, and 7 I forget how it was presented, you know, home-rule 8 messages and local legislation. 9 What's occurring, and I believe it's 10 occurring, is that, within City Council, and I'm 11 sure in other areas of the state, the ability to 12 create law that circumvents state penal laws and 13 criminal-procedure laws needs to be watched 14 carefully, because what it's doing is it's throwing 15 off the overall concept of what the State is 16 proposing for all law enforcement to follow 17 throughout. 18 A police officer from Albany who engages in 19 any kind of action here in New York, are they 20 falling within the guidelines of the City Council 21 profiling bills? 22 We don't know, but they're not aware of that 23 up there in outside counties who respond to the 24 city. 25 So I think this is something where state 1 legislators can keep an eye, and watch what's 2 occurring. And, you know, if it's good policy 3 overall, then it's good policy overall, but it 4 shouldn't be designed to work around state 5 criminal-procedure laws and penal laws. 6 The issue of bail needs to be looked at, 7 also. 8 We see too many cases where judges are just 9 releasing criminals and it's walking out the door. 10 You see them on a consistent basis, just walking 11 out. 12 California has a system of bail to which 13 there's guidelines. 14 If you are a person who set a fire, for 15 example, you may be an 18-year-old kid who set a 16 fire, there's a different level of bail, as compared 17 to if someone got hurt, several people got hurt, or 18 if police officers are involved. 19 It needs to be looked at, and you may want to 20 take a look at what's existing right now in 21 California and see if it's feasible to implement 22 here in New York. 23 Overall, I think a lot of the issues that 24 have been confronting the NYPD, Pat Lynch did 25 address. 1 These areas I think that have been left out, 2 and if it's helpful in any way, I'd be happy to take 3 questions in the interests of your time, or work 4 with this Committee going forward to look at some of 5 these areas. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: President Mullins, I have 7 some questions. 8 Thank you very much for your participation, 9 and your patience for waiting through the 10 three hours-plus we've had so far of our hearing. 11 First and foremost, please convey to your 12 officers and members of your association that our 13 purpose in creating -- the four Chairs of the Senate 14 Investigations Committee, Crime and Corrections 15 Committee, Civil Officers and Employees Committee, 16 and Codes Committee -- this Task Force was to let 17 our police officers know, including our sergeants, 18 that we respect the job you do; appreciate the fact 19 that the greatest drop in violent crime in any state 20 in the history our union was here in New York State, 21 and it was, in large part, because of the efforts of 22 the men and women in your organization, and the 23 organization of other police officers throughout the 24 city in particular, but also New York State. 25 So thank you for that. 1 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Thank you. 2 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Your comments and 3 suggestions are well-taken. 4 We will look to the Legislature in addressing 5 them in certain ways. 6 I want to ask you a question I asked the 7 president of the patrolmen, that, the issue of 8 proposal that the Governor has to place an 9 independent, or so-called "independent," monitor on 10 grand jury proceedings involving police officers. 11 You may have heard President Lynch discuss 12 his opposition to this proposal. 13 What is your opinion? 14 EDWARD D. MULLINS: I think it's an area that 15 we can explore. 16 I know it's probably not a popular decision, 17 but the concept of the public not having faith in a 18 criminal justice system, law enforcement, or the 19 district attorneys is an issue that needs to be 20 addressed. 21 When I hear the issue of police being too 22 close to the district attorneys, in many ways it's 23 somewhat offensive. 24 When you look at law, and you look at the 25 integrity that it's brought into the 1 district attorney's office, we're in some ways 2 undermining them and their credibility and their 3 integrity. 4 But should a lawyer from another county come 5 down to process a case, he still has to deal within 6 the fundamental basics of law. 7 It's not a science, but certain aspects of 8 law, whether it be for searches and hearings and 9 interrogations, all apply. 10 The rule of evidence applies throughout the 11 state of New York. 12 But I think that it's a topic that's open for 13 great debate. 14 I would be interested to sit and discuss it 15 further. 16 And if it's something that is going to be 17 implemented, I'd rather be part of the solution to 18 it than to oppose it without a voice. 19 I think that we need to speak to the 20 district attorneys, even throughout the state, to 21 get their opinions of it. 22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: One of our prominent 23 district attorneys, Dan Donovan, from 24 Richmond County, is here. 25 He's been waiting, he'll be testifying next, 1 and we certainly will ask him that question. 2 I guess the fact that any disciplinary 3 proceeding for a police officer, particularly in a 4 violation of law, potential violation of law, 5 through internal affairs, goes through that process, 6 but then is prosecuted by that same district 7 attorney. 8 The district attorney does not claim to be 9 biased then. 10 I guess that's why I raise the question, 11 because we're trying to seek opinion on this, the 12 Panel wants to know. And we appreciate your 13 opinions, and we look forward to your insights as 14 this develops further. 15 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Senator, my 34 years in 16 the NYPD, I have worked under various 17 district attorneys throughout the city of New York, 18 and the relationships with the district attorneys is 19 no way cushy and cozy. 20 Each district attorney's office has 21 prosecutors who specialize in prosecuting police. 22 And the pulse and the feeling amongst the 23 NYPD and those members is one of fear, in many ways, 24 so the concept that's in place does work. 25 I think that the issue is really the public 1 perception of it, and maybe we need to either fix it 2 or educate everyone. 3 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I appreciate your 4 suggestion and point. 5 Last question. 6 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Yes. 7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: What I wanted to ask 8 President Lynch about, recidivism, and the ability 9 to retain good people in our police department. 10 Now, you represent those officers that have 11 risen to supervisory positions. 12 Do you see any change in recidivism rates -- 13 I don't mean recidivism -- attrition rates? 14 Attrition rates, that -- of people leaving 15 the force as soon as they can, or, just simply being 16 fed up with the position. 17 There are some demographics here as a 18 population aging out, as well. 19 Any scope of attention that you've given on 20 the attrition -- 21 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Yeah, I think that's a 22 problem. 23 I don't feel that the members of the NYPD 24 stay in this job. I don't think that they value the 25 job in their heart of hearts. 1 You know, when I listen to the 2 United Marine Corps, they're always a former marine. 3 They always say, "I'm a former marine." 4 And in their recruitment materials, never 5 once do they say "join the marines," but yet they 6 have the highest amount of people signing up to 7 enlist, even in wartime. 8 Within this department, the politics and the 9 bureaucracy wears down the members of the NYPD. 10 I always describe it as an atmosphere that, 11 after a while, you don't believe in what you do. 12 You want to do the job, but you're being prevented 13 so many ways because you're constantly scrutinized 14 for it. 15 And the NYPD is like playing for the Yankees. 16 It's an honor that, no matter where you land in the 17 world, you're a topic of conversation, you're 18 Hollywood movies, you're all kinds of TV shows. 19 But, yet, the members of the NYPD don't feel 20 that, so what they do is, they move on. They move 21 on to other jobs to get second careers, and to move 22 on with their everyday lives. 23 And that's a problem. 24 It's a problem that can be fixed, but it's 25 going to take direct effort. 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much. 2 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Thank you. 3 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Any other questions? 4 Senator Golden. 5 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, 6 President Mullins, for being here. 7 I thought it was, "Once a marine, always a 8 marine." No such thing as a former marine. 9 That's what it is. 10 So I've got to tell you, that's Semper Fi. 11 That's what the NYPD should be. 12 You've got NYFD in the back there. 13 NYFD, they turn around, it's 30, 35 years, 14 40 years on the job. And there's nobody running off 15 that job, because they turn around and they respect 16 the job that they have. 17 And they're going to be up here testifying 18 very, very shortly. 19 But that job has changed, too, over the 20 years. But that used to be a real career job, where 21 people stayed on it for many, many, many years, 22 until 9/11, until we seen the tragedy of the losses 23 of 343 firemen and 37 New York City police officers, 24 and court officers, and so on. 25 So we started to see lives and families 1 change, and lives change, and we've seen laws 2 change, and city councils change, and it becoming a 3 much tougher job today on both PD and FD. 4 That's why we see large numbers leaving PD, 5 I believe, is because of the low morale. 6 What is your ratio to -- sergeant-to-police 7 officers? 8 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Probably about 11-to-1. 9 There's reduced numbers. 10 SENATOR GOLDEN: What should it be? 11 EDWARD D. MULLINS: 12 years back we had 12 nearly 5500 sergeants. 13 We're down to about 4600 right now, so we're 14 down nearly 1,000. 15 The ratio of supervision should be higher, in 16 a sense. 17 Ideally, it's 1-in-8; one sergeant to every 18 police officer. 19 The department will likely tell you that it's 20 1-in-8, but there are numerous shortages on patrol, 21 numerous shortages when you see details. You're 22 supervising a lot more. 23 And there's a difference between supervising 24 and leadership, that will help change the culture of 25 the department in a lot of ways. 1 So the training and the sergeants that you 2 implement, where that ratio decreases, could help to 3 change a culture overall. 4 SENATOR GOLDEN: Now, with everything going 5 on, and you pointed that out, especially when we 6 have seen this past 35, 40 days, where we had a 7 number of protests, and a number of high point for 8 tourists in the city of New York through the 9 Christmas season, so there was a high need for 10 manpower on the street, are your men burnt out, as 11 well as low morale? 12 EDWARD D. MULLINS: The morale -- I'm not 13 going to say that they're burnt out, but morale is 14 terrible. 15 After 34 years, this is probably the peak 16 that I have seen for the worst morale in the NYPD, 17 and this has been brewing for the past two years. 18 It started back with the whole stop-and-frisk 19 issue. It's built up into the, you know, mayoral 20 campaign, followed by the events with the protests. 21 And, you know, eventually, the death of Police 22 Officers Ramos and Liu. That was the boiling point 23 to everything. 24 SENATOR GOLDEN: And you also believe it's 25 too many cooks in kitchen? 1 EDWARD D. MULLINS: I think that there should 2 be a clear policy. 3 I really think that leaders need to step up 4 and be leaders, and to say that "These are the 5 policies. This is why we do it"; and to call it 6 what it is. 7 And that's lacking. That's clearly missing 8 right now. 9 SENATOR GOLDEN: I seen you point out to 10 Ebola in your testimony. 11 Are we prepared for Ebola here in the city of 12 New York? 13 EDWARD D. MULLINS: I don't think so. 14 You know, I sit through many of these 15 meetings. 16 I went to Washington, D.C., to discuss the 17 topic of Ebola with the federal government. Sat 18 with the Centers for Disease Control. I got 19 information from them, and their information was far 20 more accurate. 21 And at the very same time that it was 22 occurring, we had an event right here in the 23 30th Precinct. 24 So, we were lacking at the time. 25 My organization purchased almost 6,000 masks 1 and gloves to furnish to our members because we 2 didn't have them from the department. 3 SENATOR GOLDEN: The municipal ID cards, have 4 your men been trained for that? 5 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Not yet, no. 6 SENATOR GOLDEN: Is there any expectation 7 they will be training for that? 8 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Yep. There will be 9 training. 10 SENATOR GOLDEN: There's a piece in there 11 that says that the ID will be destroyed at 12 six months. After it is held by the New York City, 13 they're going to destroy that; meaning, that 14 somebody can get one, two, three, four, five cards. 15 I don't know if you've studied that yet, but 16 you should take look at that one piece of it. 17 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Okay. 18 SENATOR GOLDEN: If they're going to take the 19 identification, identification should stay on record 20 and should be available for NYPD for the future, so 21 that we can track out these ID cards. 22 And, we'd like to know when you are trained 23 and members are going to be trained. 24 And, if there's any specific training for the 25 Ebola or the ID cards, we'd look to know about it. 1 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Yes. 2 SENATOR GOLDEN: Are you part of the new 3 group? Have you been updated on the new 350-man 4 unit that the Police Commissioner has put together? 5 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Yes. 6 SENATOR GOLDEN: And your role will be, 7 you'll have -- 8 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Well, it's one of 9 awareness. 10 Basically what we're doing is taking manpower 11 from one place and moving them to another place. 12 There's no additional manpower. 13 If you go back in time, it's the old task 14 force the NYPD had back in '70s and early '80s. 15 They're just changing the name, offering some 16 additional equipment, but you're really not changing 17 anything as far as additional manpower goes. It's 18 manpower that's being allotted to doing something 19 else right now. 20 SENATOR GOLDEN: So your guys respond to -- 21 obviously, the supervisory manpower respond to all 22 shootings. 23 So you would be -- shootings are up, murders 24 are up, rapes are up; so -- and that's, every one of 25 those issues, are large -- are 49s or large 1 communications -- 2 EDWARD D. MULLINS: They continue, yes. 3 SENATOR GOLDEN: So, therefore, each one of 4 your men and women have to respond to each one of 5 those issues; correct? 6 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Correct, yes. 7 SENATOR GOLDEN: And are they -- have you -- 8 have enough manpower to do that? 9 EDWARD D. MULLINS: We're down almost 10 1,000 sergeants from where we were 12 years ago. 11 SENATOR GOLDEN: Where are we on tests? Is 12 there a test coming up? Or are they promoting 13 more -- 14 EDWARD D. MULLINS: There was a test. 15 They're still promoting. There are classes 16 that are being promoted. 17 But, your promotions sometimes just make up 18 for the attrition, so it's not where you're really 19 building up the numbers. 20 So, ultimately, numbers are going to get 21 built based on budgets that will provide for the 22 additional numbers to -- 23 SENATOR GOLDEN: What is your retirement the 24 year? Do you know? 25 EDWARD D. MULLINS: I'm sorry? 1 SENATOR GOLDEN: How many people are getting 2 out of job as sergeants? 3 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Our numbers are pretty 4 frequent for retiring. 5 I don't know the exact number of what's 6 walking out the door right now, but our personnel 7 does not stay. 8 They get to their pension, and for the most 9 part, they may do a year or two more, but then they 10 leave. 11 SENATOR GOLDEN: The last question: The -- 12 they were talking about deadly physical force in 13 the -- a new communication by the Governor in his 14 legislative package, to create a council that would 15 create a set goal across the state of New York on 16 what "deadly physical force" and "physical force" 17 would be, and how it would be used. 18 And they would -- there was some expectation 19 that cities, towns, villages, and counties would 20 adhere to the rules and regulation of the new 21 council. And if they did not adhere to the new 22 rules and regulations of this council, that they 23 would have to come up with their own set of 24 guidelines equal or better than. 25 I would imagine most cities, towns, villages, 1 and counties already have a criteria for 2 stop-and-frisk -- not stop-and-frisk -- but for 3 deadly physical force and physical force. 4 Have you had any time to take a look at that 5 legislation, and -- 6 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Yeah, most departments 7 have guidelines already in place. 8 To be quite honest, I look at that proposal 9 as a feel-good. 10 We are scrutinized -- 11 SENATOR GOLDEN: Did you read the -- 12 feel-good; do you feel that he could -- 13 EDWARD D. MULLINS: I think it's feel-good 14 for the public opinion. 15 SENATOR GOLDEN: -- the legislation 16 [unintelligible] that it could actually say no 17 chokeholds across the state of New York at no time? 18 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Yeah, but, it's -- 19 I don't agree with it. 20 When an officer's fighting for his life, he 21 has the right and the ability to hit you with a 22 chair. 23 And that's not listed anywhere. 24 He needs to win for the purpose of protecting 25 his own life. He also needs to win for the purpose 1 of making the arrest. 2 Felons don't have the opportunity to say, 3 I'll make an appointment and turn myself in next 4 week. 5 So what we're doing is really disarming the 6 police and creating hesitancy, to which, in turn, 7 will put officers in danger as we go forward. 8 SENATOR GOLDEN: So when that guy's out there 9 at 2:00, he's with his partner at 2:00 in the 10 morning, and he has a confrontation, the closest 11 response may be two precincts away, he or she and a 12 partner, or if he or she is by themself, they have 13 to defend themselves as best they can to make sure 14 that they protect life, liberty, and property. 15 EDWARD D. MULLINS: That's correct. 16 SENATOR GOLDEN: Correct? 17 EDWARD D. MULLINS: That's correct, yes. 18 SENATOR GOLDEN: So you would have a definite 19 problem with that legislation? 20 EDWARD D. MULLINS: That's correct. 21 I mean, there's reasons for everything, 22 there's balance to everything. 23 But in the situation where we're going to 24 restrict, you know, deadly physical force, the only 25 person who is able to make that decision at that 1 time is the one that's in the middle of it, using 2 it. 3 And our system in place goes on for months, 4 second-guessing and judging it. 5 So if there is any wrongdoing, there's an 6 ability to hold people accountable. 7 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Sergeant. 8 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Thank you. 9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Sergeant, thank you very, 10 very much. 11 We appreciate the testimony, we appreciate 12 the testimony, we appreciate your written testimony 13 and suggestions, and look forward to working with 14 you in the months ahead. 15 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Thank you. 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. 17 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Have a good day. 18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: District Attorney Dan -- 19 SENATOR PERKINS: Wait, wait, wait, Chairman? 20 I have one quick question. 21 SENATOR GOLDEN: Sergeant Mullins, can you 22 return to the table for just a second. 23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Your district attorney has 24 to leave. 25 SENATOR PERKINS: I won't be long. 1 I just wanted to get some clarification on 2 this question of the chokehold. 3 Is that a -- is that -- that's a deadly 4 tactic? 5 EDWARD D. MULLINS: No. It's actually a 6 tactic. 7 What we have all witnessed, as far as a 8 chokehold goes, and this could be the great debate, 9 whether it is or isn't, my training for a chokehold 10 was done with a baton applied to the carotic artery 11 of a neck. 12 SENATOR PERKINS: The "what" artery? 13 EDWARD D. MULLINS: The carotid artery of 14 your neck. The side of your neck. 15 SENATOR PERKINS: Will that kill me? 16 EDWARD D. MULLINS: It will make you pass out 17 within 10 to 15 seconds. 18 SENATOR PERKINS: How long before I die? 19 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Well, generally, you 20 don't die. 21 SENATOR PERKINS: Okay? 22 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Generally, you don't die. 23 And we'll reference the Garner case. 24 SENATOR PERKINS: Under what circumstances 25 will I die? 1 EDWARD D. MULLINS: I'm sorry? 2 SENATOR PERKINS: Under what circumstances 3 does one die? 4 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Well, you can die if it's 5 done improperly. 6 You can die, that if you crush a windpipe, 7 there's no ability to breathe. 8 You can die, you know, from the fall if you 9 hit your head. 10 There's a lot of circumstances that could 11 lead to that. 12 But a chokehold is not part of the everyday 13 policies of the police department. 14 SENATOR PERKINS: Okay. 15 EDWARD D. MULLINS: But in the situation, 16 should your life be dependent upon it and you're not 17 under the guidelines of the police department, human 18 nature would be to fight and do whatever you could 19 to protect your life. 20 And in circumstances where you're involved in 21 a life-threatening incident, that may be the only 22 thing you have. 23 So to create an overall ban and prohibit it, 24 in many ways, would be detrimental to providing a 25 safe atmosphere for police. 1 SENATOR PERKINS: Thank you. 2 EDWARD D. MULLINS: Thank you. 3 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much. 4 District Attorney Dan Donovan, from 5 Richmond County. 6 Thank you for your patience. You've been 7 here over four hours waiting for this. 8 I know we all were awaiting your testimony. 9 I appreciate you being here. 10 Cyrus Vance, the district attorney of 11 New York County, was also here for about 12 three hours, could not stay, but he has submitted 13 testimony for the record. 14 Welcome. District Attorney, thank you very, 15 very much for your participation. 16 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Thank you very 17 much, and thank you for your concern about our 18 justice system, holding this hearing. 19 And we're all here, I think, pretty much, the 20 same purpose. 21 I don't have a prepared testimony. 22 I would rather answer your questions, 23 I guess, because it was my office that did the 24 investigation into the death of Mr. Garner, that 25 maybe I can give you some insights or some opinions 1 about the grand jury proceedings, in general. 2 I am prohibited by law from speaking about 3 the specifics of the case. 4 I have reviewed some proposals that have been 5 made since the decision of the grand jury, on how to 6 have some transparency in our grand jury system. 7 I heard some of the members of the Committee, 8 as well as some of the members of the testifying 9 group here, talking about the concerns, that we have 10 to be cautious of about due-process laws and equal 11 protection. 12 I think the folks here are trying to have a 13 well-thought-out conversation. 14 I'm sure that you will do many more debates 15 about proposals before anything is voted on. 16 I think the three proposals that I would like 17 to speak of, and I'll speak about anything you'd 18 like: 19 One is the ability that's being proposed now 20 for a prosecutor to issue a grand jury report after 21 a grand jury votes a no-true bill in a case. 22 The proposal, as it stands now, applies to 23 only cases involving a police officer and the death 24 of a citizen in custody. 25 Again, I think we would be cautious to see if 1 that violates any due-process laws. 2 If it's an ability for a DA to issue a report 3 in any case where there's a no-true bill, I think we 4 eliminate the due-process problems and the 5 equal-protection problems. 6 And I certainly would have loved the 7 opportunity to tell the public more about the case 8 in which my office investigated, but I was 9 prohibited by law. 10 So I think that's something, a good proposal, 11 if it's done properly. 12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: If I may interrupt? 13 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Certainly. 14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Current law, then, 15 Mr. District Attorney, limits you. 16 And the limitations deal with what specific 17 items? 18 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Yes, anything 19 I can say, the entire grand jury procedure is sealed 20 upon a no-true bill. 21 I needed the Court's permission to tell the 22 public that there was no-true bill. 23 Could you imagine, if I didn't get the 24 Court's permission, that everybody knew that the 25 grand jury proceeding was over and I was prohibited 1 by law from saying anything? It's like, Okay, we 2 did it. 3 So, I have to seek the Court's permission 4 just to tell the public the result of the grand 5 jury's vote. 6 So, what the proposal for the grand jury 7 report is, it would allow to us summarize some of 8 the evidence without identifying the identities of 9 witnesses, identifying identities of grand jurors. 10 I think one of the difficulties that 11 certainly the public might have difficulty 12 understanding the grand jury procedure, is nobody 13 makes movies or television shows about grand jury 14 proceedings. 15 They make them about trials, where a 16 prosecutor stands in front of a jury and tries to 17 convince them, one way or another, how they should 18 conclude evidence, what evidence they should find 19 credible, what evidence they should find incredible. 20 That's not how a grand jury proceeding takes 21 place. 22 We present evidence, we walk out. 23 We don't argue. We don't sum up. 24 And then the grand jury decides. 25 We're not there during the deliberation 1 process. 2 And I think one of the things that maybe a 3 grand jury report would help us to do is explain to 4 the public, not only the results on why a grand jury 5 may have reached that result, because the report 6 would come from the grand jury, not from the DA. 7 The grand jury would vote to issue a report. 8 It would be written by the DA's office, or a 9 prosecutor who did the presentation, but then the 10 jury would take it, read it, redact, edit it, and 11 then they would present it. They would vote to 12 present it. 13 So that may be a good thing, to give some 14 transparency to proceedings that, right now, the 15 public doesn't understand; and they don't understand 16 it because of the secrecy of it. 17 The fact of a monitor, I think, again, we 18 have a problem with due process and equal protection 19 if we're going to do this only in police-officer 20 cases. 21 We already have monitors in grand jury 22 proceedings when a true-bill is voted on. 23 A supreme court judge reviews that evidence, 24 reviews that transcript, to make sure that it's 25 legally sufficient for the charges that the person 1 has been charged with. 2 We could do the same thing with a no-bill, 3 allow a judge to look at it. 4 Having a politically-appointed person to do 5 that will cause us headaches that we can't even 6 imagine right now. 7 So I do not think that that -- although a 8 monitor -- I don't like to use the word "monitor." 9 Someone reviewing the proceedings, like a 10 supreme court judge, as they do in the case of a 11 true-bill, having a supreme court judge review a 12 no-true bill may be a better way to go, in which 13 somebody has oversight in the proceedings to make 14 sure nothing was done erroneously; and at the same 15 time, preserve the secrecy of the proceedings. 16 The third thing I would like to speak about, 17 in fact, nobody's really spoken about it, is the 18 "immunity" issue. 19 One of the things that a lot of the public 20 has been talking about, is when we put someone in 21 the grand jury, if you're compelled to testify, we 22 immunize you. You are cloaked with transactional 23 immunity. We cannot charge with you that crime. 24 A lot of times we have to decide, if you and 25 Senator Golden, we don't know which one of you is 1 the bad guy, we have to choose which one of you to 2 put in the grand jury. 3 We may immunize the wrong guy. 4 The federal government, and many of our 5 states, use "use immunity"; meaning, we can compel 6 you to testify, but we can't use anything that you 7 testified about against you. But, you don't get 8 transactional immunity. We can still charge with a 9 crime. 10 So that's something that's been proposed. 11 I was the president of the State DA's 12 Association back in 2009, I believe it was, and that 13 was one of our number-one concerns: getting 14 use immunity rather than transactional immunity. 15 And I think a lot of the people who -- 16 I can't talk about who testified in the grand jury 17 that investigated the death into Mr. Garner, but, if 18 there were police officers who did testify, or 19 civilians, when they're compelled to testify, when 20 they're issued a subpoena to come in and testify, 21 they're compelled to testify, they are cloaked with 22 immunity. You could not charge any of those people 23 with a crime. 24 So that's something I think I would like the 25 Panel to discuss, and maybe look into, the Senate as 1 a whole body. 2 So I think that's some of the things that 3 I could offer to you. 4 And I'll answer any questions, and talk about 5 any other issues that you would like to. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. 7 Are there any procedures that you yourself 8 engage in, when you have to deal with an element 9 where a police officer is involved with it directly, 10 as you had in the case you mentioned, or, other 11 disciplinary cases before a police officer? 12 Is there any type of extra hash marks you 13 have to put into your equation to be able to ensure 14 the integrity of the process? 15 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Well, Senator, 16 I think -- I'm not sure if Pat Lynch spoke about it, 17 or Eddie Mullins. 18 Each of our offices has a public-integrity 19 bureau that specifically is segregated from the rest 20 of our office. 21 The reason why it's segregated, when I worked 22 for Mr. Morgenthau in the Manhattan DA's Office, our 23 public-integrity bureau was actually out of the 24 building, it was in a different building, because, 25 many times, the people who testify against police 1 officers are other police officers. And no one 2 would come into the DA's office and walk into a door 3 over there that says "Public Integrity" in front of 4 other police officers. 5 My office has a public-integrity bureau. 6 And, so, each of us has that, and each of us 7 have indicted police officers. 8 I know -- I think Pat was talking about what 9 people think is a cozy relationship between the DA's 10 office and the police department. 11 I think someone even said there's a fear. 12 I hope there's not a fear of police officers 13 with the DA. 14 But we've all indicted police officers. 15 We've all prosecuted, we've all convicted, police 16 officers. 17 So we take those precautions and handle those 18 cases, not differently under different laws or 19 different procedures, but we take precautions 20 because sometimes it's more difficult. 21 It is difficult to get people to testify 22 against anyone these days. 23 It's even so much more difficult to get 24 police officers to testify against other police 25 officers. 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Lanza. 2 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: You aren't ready. 3 SENATOR LANZA: I can get ready, quickly. 4 Thank you, Chairman. 5 Dan, District Attorney Donovan, let me just 6 say that your expert and very reasoned suggestions 7 to this Senate Panel, as we move forward to address 8 and consider the many suggestions that have been 9 made with possible legislative changes, is very 10 valuable to us, and I want to thank you so much for 11 that. 12 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Thank you. 13 SENATOR LANZA: And if I could take personal 14 privilege here as a Staten Islander, I just want to 15 say, Dan, thank you, every day, for the work you do 16 making the people of Staten Island safe. 17 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Thank you. 18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you very much. 19 Senator Sanders. 20 SENATOR SANDERS: Thank you, sir. 21 Good to see you, sir. 22 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Good to see you. 23 Thank you for your service to our country. 24 SENATOR SANDERS: Thank you, sir. 25 Two questions, and I then I'm done, sir. 1 The first one is, you mentioned that there 2 are few police officers who would testify against 3 other police officers. 4 My -- 5 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: I said it's 6 difficult, Senator. 7 SENATOR SANDERS: Oh, difficult. 8 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: It's very 9 difficult. 10 SENATOR SANDERS: "Difficult," I'll use that 11 word. 12 Just the law of averages, say, that if you 13 have a large organization, a certain amount of 14 people are not going to uphold the finest tradition 15 of any organization. Just, law of averages, whether 16 it's 5 percent, 10 percent, who knows what the 17 percentage is. 18 I also know that if you let a bad apple go, 19 it's going to start riding and spreading to others. 20 Why is it that so few police officers come 21 and testify against, if you wish -- not so much 22 against -- for the department, if you will, I would 23 argue, for the department, for the highest level, 24 for the highest standards, of the department? 25 Why are there so few people who are coming 1 forward to stand up for the standards that we all 2 believe in? 3 Is it the so-called "blue wall of silence"? 4 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: I think it's 5 similar to what you said. It's probably true in 6 every organization. 7 There's probably very few Senators who would 8 want to testify against another Senator. 9 So I think it's just the nature of that, 10 we're all in this together. 11 A lot of the police officers -- when I worked 12 for Mr. Morgenthau, and I do it now as the DA, we 13 used to go speak to incoming recruits and the 14 graduating classes at the police academy. We used 15 to tell them: 16 Most people get jammed up, not because of 17 something they did, but because of something in that 18 car; that happened in that car by the person who 19 you're sitting with. And you have to make a 20 decision then. Is your family, your salary, your 21 pension, your health benefits for your wife, your 22 children, your husband, your kids, at risk? Because 23 the police department will dismiss you for failure 24 to report. 25 So I think a lot of members of one 1 organization put their fellow members in a very 2 awkward, difficult situation. 3 There's a lot of talk now, Senator, about 4 reviewing testimony that occurred in the grand jury. 5 And we give people who are testifying before 6 a grand jury assurances: that no one will know they 7 were there, no one will know who they are, and no 8 one will know what they say, unless, of course, we 9 have to go to trial. 10 Those assurances are also given to police 11 officers. 12 We have given police officers those same 13 assurances; police officers who have had to come 14 into a grand jury and testify against another cop. 15 SENATOR SANDERS: What can we do to 16 encourage -- and I'll take that for the Senate or 17 any other organization -- what can we do to 18 encourage people to understand that we have -- we 19 have taken an oath as a high tradition that must be 20 defended? 21 What can we do to encourage people to break 22 with a "blue wall of silence," or whatever wall that 23 the Senate has, or any other government has, 24 whatever color wall that we may have, what can we do 25 to encourage good people to come out and say: I am 1 not going to stand for what's wrong. I am going to 2 stand for what's right, and I'll take whatever goes 3 with it? 4 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Yeah, that's a 5 wonderful question. 6 I'd like to know how we do that with the 7 police department. I'd like to know how we do that 8 with the public. 9 We have this stop-snitching mentality. 10 I had a baby, a 2-year-old, shot in the eye 11 in a courtyard at 1:00 in the morning with hundreds 12 of people around. The mother's screaming, "Somebody 13 come forward." No one would testify of who shot her 14 baby. 15 So it's not just the police department. 16 It's this whole mentality that you're the bad 17 guy if you actually took your oath seriously and 18 came forward. 19 And that's true with the police department, 20 it's true in all of our communities, this 21 stop-snitching attitude. 22 Maybe people call it the "blue wall of 23 silence" when you're talking about police officers. 24 Some of the people call it "stop snitching." 25 We have people that show up in court wearing 1 shirts when somebody's about to testify, saying 2 "Stop Snitching." 3 So I don't know how we break through that. 4 98, 99 percent of the members of the police 5 department, 98 percent of the members of our 6 communities, are good law-abiding people. 7 I worked in the Manhattan's DA's Office when 8 mothers used to put their babies in the bathtubs to 9 sleep at night so a stray bullet wouldn't come 10 through their window and hit their kid. It was 11 during the crack epidemic. 12 So i don't know how we get past that, that -- 13 the good guys. 14 Years ago, if looked out your window and saw 15 somebody breaking into your neighbor's car, and that 16 person turned around and saw you, they'd be afraid 17 of you and they'd run. 18 Now the person looking out the window is 19 afraid that that person saw them. 20 That whole tide has got to change, and the 21 police department has got to change, and our 22 communities have got to change in the world, 23 Senator. 24 I don't have the answer, but I know that the 25 problem exists, and it's got to change. 1 SENATOR SANDERS: I think that as I conclude, 2 Mr. Chair, I think one of the steps toward a better 3 police-community relationship, is when we see more 4 "Serpicos," if you wish. If we see more guys who 5 are going to come out and say, You know what? I'm 6 going to do what's right. 7 And when that filters down to everyday people 8 on the ground, when they see folk who say, "I'm 9 going to do what's right, regardless," they will do 10 it. 11 I know for a fact, I ran against an 12 incumbent, who I'll be kind, I will be kind -- 13 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Andrew is not as 14 kind to his opponents. 15 [Laughter.] 16 SENATOR SANDERS: Well, no one is as -- well, 17 I'll be kind to Andrew. 18 But I know that it takes people coming 19 forward and saying, breaking with the, whatever 20 tradition, whatever we call it, and say: You know 21 what? Something is wrong here. It's not right, and 22 we're going to stand against it. 23 You let average police do that and 24 I guarantee you folk on the ground will throw away 25 whatever problem they have and we will flock to the 1 police. 2 Let real folk come up and say, You know what? 3 There will be no shelter for anybody who doesn't 4 uphold these grand traditions. 5 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: One of the 6 difficulties dealing with police officers and the 7 public, I protect. I've spent millions of dollars 8 in protecting witnesses who were courageous enough 9 to come forward, particularly people who weren't 10 involved in the incident or had no relationship to 11 the victim, but just came upon and it saw it. 12 Spend millions of dollars. 13 I don't know how you protect a police officer 14 who ends up doing the right thing; how that officer 15 can work in that department again, and be useful, 16 and actually feel good about it. 17 So I don't -- it's almost easier with 18 civilians than it is with police officers. 19 SENATOR SANDERS: I guess it's the same way 20 we would protect a Senator. 21 [Laughter.] 22 SENATOR SANDERS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 23 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Thank you. 24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Gallivan. 25 SENATOR GALLIVAN: District Attorney Donovan, 1 thank you for being here -- 2 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Good to see you, 3 Senator. Thank you. 4 SENATOR GALLIVAN: -- and, of course, for the 5 work that you do. 6 I represent all of four -- all or part of 7 four counties out in Western New York, one of which 8 is Erie County. The current president of the 9 association comes from Erie County, of your 10 association. 11 I'd like to continue the conversation that 12 you just had about the notion about reluctant 13 witnesses. 14 Whether it is DA Sedita or the other DAs 15 that I have spoken with, they talk about their 16 number-one problem that they have, is that notion, 17 the very real reality, of reluctant witnesses in all 18 kinds of cases, in all kinds of prosecution. 19 And I know that you talked a little bit 20 about -- I mean, we focused on police, and some 21 police are unwilling to come forward, Senators are 22 unwilling to come forward. 23 And you talked about the problem is much 24 wider than that. 25 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Yes. 1 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So without -- without 2 providing -- thinking of a way to try to solve that 3 problem, the concern that I have, as we talk about 4 the grand jury report, as we talk about perhaps 5 increasing the level of transparency of the 6 grand jury process, do you have concerns that that 7 could negatively impact -- could we see even more 8 reluctance in witnesses? 9 And how can we protect the safety of those 10 that come forward? 11 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Without the 12 assurances that we give witnesses in grand juries, 13 that no one -- unless the case goes to trial -- 14 we're bluntly honest with people, unless the case 15 goes to trial, no one will know who you are, no one 16 will know you were here, and no one will ever know 17 what you say. 18 And a lot of times, when cases are pled out 19 after an indictment, a lot of times, one of the 20 reasons, or in the calculation of whether or not to 21 plead a case out, is to protect -- [lighting on goes 22 out.] 23 Is my time up? 24 [Laughter.] 25 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: -- is to protect 1 the integrity and the identity of witnesses. 2 If we start revealing, exposing, what happens 3 in a grand jury publicly, you won't get anybody to 4 testify, Senator. 5 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you. 6 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: You're welcome. 7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Anyone else on the Panel 8 wish to ask a question? 9 SENATOR PERKINS: I have a quick question. 10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Perkins. 11 SENATOR PERKINS: Thank you for your 12 testimony. 13 Earlier in your testimony you mentioned your 14 association with District Attorney Morgenthau. 15 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Yes, sir. 16 SENATOR PERKINS: He was a very good district 17 attorney. 18 He overturned the "Central Park Jogger" case 19 and freed the falsely-convicted "Central Park Five." 20 And he did that on the basis of understanding 21 that the confessions were coerced; and, therefore, 22 were not valid, were not worthy. 23 And in response to that, it has about 24 recommended that we do videotaping of 25 interrogations. 1 Have you had any thoughts on that? 2 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Yes, sir. 3 We actually do them on Staten Island. 4 SENATOR PERKINS: Can you explain how you -- 5 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: They're done in 6 one particular precinct. 7 Anybody who is going to be videotaped is 8 brought to the 122 Precinct in Staten Island, and 9 that's where, actually, our borough command is 10 located. 11 We have a separate room where it's done, and 12 it's done only by detectives. 13 And right now, in the experimental stage, 14 Senator, it's only done for certain crimes. It's 15 not done widespread yet because we're still trying 16 to roll it out. 17 Any prosecutor would love to have a 18 confession on tape. It removes all of those 19 concerns, as you spoke about earlier, and I forget, 20 actually, who you were speaking with, but I remember 21 you asking that question before. 22 And it eliminates a lot of that, was someone 23 coerced? not given water? were they browbeaten? 24 So any prosecutor, and any police officer 25 accused of any of those things, any detective would 1 love to have that videotape -- that confession on 2 videotape. 3 A lot of the discussions on it is, like: 4 When does an interrogation begin? When do you start 5 rolling the tape? 6 A lot of interrogations actually begin on the 7 street before you ever get that person into a police 8 station or an interview room. 9 So a lot of the debate is, like: When does 10 it begin? When do you turn the camera on? 11 But it's actually going on now in certain 12 areas. The police department is experimenting with 13 it now, with our office. 14 SENATOR PERKINS: How many areas, or how many 15 experiments, so to speak, are you doing it? 16 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: We're doing it in 17 the 122 Precinct. It's done by detectives only, not 18 police officers; people who are trained in 19 interrogations. And, it's only for certain crimes 20 right now, until they see how it works. And then 21 they're going to probably -- I suspect we will roll 22 on it for any crime. 23 Right now, it's only limited to certain 24 crimes, just because we're trying to work out the 25 kinks. 1 SENATOR PERKINS: Can you share what the 2 certain crimes are? 3 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: One is a 4 homicide. I believe we're doing rapes and 5 burglaries. 6 I think it's the three crimes; three out of 7 the seven majors. 8 SENATOR PERKINS: And do you -- and you say 9 that's only in one precinct? 10 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: But it's -- it's 11 one precinct, Senator, but it's anyone on 12 Staten Island. They're just brought to the one 13 precinct. 14 SENATOR PERKINS: Oh, okay. 15 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: So we don't have 16 a room -- we have four police precincts on 17 Staten Island, so we don't have a room at each 18 precinct if someone's going to be videotaped. 19 We used to bring them, and we still do a lot 20 of times, bring them to my office, because it's more 21 convenient and we have video capability in my 22 office. 23 But for that pilot program, anyone arrested, 24 if you're arrested in the 120, 121 Precinct, you're 25 brought to the 122 Precinct to have it done. But, 1 it's limited to just crimes happening in that 2 precinct. 3 SENATOR PERKINS: And do you have a sort of 4 budgetary idea -- 5 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: It's actually the 6 police department's budget, sir, so I don't know. 7 SENATOR PERKINS: Has it increased that 8 budget, and to what extent? 9 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: I think it's a 10 funded mandate. 11 SENATOR PERKINS: It's a funded mandate. 12 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: I believe it's a 13 funded mandate. 14 SENATOR PERKINS: Do you know what the funds 15 amount might be for -- 16 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: I don't, Senator. 17 I know, in my case, we built my predecessor, 18 Bill Murphy, actually built the room; and, so, the 19 only funding that it costs me when we do it in my 20 office is the staffing. 21 SENATOR PERKINS: So if you could find some 22 of that -- if you can get me some of that 23 information, I would appreciate it. 24 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Will do. 25 SENATOR PERKINS: Because we're looking at 1 that, and it might be something -- 2 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: I know -- 3 because, again, when I was the president of the 4 State DA's Association, one of the things about 5 doing it statewide, is we have 50,000 people that 6 worked in the New York City Police Department. 7 Some of my colleagues upstate, there's a DA 8 and a part-time DA. You know, there's a small 9 police force. And so in some places in our state 10 it's more difficult to do. 11 It's much easier for us to do. 12 SENATOR PERKINS: Right. 13 So I guess, in your state, you have to -- 14 you're suggesting some sort of customization per -- 15 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: I just hate the 16 idea of, a good friend of mine was the DA up in 17 Franklin County. It was himself and, you know, 18 two part-timers, and a handful of police officers 19 that worked in there. 20 For them to do that in the radius of the area 21 that they covered, and not to have the funding for 22 it -- 23 SENATOR PERKINS: I guess they could have 24 done it with an iPhone. 25 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Yeah, I guess so, 1 but I think, actually, that was even before they 2 were around. 3 But we could get you the information about 4 what we're doing on Staten Island -- 5 SENATOR PERKINS: I'd appreciate that. 6 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: -- if that would 7 be helpful. 8 SENATOR PERKINS: Thank you very much. 9 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: You got it. 10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you members of the 11 panel. 12 Especially, thank you District Attorney 13 Donovan. 14 We appreciate your patience. 15 We appreciate your -- 16 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: I'm just blaming 17 Jerry Kassar, so don't worry about it, Senator. 18 Thank you. 19 SENATOR GOLDEN: Someone's got to blame him. 20 DA DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR.: Thank you. 21 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you, Dan. 22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Professors O'Connell, 23 O'Donnell, and Jenkins, please come forward. 24 SENATOR GOLDEN: Sorry for the delay, 25 gentlemen. It's just been one of those afternoons. 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Who did we lose? 2 SENATOR GOLDEN: O'Donnell. He's coming out 3 now. 4 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: He will be here 5 momentarily. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Good afternoon, gentlemen. 7 I should say, good evening now. 8 Thank you very much for participating in the 9 hearing, for waiting until this scheduled hour, at 10 this hour, to testify. 11 We welcome your testimony. 12 First, for the record, if you could each 13 identify yourselves as to, who you are, where you're 14 employed, and what you do, briefly, and then, if you 15 would be so kind, we'll submit -- 16 Did all three of you submit testimony? 17 We have two. 18 The third will be -- each of your submissions 19 will be a part of our official record. 20 So, feel free to summarize what you have, and 21 then let's engage in a dialogue on the issues you 22 present. 23 EUGENE O'DONNELL: Good afternoon, Senator. 24 Eugene O'Donnell, from the John Jay College 25 of Criminal Justice, Department of Law and Police 1 Studies. 2 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: Good afternoon. 3 Paul O'Connell. I'm a professor of criminal 4 justice at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. 5 DR. MICHAEL JENKINS: Hello. 6 Michael Jenkins, assistant professor of 7 criminal justice, sociology, criminology, at the 8 University of Scranton. 9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Welcome, gentlemen. 10 And as I said, if each of you could summarize 11 your testimony, and then we'll address questions as 12 we get going. 13 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: Thank you very much. 14 I think I'll proceed. 15 First of all, it's an honor and a privilege 16 to be invited here today. 17 Allow me to just give a very brief overview 18 of my full testimony that you just received. 19 Our job today, as I see it, is to move 20 cautiously and thoughtfully, to ensure that only 21 necessary reforms are made, rather than drastic 22 change made for purpose of appeasement or political 23 expediency that will do nothing more than create 24 unnecessary new layers of bureaucracy that would 25 compromise the functioning and the integrity of the 1 criminal justice system; or, more importantly, 2 interfere with the balance of safety and justice in 3 this state. 4 The question of the day is: How do we 5 improve the safety of both the public and the police 6 who serve them? 7 Allow me to attempt to answer that. 8 First, with regard to the grand jury, the 9 thought of creating yet another stratum of 10 bureaucracy to review police-involved cases that do 11 not result in indictment, or the proposal to more 12 dramatically revise the grand jury process, is, in 13 my opinion, both foolhardy and deserving of very 14 little consideration. 15 "Broken-windows." 16 Broken-windows has been proven to work. The 17 results speak for themselves. 18 Critics suggest that broken-windows policing 19 simply serves as a hyperaggressive form of policing 20 that is designed to further harasses citizens. 21 That is not the case. 22 We must recognize that broken-windows has now 23 become an integral part of community policing. 24 If we abandon broken-windows, we will abandon 25 community policing; indeed, we will abandon our 1 citizens. 2 It is wrong to assume that the police have an 3 inflexible program of enforcement that they're 4 seeking to aggressively impose upon the community. 5 In reality, the community has a great deal of 6 input into formulating these strategies, and the 7 police, with the community, share the responsibility 8 to engage on this. 9 These are the issues that emerge at community 10 board meetings. 11 Communities provide the police with the 12 issues that concern them most, and it is up to the 13 police to listen to them and to frame an appropriate 14 response. 15 Broken-windows is that response. 16 It is not an offensive form of policing that 17 is maliciously or gratuitously imposed upon a 18 community; rather, it is a unique form of 19 responsiveness that I believe must continue. 20 "Stop-and-frisk." 21 This is an issue of officer safety and public 22 safety, plain and simple. 23 There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the 24 stop-and-frisk procedure. 25 What deserves scrutiny is New York City's 1 former "stop-and-frisk program," as it has come to 2 be known. 3 As I see it, the real problem began when 4 stop, question, and frisk became a key performance 5 measure for the NYPD. 6 As Silverman and Eterno found in their 7 2010 study, police managers experienced significant 8 pressure to produce numbers. Many succumbed to this 9 pressure, and a very large number of needless stops 10 were apparently made. 11 You see, and this is a very important point, 12 in order to be lawful, stops must occur naturally. 13 They cannot be mandated or created artificially 14 without severely compromising civil rights. 15 Now, the analogy that I provide my students 16 at Iona is this: Officer O'Connell, being 17 instructed to prepare five vehicle accident reports 18 during his eight-hour day shift. 19 If the traffic accidents do not occur, 20 I cannot make or force them to happen. 21 I can, however, manufacture stop-and-frisks 22 if I am pushed hard enough or far enough. 23 The NYPD itself, I believe, is well aware of 24 this, and I believe well on their way to correcting 25 these prior deficiencies, but, as long as police 1 officers are called upon to respond to and to 2 investigate violent crimes, they will continue to 3 have street encounters with some very dangerous 4 persons. 5 Stop-and-frisk is a vital and a necessary 6 tool for all police officers throughout this state; 7 a safety issue, plain and simple. 8 Today I issue a challenge, for developing, 9 not simply more training, but different training, 10 with better training, more-effective police 11 training. 12 The training-versus-education dichotomy has 13 been discussed and debated among academics and 14 professionals for many years. 15 There's a subtle but a very real difference 16 between these two terms. 17 "Training" is primarily used in 18 organizations, like police organizations, to impart 19 basic core skills to new employees. 20 Police departments across this country, 21 I believe, have been fooling themselves into 22 thinking that ethics, or the topic of 23 police-community relations, are appropriate subjects 24 for training. 25 Ethics, as I'm sure you can see, is a topic 1 for "education." It really requires a deep 2 conceptual understanding. 3 We need to engage a person's higher-level 4 thought processes if we are ever to expect to make 5 them agree to explore their core personal beliefs, 6 and to internalize their learning, and then to 7 conform their personal behaviors while policing the 8 people of this state. 9 Traditionally, police training in America has 10 been delivered in a somewhat disjointed, rather 11 haphazard manner. 12 Stand-alone training modules are often 13 delivered randomly, based largely upon an officer's 14 work schedule, with little thought to curriculum 15 design, or an overarching departmental training 16 plan, or the possible interactive effects among 17 different lessons. But lessons can no longer be 18 delivered or understood as discreet topics. 19 Training must be interactive, it must be 20 scenario-based, it must be dynamic, and above all, 21 it must be realistic. 22 Many departments in this state have made 23 great strides in this area, but more needs to be 24 done. 25 Civilians, I believe, should be used to 1 supplement police actors during scenario-based 2 training. 3 I believe that all training academies in this 4 state and most of our larger police departments 5 should have curriculum advisory committees that 6 would be made up of civilian educators, clergy, and 7 community leaders who can serve an advisory function 8 when developing and delivering police training. 9 We should also examine the notions of 10 developing the next generation of citizens' police 11 academies. 12 And I think, also, encouraging 13 properly-trained police officers who currently serve 14 as school resource officers to actually stand in 15 front of the classroom and deliver street-law 16 classes to the youth of this state, to prepare them 17 for encounters with the police, by explaining 18 constitutional protections, as well as expectations 19 for personal conduct. 20 I believe we must make every effort to 21 improve the overall quality of police training and 22 education in the state of New York. 23 There are indeed costs associated with this, 24 but the costs of inaction are far greater. 25 From a risk management and a 1 community-relations standpoint, it is the only 2 logical way forward. 3 This is the common ground. 4 In closing, let me say that our goal is 5 clear, and I think it is, indeed, within reach. 6 Despite all the rhetoric, police departments 7 in this state do not have to dramatically revise 8 their procedures, or, devise a strategy for policing 9 African-Americans, or, a plan, a specific plan, for 10 policing Koreans or Haitian people. 11 Rather, they need to treat all people in this 12 state with the same degree of respect and 13 professionalism. 14 It's the Golden Rule: Do unto others. 15 Policing is a very noble profession, and the 16 men and women drawn to it each have a moral compass 17 that will guide them. 18 Police officers need to be instructed and 19 actively encouraged to treat the people they 20 encounter each day exactly the way they would wish 21 their family members to be treated. 22 What we ask is that our officers retain or 23 acquire that degree of mindfulness to consider, 24 perhaps, that the homeless man sleeping under the 25 overpass might, in fact, be a war veteran with 1 two bronze stars, or, that the emotionally-disturbed 2 woman on the subway platform might be a mother of 3 three who is simply off her meds. 4 So the key, as I see it, is to reframe police 5 training, to make it more transparent and to make it 6 more inclusive, to allow and encourage our officers 7 to be who they already are: decent people who strive 8 to help others and to do the right thing. 9 Thank you. 10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Mr. O'Connell. 11 Mr. O'Donnell. 12 EUGENE O'DONNELL: Thank you, Senators. 13 And let me first acknowledge my friend and 14 neighbor, Chairman Golden. 15 And, also, on the other side, Senator 16 Perkins. We were co-workers and co-colleagues in 17 the Dinkins' campaign 20-some-odd years ago. 18 So I don't want to talk ideology, and I'll 19 speak very briefly. 20 I think a lot of what we should be talking 21 about is civics, really. 22 And over the past few months, we've had a lot 23 of misinformation. I wouldn't call it 24 disinformation. 25 So any reforms we're talking about have to be 1 built on truth. 2 And the DA on Staten Island just alluded to 3 one of the truths that's involved. 4 The grand jury is an important device, and it 5 is not simply police people that escape indictment 6 in the grand jury. 7 That was said, and resaid, over and over this 8 summer. It's not true. 9 It is not unusual for ordinary citizens to go 10 into the grand jury, assert that they acted in 11 self-defense, and no-true bill will be returned. 12 Indeed, in this city, people go into the 13 grand jury and claim they were unlawfully searched, 14 drug- and gun-possession cases, and they're no-true 15 billed. 16 So this issue that could you indict a ham 17 sandwich, and that only a police officer can escape 18 indictment, is simply not true. And the DA alluded 19 to that. 20 Also, obviously, with the grand jury, it's 21 very important to protect witnesses. 22 In a police shooting, I've investigated them 23 as a DA, we are looking, always, for individuals on 24 the street who have no connection to the incident. 25 And in this environment where there is 1 intimation, we want to give every assurance to 2 witnesses they will not be intimated. 3 I think there was some good-faith commentary 4 made about NYPD this summer. 5 I don't need to revisit the bad-faith 6 commentary made about NYPD. 7 I would just simply ask everyone across the 8 partisan divide: 9 I come from a school where young people are 10 thinking of a police career. 11 Surprisingly, not a lot of young people are 12 thinking about running for office. I wish they 13 would. They're not. 14 Think of the implication of saying some of 15 the things that were said this summer. 16 And I think what we heard this summer, it's 17 of absolute importance, when mistruths are said, to 18 stop people; and particularly in light of the NYPD. 19 This is an organization of 35,000 people that 20 have 5 million recorded 911 calls, uncountable 21 numbers of other interactions. 22 This is a police department that has 23 48 shootings a year. 24 Okay? 25 Almost invariably in those shootings, there's 1 a weapon found. The weapon has been brandished. 2 Also really importantly, we do have to 3 dissect the fact of cases. 4 You hear sometimes people referring to 5 Garner, Louima, Diallo, Curly. That's really not 6 fair to the organization. These are all different 7 situations. 8 Louima, obviously, is a brutal, unjustifiable 9 attack on someone, where somebody is doing a 10 tremendous period of incarceration. 11 But to lump these together, not only is it a 12 disservice of trying to get to the truth of what the 13 police do, but then you create a narrative. Just, 14 here comes another NYPD example of abuse. 15 And it's just simply not, I don't believe, 16 borne out by the record. And we could go over that 17 in some great detail. 18 I think the roots of the Garner case is the 19 failure to recognize that police ultimately do use 20 force on people. 21 We don't recruit them on that basis. 22 We don't really want to train them on that 23 basis. 24 We're not comfortable with the topic. 25 We don't go to the Gleason's Gym and get big 1 bruisers on the job. I don't think most of us would 2 want that. 3 But, really, the roots of the Garner case, as 4 I read it, in the absence of malice, unless somebody 5 sees malice that I don't see evidence of, is really 6 bungling and ineffectiveness and inability to -- and 7 the Commissioner acknowledged this by talking about 8 retaining. 9 I'll be brief. This is just a couple other 10 things I want to say. 11 DA Donovan, just to go back to the 12 grand jury, said something very useful, I think, in 13 terms of reform. 14 I actually believe the DAs themselves, rather 15 than presenting cases -- some of these police cases 16 to the grand jury, or, if they do present cases to 17 the grand jury, there should be a report. 18 The Kiko Garcia case in New York City in 19 1992, some people may remember that case, 20 radioactively hot. The Manhattan DA issued, I think 21 it was a 78-page report, after the Kiko Garcia -- 22 basically demonstrating that the allegations made 23 against the police in that case were completely 24 unwarranted. 25 Nobody was in the dark. 1 Some people will remember that. It was a 2 very hot time in the city. 3 I'm sure some of the Senators will remember 4 that. 5 And, actually, once the evidence was laid 6 bare, that case sort of went away. 7 Not that, ultimately, some people might not 8 have thought it was an injustice, but the evidence 9 was simply not there. 10 Finally, because I'm going to go real 11 quickly, I'm going to make an appeal to the Senate 12 today, and the Legislature. 13 And I think -- again, I think DA Donovan, 14 because I heard him allude to this, there's a 15 tremendous amount of lack of understanding what the 16 police do. 17 Again, this wire form should not be based on 18 disinformation. 19 In red states, in blue states, in our state, 20 coast to coast, police officers don't get indicted 21 for on-duty events, because when police officers do 22 their job, they're acting differently than other 23 people. 24 No matter how you change the model, I don't 25 think you're going to change that result. 1 And that's a sobering reality people have to 2 think about when they are law-making, because when 3 we put the police forward, inevitably, and the 4 lawmakers know this, under Article 35, the police 5 have very broad, sweeping powers to defend 6 themselves and defend others in connection with 7 that. 8 And I'll stop now. 9 I want to make this appeal to the 10 Legislature: 11 I believe the Legislature could help. 12 We should create a high school program, 13 perhaps with a video, across the partisan divide, of 14 people explaining what the police do; the powers 15 they have; why it is that those powers should not be 16 challenged on the street by people; why the 17 legislators, in their wisdom, have given the police 18 these powers; and how difficult it is to unwind 19 this; and, also, that the laws are made in their 20 name. 21 SENATOR GOLDEN: When would you do that? 22 EUGENE O'DONNELL: I'm sorry? 23 SENATOR GOLDEN: What age group would you do 24 that with? 25 EUGENE O'DONNELL: Well, we did a program at 1 John Jay for -- I would say high school. 2 But I would like to see you guys do it, 3 because you're the architects of the system. 4 And this ownership of the system, this idea 5 that the system just floats out on its own, we have 6 a Legislature that creates more laws every year, 7 pushes the police forward every year. Your offices 8 are hot beds of people calling up and making 9 requests to the community. 10 We can talk about remedies for police abuse. 11 That should be part of it. 12 But I would respectfully ask the Legislature, 13 and now I will stop, to consider doing it. 14 Across the partisan divide, demographic 15 divide, that you, face-to-face, own the system that 16 you're the architects of, on behalf of the people of 17 the city. 18 And I'm happy to help with specific ideas 19 about how that should be done. 20 But continuing this idea that something is 21 wrong because the police have powers that they're 22 given repeatedly by the Legislature, is not true. 23 And, again, going off to reform, when we 24 don't get our facts correct, will inevitably lead to 25 bad reforms. 1 Thank you. 2 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Dr. Jenkins. 3 DR. MICHAEL JENKINS: Dear members of the 4 Joint Committee, I am honored to have the 5 opportunity to address you today, especially 6 alongside the two esteemed professors and former 7 practitioners whom I join. 8 The safety of the police and the public is an 9 area of civic life that should be at the forefront 10 of every mind concerned with ensuring more vibrant 11 and healthy communities. 12 The trend for violent interactions between 13 police and citizens is generally downward. 14 Police use force in just 1.5 percent of 15 police-citizen interactions nationwide each year. 16 The use of what a citizen can perceive as 17 excessive force is even less common. 18 However, police-involved homicides of 19 citizens have been increasing, and the number of 20 law-enforcement officers killed by firearms in the 21 line of duty jumped 56 percent from 2013 to 2014. 22 The determinants of police-citizen encounters 23 gone bad are many. They range from inadequate 24 police selection, training, and supervision, to 25 organizational elements that focus on quantity over 1 quality, to ingrained disdain for the police by 2 some, and, economic, educational, and criminal 3 justice systemic failures that go far beyond the 4 bounds of policing. 5 At the heart of our grappling to understand 6 the many potential dangers of abuse by or of police 7 is the impossible mandate that police face; a 8 mandate that gives them the authority to infringe 9 upon individual rights, even to take one's life; 10 while at the same time, calling them to protect an 11 individual's due process rights and to practice the 12 utmost restraint. 13 An officer must equally and fully meet these 14 two opposite ends of the spectrum every time they 15 interact with a citizen. 16 The circumstances surrounding the deaths of 17 Eric Garner and Michael Brown demonstrate the 18 inherent difficulties in finding that balance in 19 neighborhoods like those in which the two lost their 20 lives. 21 We must acknowledge three realities that make 22 the seemingly mundane encounter turn deadly. 23 First, a history that affects the situation 24 at hand; 25 Second, police professional or individual 1 culpability; 2 And, third, the responsibility of the 3 community or citizen involved. 4 The aftermath of the Michael Brown incident 5 revealed that, by most calculations, positive 6 relationships between the Ferguson police and their 7 community were historically nonexistent. Policing 8 was a one-way street: the police policed Ferguson. 9 This does not seem to be the case here with 10 the NYPD, although the conversation surrounding the 11 ruling in "Floyd versus City of New York" may 12 suggest otherwise. 13 Second, there is no doubt that, in some 14 cases, police overstep the boundaries defined by 15 legal or departmental authorities. 16 It is not difficult for many of us to imagine 17 situations where police might curse at or disrespect 18 a citizen. 19 We must consider, then, what effect such 20 salutations have on any ensuing citizen cooperation, 21 or lack thereof. 22 If such interaction is possible, then we must 23 train and hold accountable police officers for 24 treating citizens in ways that increase police 25 legitimacy and ensure procedural justice. 1 In the Eric Garner video, even those of us 2 not trained in such areas can likely think of many 3 other ways the officers could have handled that 4 situation without using physical force. 5 Furthermore, NYPD officers had had multiple 6 interactions with Garner prior to the fatal 7 encounter on July 17th. 8 Were these lost opportunities to prevent the 9 problem from arising in the future? 10 Did police learn information from Garner in 11 his actions that affected the decisions they made on 12 July 17th? 13 Either way, we must ask ourselves: How have 14 our previous actions gotten us into such 15 life-threatening situations in which the killing of 16 an unarmed person could be legally, and maybe even 17 morally, justified? 18 The fact that an officer might ultimately be 19 justified in the use of deadly force does not excuse 20 the many prior decisions that got him or her to a 21 point where deadly force was viewed as a reasonable 22 option. 23 Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn recently 24 affirmed such thinking in his determination to fire 25 an officer, not for using excessive force, but, 1 rather, for the choices the officer made in the 2 moments leading to the shooting death. 3 How could we have precluded these negative 4 exchanges from arising in the first place? 5 The use of technology to gather, analyze, and 6 disseminate relevant information aids police in 7 working with the community to define 8 neighborhood-specific problems and to create 9 realistic solutions that will likely include 10 multiple stakeholders in which only, in certain 11 circumstances, will rely solely on arrests. 12 We must also be honest about the 13 responsibility of the community or citizen involved. 14 We must recognize those citizen behaviors 15 that may contribute to their poor relationships with 16 police or to the application of force against them. 17 When people repeatedly disrespect the police 18 or when police are faced with the stop-snitching 19 mantra as they try to gather information to solve 20 robberies, shootings, or homicides, it is not 21 surprising that officers might become jaded, 22 suspicious, or defensive. 23 By all accounts, in both the Brown and Garner 24 cases, the decedents failed to abide by the lawful 25 commands of police officers. 1 We must look beyond individual-level 2 explanations to understand why this seemed like a 3 reasonable response. 4 In the history police-and-community equation, 5 the police contribution must be weighted most 6 heavily. 7 The police are those individuals whom we 8 commission to serve the public good, and to whom we 9 should give great respect in line with the power we 10 grant them. 11 Finally, let me conclude with a caution 12 against the suggestion that some reformers are 13 positing, that police ignore lower-level offenses 14 and give up on broken-windows policing. 15 I'll skip over some of the comments that 16 I had prepared, and I just echo support that 17 Professor O'Connell offered in his statements. 18 But let me just add, that taking police 19 attention away from these problems of disorder would 20 turn back the proverbial clock to a time when police 21 viewed themselves as professionally-remote crime 22 fighters, instead of the guardians and caretakers of 23 our communities that we want them to be. 24 Communities plagued by the root causes of 25 criminal behavior often lack the informal controls 1 necessary to deal with such quality-of-life 2 offenses. 3 The police, traditionally seen as the 4 defenders of status-quo-maintaining systems, would 5 only further damage their legitimacy by turning 6 their back on the so-called "minor offenses" that 7 most often concern citizens and that diminish their 8 quality of life. 9 Police attention to broken-windows, in the 10 case of Eric Garner's selling of loose cigarettes, 11 did not cause his death. 12 Turning the focus toward an assault on a 13 proven policing practice will only further 14 compromise the safety of neighborhoods and stifle 15 the necessary changes police should make. 16 Thank you. 17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. 18 Gentlemen, questions from the panel? 19 SENATOR GOLDEN: I'd like to (a) thank the 20 Panel for coming forward. Thank you for staying 21 this afternoon. 22 And, obviously, this is a little bit belated 23 and we would like to have gone on. 24 But, all of the testimony you've given is a 25 good testimony that we will all take into 1 consideration as we write new legislation. 2 But I will tell, you talk about a case that 3 went back in 1992. 4 You don't remember, there were 2245 homicides 5 that year in the city of New York. 6 This year it will be 300 -- I think -- what 7 did they finish up, 320 homicides last year. 8 And, right now, homicides are up, and so are 9 rapes. 10 We're hoping -- and shootings. 11 But it's early in the year, and we're hoping 12 that that gets corrected, and, God willing, it does. 13 But that all comes down to the broken-windows 14 theory, it comes down to policing, it comes down to 15 the ability for the police to go out there and do 16 their job, and to do it and feel safe, that they're 17 doing it with the support of the community. 18 You know, we talk about -- you talked about 19 the thinking [unintelligible]. 20 Was that the "beacon" program, when the 21 "beacon" programs came into effect? 22 There's the perfect example of where we had 23 2245 homicides in 1992, and now we have 320 or so. 24 We did a tremendous, tremendous, and I got to 25 give Police Commissioner Bratton his due, and, of 1 course, Police Commissioner Kelly as well, their due 2 in continuing to bring crime down under those two 3 administrations. 4 But I got to tell you what we did not do, was 5 keep up with the number of beacons that we had 6 across the districts, across our city. 7 We didn't keep up with the after-school 8 programs that we had, and should have had. 9 We didn't keep up with PALs. I don't know 10 if any PALs in the communities, or across the 11 districts, and across the our city. 12 Big Brother, I don't see any of them out 13 there in a lot of communities where they should be. 14 I seen us cut back at City Council and state 15 level when it came to funding, where we could have 16 done something that you pointed out here, and that's 17 called "education," bringing police and communities 18 closer together. 19 I'm hoping some of this stuff that we hear 20 today from the three professors here, that we will 21 be able to coalesce around legislation that will 22 bring our communities closer together, and give the 23 police departments the ability to do their job, the 24 district attorneys to do their jobs, without 25 imposing legislation upon legislation upon 1 legislation. 2 Now, there's legislation on the books since 3 the beginning of time. It never comes off; it just 4 keeps mounting up. 5 It's not about legislation in a lot of cases. 6 It's just about common sense, and working 7 together with our communities to make that happen. 8 So I want to thank you all for being here. 9 And you pointed about shootings. 10 Shootings go down in a split second and you 11 got to make a decision. 12 You may take, you know, 10 years, 15 years in 13 a police department, and, in a split second, you got 14 to make a decision on life. 15 So, it's very troubling to some, but that's 16 what they're trained for, that's what they've been 17 trained for. And we should allow them the ability 18 to do what they do. 19 And we should go to the training factor, and 20 combat -- not combat -- but paramilitary training 21 within our institutions, so that our police officers 22 are better trained, as you seen the increase in the 23 number of police shootings across the country. Not 24 just here in the city of New York, but across the 25 country. 1 So I want to thank the three of you for your 2 service, and thank you for coming out here today to 3 give us what I believe is great information. 4 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: Thank you, Senator. 5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Gallivan. 6 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you, Chairman. 7 Thank you gentlemen, all, for your testimony. 8 Dr. Jenkins, because you happen to, in your 9 written testimony, answered the question that I had 10 in my mind: the broken-windows theory. 11 And I appreciate everybody's testimony about 12 that. 13 Critics have suggested that it hasn't been 14 proven with research, with empirical data, that it's 15 a successful practice. 16 And, you made reference to three different 17 researchers that, essentially, have examined it. 18 And I'm just asking if you would be able to 19 provide us -- we can get your information 20 afterwards -- provide us with that reference of 21 those particular studies. 22 DR. MICHAEL JENKINS: Sure, I'd be happy to. 23 SENATOR GALLIVAN: I would be very interested 24 in looking at it. 25 DR. MICHAEL JENKINS: It goes back as early 1 as the 1960s. 2 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Just a little bit of 3 homework for you, not a question. 4 DR. MICHAEL JENKINS: My pleasure. 5 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Mr. O'Donnell, the notion 6 of, the one thing that you had asked us, about a 7 high school curriculum, I don't know how it's been 8 lost, but, the whole notion of parents teaching 9 their kids civic responsibility has been lost in 10 some communities. 11 And, I think that's a great suggestion, that 12 I would be interested in further conversations as 13 well. 14 EUGENE O'DONNELL: If I could just say, 15 really briefly, because I mention it in here, we 16 also need to reignite a conversation about civility. 17 We shouldn't be trying to intimidate people into 18 being respectful to the police. 19 But over the last year or two, or however 20 long it's been, we have this notion that it's okay 21 to be actively disrespectful and combative with the 22 police in a way we wouldn't tolerate with judges, 23 in a way we wouldn't tolerate with prosecutors, and 24 I hope with lawmakers we wouldn't tolerate it 25 either. That there's a respect for the office. 1 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: It's tolerated with 2 lawmakers. 3 [Laughter.] 4 EUGENE O'DONNELL: Well, I know it's 5 tolerated with lawmakers, but I don't think you 6 would tolerate disruption here very long. 7 I mean the idea is, and it shouldn't be 8 imposed at the point of handcuffing people. 9 But, we have police officers, for example, 10 who work demonstrations, that get yelled at for 11 eight hours. You know, the most vile things are 12 screamed in their face. 13 And it's a First Amendment right to do what 14 you got to do, but maybe to reorient that 15 conversation as part of civics. 16 You can do it. Should you do it? 17 Is it helpful to us as a society? 18 SENATOR GALLIVAN: I look forward to more 19 conversations about that. 20 And, finally, now you really get to answer a 21 question. 22 You -- I don't know if it was your direct 23 testimony, but you seemed to imply school resource 24 officers will help to improve police-community 25 relations. 1 Can you expound on that? 2 I mean, do you believe that they would? 3 And how would that actually take place? 4 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: I've actually studied 5 police departments now, I think, in 20 different 6 states, and I've seen a spectrum of duties 7 associated with the SRO title. 8 Some, literally, are just bodyguards. 9 After New Town, I would say virtually every 10 community in this nation experienced the angst and 11 the terror, and the knee-jerk reaction was: Put a 12 cop in every school. 13 But beyond that, you know, the DARE officer, 14 the DARE program has diminished dramatically, 15 probably for good reason, over the years. 16 But as that diminished, the police had this 17 law-enforcement role. 18 And what I'm suggesting is, if they're there 19 already -- I mean, when I went on the job, I had a 20 teaching degree. I was -- I had certification, 21 grades 7 through to 12. 22 I got pulled off patrol and sent down to the 23 academy to teach recruits, but I could just as 24 easily have been sent to Bryant High School in 25 Astoria to teach seniors, because I was certified. 1 There's a lot of extremely talented men and 2 women in the NYPD. You know, we have people who are 3 doctors, attorneys, and teachers. 4 If you could just get them out there to have 5 these conversations that we're having today with the 6 kids, and to get them early enough -- and I agree, 7 you know, probably freshmen in high school 8 throughout -- and get the communication. 9 This is all about communication. 10 It's not about restructuring the architecture 11 of the criminal justice system. 12 You know, maybe I'm naive, but I'll stake my 13 reputation on this: It's about teaching respect. 14 And once you -- you know, I would suggest -- 15 much like the District Attorney said, I would 16 suggest that, in this state, probably 15 or 17 20 percent of the population really understands what 18 a grand jury is. 19 A grand jury is designed as a screen or a 20 protection to guard against a runaway criminal 21 justice system, and it has to be understood as such. 22 And the question is, how do you do that? 23 And I think it's taking these professionals 24 who do put their lives on the line, have them go 25 into the class and sit down with these kids, and, 1 you know, respect them and open the communications. 2 I know in my heart of hearts it will bear 3 fruit out on the streets, and it's going to diminish 4 the risks both for the public and for the police, 5 going forward. 6 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you. 7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I just have a couple of 8 comments and questions. 9 The first is a comment. 10 When Professor O'Donnell was indicating that 11 educational process, Senator Gallivan and I think 12 it's a great idea. We've reviewed your testimony 13 and I think it makes all the sense in the world. 14 I remember my Cub Scout den mother taking her 15 little pack of Cub Scouts, at the 9- or 16 10-years-old, to the local police department to see 17 what it was all about. 18 And that kind of education is very important. 19 It instills something in a young person to respect 20 law enforcement, to understand the role of 21 law enforcement. To see a lock-up. To see the fact 22 that you can be involved in those kinds of issues as 23 a young person; understand what they are all about, 24 or try to understand. 25 And that's -- that education process is part 1 of -- I think, is essential to our democracy. 2 And I'm glad you raised it, and it's 3 something we want to pursue. 4 Professor O'Connell, I'd like you to address 5 two subjects. 6 The first is the training issue. 7 I think you're right on target regarding one 8 size doesn't fit all. 9 The type of training is important, as 10 anything. And just simply training something, 11 coaching in a way that teaches you the wrong play or 12 the wrong role is counterproductive. 13 Have you analyzed -- earlier, 14 Commissioner Bratton talked about the new programs 15 that they're establishing. 16 Have you had an opportunity to look at any of 17 those? 18 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: I have not, but I can 19 tell you this: Everything I've read, and, 20 certainly, what I heard from the Commissioner this 21 afternoon, suggests that Commissioner Bratton 22 understands this issue intimately, and that he's 23 moving a very large organization that -- I did my 24 doctoral dissertation on CompStat, and its 25 development in the NYPD. And the one thing 1 I learned is police organizations change slowly. 2 They're quite resistant to change. 3 Cultural changes take time. 4 I think we're running out of time, and 5 I think the Commissioner understands that. 6 So everything I've read, including the new 7 proposals that, literally, are just coming out 8 today, about a new patrol-staffing plan, and really 9 getting cops back out of the police cars. 10 You know, I personally don't believe that 11 bulletproofing the police cars is the right 12 direction to go. 13 I think it's getting the cops out to converse 14 with individuals. 15 That's where the -- 16 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Good luck. 17 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: Well, yeah. 18 But I believe Commissioner Bratton 19 understands this. 20 So, no, I apologize, I have not examined it 21 in detail. 22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: No need to apologize. 23 If you ever -- those kinds of things will 24 certainly be tested in time. 25 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: Absolutely. 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I didn't get a total price 2 tag. I think he mentioned a multimillion-dollar 3 program in his testimony. 4 But the fact is, what types of resources 5 should we be deploying towards that training 6 objective? 7 And, it's one that this Committee has been 8 trying to grapple with. 9 Lastly, the "grand jury" issue, all three of 10 you touched on it in a variety of different ways. 11 We're going to be presented with a very 12 specific request. 13 We already have been. 14 Others have said they oppose it; 15 diametrically oppose it. 16 Others say they think it's an intriguing 17 idea. 18 Others have said they support it. 19 Have you -- and particularly you, 20 Professor O'Connell, addressed in your comments 21 directly -- all three of you, I would appreciate 22 your thoughts on that subject. 23 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: I'd like to distinguish 24 between the proposal to make the process somewhat 25 more transparent, and then the process to create 1 another layer of review. 2 The latter I would dismiss out of hand. 3 As far as shining a light into the inner 4 workings of the grand jury process, again, to 5 educate the public, because, again, I would suggest 6 most people really don't understand it. 7 The District Attorney, if he's in favor of 8 it, if the -- I would be guided by what they say. 9 They're the people doing it. 10 If they think that more, you know, knowledge 11 is power, more information would benefit the 12 process, by all means, who am I to stand, you know, 13 in between that. 14 But as far as creating another layer of 15 review, it's -- you know, it's the old saying, 16 "Don't raise the bridge, lower the river." 17 We're making far too much out of it. 18 I think the process can be efficient, can 19 work as it was intended, with a little bit more 20 information provided. 21 EUGENE O'DONNELL: Can I just quickly add, 22 one of the reasons I was suggesting that the 23 legislators be involved with this, Article 35 in 24 this state requires that if you claim self-defense, 25 it has to be disproved beyond a reasonable doubt. 1 Now, I spent a summer talking to the press, 2 with all due respect, and because of the format of 3 news reporting, we've had conversations about police 4 work that never involved the law. 5 Okay? 6 Whether it's hard to describe to people or it 7 bores people or it's seen as inside baseball, the 8 law is dispositive in these cases the more doubt you 9 have about whether somebody is or is not justified. 10 When a police officer says, unless you have 11 some reason to doubt the officer, "That I believed 12 at that moment, my life or somebody else's life was 13 in danger, somebody was in peril," unless a 14 prosecutor can, basically, put that beyond doubt, 15 then the defendant, ultimately, if he's in a 16 criminal trial, must be found not guilty. 17 That's not trivia. That's central to the 18 conversation. 19 Rolling off on reforms without stopping and 20 explaining that to people, is crucial. 21 Any prosecutor will tell you, when a case 22 comes in, civilian or police, and it's a 23 self-defense case, that is, inherently, going to be 24 a difficult case. 25 When it's a police case, it's almost going to 1 be an impossible case. 2 Again, coast to coast, red state, blue state, 3 no matter who the demographics are, the police are 4 vested with broad powers. It's very hard to tamper 5 with that. 6 And, again, this is why these cases, why DAs 7 should be explaining this in a, perhaps, written 8 document. 9 It may not get any attention because the 10 emotion overrules this, but the law is what points 11 you to what happens in these cases. And the law is, 12 basically, a very high standard for a prosecutor to 13 prove somebody not justified beyond a reasonable 14 doubt. 15 Very high standard. 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It's an important 17 standard. 18 And, I had a number of police officers, we 19 all have, but, this week in the state Capitol, we 20 were visited by a number of police organizations, 21 individual officers, and not just from big-city 22 police forces, but small town -- relatively small 23 compared to New York City -- town offices. And each 24 of us was visited by them, and this was an issue of 25 great concern to them, because it -- the finality of 1 the process is so undetermined under what's being 2 suggested. 3 Having another review puts, certainly, 4 another whole layer on the process that doesn't 5 necessarily have a timeline or a definitive 6 conclusion. 7 At least, it can be, in effect, putting an 8 individual's conduct in limbo for years. 9 So, it's something that we're all trying to 10 weigh. 11 Dr. Jenkins, did you have anything to add? 12 DR. MICHAEL JENKINS: I would just add to the 13 point that, you know, perceptions do matter with 14 these circumstances. And, if there's a perception 15 that a grand jury is not proceeding in a just way, 16 that affects relationships. 17 And that's what we're trying to talk about 18 here, are relationships between police and the 19 community. 20 And so, practically speaking, logistically 21 speaking, and in terms of the law, we have to talk 22 about that, but we have to be mindful of the 23 perceptions that the community might be getting if a 24 grand jury process is not viewed as just. 25 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator. 1 SENATOR SANDERS: Thank you. 2 Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 3 First let me say that I think that problems 4 with the police departments certainly existed -- 5 police and community existed before these policies 6 came about. 7 These policies, I would argue, have made 8 things worse to some degree, but existed before 9 them. And it would be unscientific just to say that 10 these are -- were it only that simple that we can 11 say, These are the problems. 12 And I wish that the world were that simple. 13 I would just urge everybody, that I'm sitting 14 here, and it seems that we're talking about 15 two different worlds. 16 Two different worlds, my friends. 17 And I have the privilege, and the 18 responsibility, of communicating to both of these 19 worlds, to say that there are things that -- well, 20 I am reminded, of course, of the 21 philosopher Disraeli who spoke of statistics. 22 And all of you remember that he said, "There 23 are three types of lies: Lies, damned lies, and 24 statistics." 25 And, there's a thing called "group memory." 1 Group memory, it's related to history. It's 2 basically history. 3 And I'm telling you of a group memory that 4 says there were very few people who believed that 5 there would be an indictment. 6 And there are -- and that group, that number, 7 is declining, not increasing. 8 My friends, that is not a good thing. It's 9 going the wrong way. 10 We have to figure out what to do with it. 11 If fewer and fewer people believe that there 12 is justice, then, sadly, no amount of conversation 13 is worthy as conversation is going to be. 14 You could do a pizza party, you could do a 15 basketball game, you could do whatever you wish, 16 people need to see a type of justice. 17 Now, we all will have to wrestle with what 18 does this mean, this word "justice"? 19 I mean, you know, from Russo to Mills, say 20 all of these guys, we've been wrestling with this 21 idea. 22 What does this mean? And what does this mean 23 in this context? 24 Now, concretely, with all due respect, I will 25 certainly take issue with, that the broken-windows 1 equals community policing. 2 I had a very small role, very, very small 3 role, in Safe Street, Safe City program. 4 I actually was in the Department of Youth 5 Services, and we helped design, Senator, the beacon 6 schools. 7 I was one of those functionaries way down in 8 some basement that helped design that part of it. 9 So I understand that community policing does 10 not necessarily equal the broken-windows theory. 11 You can certainly do it without that. 12 And, the stop-and-frisk, which is a 13 legitimate policing practice, can be abused. That 14 you can make vast abuse of this; and, therefore, 15 counteract it. 16 I mean, if we say that broken-windows was a 17 working philosophy, and, frisking got stopped and 18 frisked, the counterargument is, then, with the 19 decline of stop-and-frisk, crime should be spiking 20 through the roof. 21 And, the counterargument to broken-windows 22 is, during the police slowdown, or whatever, we 23 haven't given it a real name, crime should have 24 spiked through the roof. 25 We did not see these things; therefore, there 1 is more afoot. There must be more afoot. 2 It may be a part of the truth, but it's not 3 the whole truth. There must be more to this. 4 So, therefore, there may be other ways. 5 There are other cities, large cities, that do 6 not use these policies; and, yet, are bringing down 7 crime. 8 Crime in the nation, of course, is going 9 down. 10 We should point those things out. 11 Now, I will -- to respect time, I will ask 12 each of you a question, and then I will stop. 13 And I'll ask the questions first, and then 14 you can answer them. 15 To Professor -- Lecturer, I'll be kind -- 16 Lecturer O'Connell, can you explain what I just said 17 about broken-windows and why there was no spike? 18 If this policy was so central and critical, 19 then why is the information counters -- well, I'll 20 let you do that. 21 To Professor Jenkins, if you would be kind 22 enough -- well, not kind enough -- that's a -- let 23 me do it a different way: 24 How can we -- what can we do to weed out 25 and -- or -- weed out and/or -- to more effectively 1 weed out and change, if need be, latent racism 2 within an institution? 3 What can we do about that? 4 And, of course, to Professional O'Donnell, 5 your civil rights -- your video is very 6 interesting -- your civic video is very -- to call 7 it something, I trust that it will take into account 8 that -- Thoreau, Gandhi -- that just because you 9 have an authority doesn't mean that it is moral, and 10 that there must be a way of challenging immoral 11 authority? 12 And, of course, I understand, the Gandhi and 13 Martin Luther King, there's a responsibility, and a 14 way of doing things, and things that go with things. 15 But, if you're going to do a video about 16 respect, or civic virtues, you should -- you 17 couldn't do it fairly without including that, if an 18 immoral authority has the authority, that it is 19 beholding on people -- isn't that Thomas 20 Jefferson? -- that it is beholding on people that 21 they have to challenge such an authority? 22 We can argue of how to go about it. 23 And I'll stop. 24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator, could we get to 25 the question? 1 SENATOR SANDERS: I stopped, sir. 2 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. 3 SENATOR SANDERS: They have their questions. 4 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: If I could, the 5 broken-windows issue, a very insightful question, 6 Senator, about crime rates and stop-and-frisk. 7 Once again, I would suggest that everybody 8 make the distinction between stop-and-frisk program, 9 which I believe has been discontinued, and 10 stop-and-frisk as a necessary procedure, which, 11 again, I feel quite strongly of. 12 SENATOR SANDERS: Agreed. 13 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: Now that the program has 14 been discontinued, would you expect to see some 15 change in crime rates? 16 The answer is yes. 17 I would expect to see more at the misdemeanor 18 level and the violation level, as opposed to 19 violent-crime levels and the UCR levels. 20 But I still think it's still somewhat too 21 soon to make any definitive judgment on this. 22 I think it should be monitored, going 23 forward, because I think it's a very legitimate 24 question that you have here there. 25 SENATOR SANDERS: Okay, worthy to monitor. 1 DR. MICHAEL JENKINS: If I may add about 2 broken-windows, too, it's important not to conflate 3 broken-windows policing with stop, question, and 4 frisk. 5 And I think you're right, that a lot of 6 individual police officers, as well as police 7 departments, do make that assumption. 8 And I think Professional O'Connell is right, 9 is that it is more in line with the community 10 policing model of engaging with the community and 11 working with the community to define the problems 12 that they think are problems to them. 13 And, then, how are you going to prevent those 14 problems from arising? 15 And it shouldn't rely on arrests 16 specifically, and, it should engage other groups in 17 that community. 18 I agree that, you know, you can't make -- you 19 can't draw conclusions about the current history of 20 the stop, question, and frisk and/or reduction in 21 broken-windows policing and it's effect on crime. 22 It's too soon, statistically, to tell that. 23 But I think we need to keep in mind, too, 24 that the connection -- or, the relationship between 25 disorder and crime, as it comes out in the research 1 and in practice, is that this is kind of a 2 longer-term process in which the mood is set for the 3 types of behaviors that are going to be deemed 4 acceptable in a certain area. 5 So that's what I would like to add about 6 broken-windows. 7 Do you have any questions? Or I can move on 8 to the -- 9 SENATOR SANDERS: I will be kind and respect 10 the Chair. 11 DR. MICHAEL JENKINS: Okay. 12 And then, your specific question to me about 13 latent racism in an institution, I think one of the 14 themes that's arisen here is that communication and 15 empathy go a long way. 16 And it's the face-to-face positive 17 interaction between the police and the community 18 that, for so long, did not interact in positive 19 ways, and did not have understanding of where the 20 other group was coming from. 21 You know, both groups have wronged the other. 22 Both groups have done wrong. 23 And it's time to acknowledge those wrongs and 24 to move past those wrongs. 25 And we are seeing that done in some 1 communities. 2 Specifically, I'd like to mention 3 David Kennedy's work in police legitimacy, and what 4 he is doing with community groups and law 5 enforcement. 6 EUGENE O'DONNELL: I'll just be mercifully 7 brief, I hope. 8 But this -- the idea of broken-windows is not 9 something that I'd subscribe to. 10 But having said that, on Staten Island, 11 through 311, it was community people that asked the 12 police to do that. 13 So this is the problem with -- again, I'm 14 asking lawmakers to, respectfully, own the system 15 they create. 16 Okay? 17 And the idea that we are going have reforms, 18 I think Senator Golden mentioned this, it's pretty 19 notorious, every year the Legislature adds laws, 20 every year they may very well add some of the PBA's 21 requests, because it's a complicated topic. 22 But to ask people to basically dump this on 23 the street cops, to get frontally into the face of 24 police people, that's not right, that's 25 disingenuous, when lawmakers, again, are the 1 architects of the system. 2 So I got what you're saying, I got the Gandhi 3 stuff, it's absolutely correct, and it's legitimate. 4 But, the district attorneys, if we have in 5 the room, five of them, they can explain why it's so 6 hard to indict the police. They should do that. 7 Before we go forward with a reform package, 8 five DAs, we can have DAs -- we have DAs -- 9 I think we have an African-American DA in 10 Albany County -- we can have the DAs come in. It's 11 not really a "pick a side" thing. 12 It's a legal issue, and it's very hard to 13 indict police officers. And it's always going to be 14 unless somebody comes up with something different. 15 That's why it's so uniformly -- 16 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: But to be fair, 17 Mr. O'Donnell, that you heard one of the district 18 attorneys today suggest that he indicted and 19 convicted a number of police officers for 20 misconduct. 21 EUGENE O'DONNELL: Misconduct. 22 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: He didn't say that was 23 difficult. As a matter of fact, he said it was 24 pretty straightforward. 25 I asked him the question of, what type of 1 special hash marks are necessary in that process? 2 And he indicated none. It should be the same 3 process it is for every citizen. 4 So I don't know if that's really -- I mean, 5 you said that it's so extraordinarily difficult to 6 convict a police officer. 7 EUGENE O'DONNELL: I meant use of force, 8 Senator. I didn't mean for criminal corruption. 9 That's not -- 10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: You meant, in the 11 performance of their duty -- 12 EUGENE O'DONNELL: On-duty use of force. 13 Off-duty improper stuff, that's an easy 14 indictment. 15 On-duty use of force, where there are 16 surrogates being sent into uncertain situations, no 17 matter where you are in the country, that's a hard 18 indictment to get. 19 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Point well-taken. 20 Thank you very much for all your inputs, 21 gentlemen, and we appreciate your time very, very 22 much. 23 PAUL E. O'CONNELL: It's an honor to be here. 24 Thank you very much. 25 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Stephen Cassidy is 2 president of the Uniformed Firefighters' 3 Association, and, Israel Miranda, president of the 4 Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics & Fire Inspectors. 5 First and foremost, President Cassidy and 6 President Miranda, thank you for your willingness to 7 come together as opposed to individual. 8 The hour is late. You have been waiting here 9 for the longest time, and we thank you for your 10 patience. 11 And, if we can, we're just changing the name 12 tags. 13 If we could have assistance in changing name 14 tags? 15 Great, thank you, Rodney. 16 And for the record, gentlemen, if you could 17 just state your name, and your -- 18 STEPHEN J. CASSIDY: Sure. 19 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Also, there's another 20 gentlemen. We don't have your card, but thank you 21 for introducing yourself for the record. 22 STEPHEN J. CASSIDY: This is Bob Unger, my 23 lobbyist. 24 Steve Cassidy, president of the 25 Uniformed Firefighters' Association. 1 Thank you for taking the time, this important 2 topic. 3 I'm not going to read my testimony. 4 I'm going to summarize two points that 5 I think are critical for firefighters and for public 6 safety in the city of the New York. 7 The first one, we just marked the 8 10th anniversary of the Black Sunday fatal fires, 9 where six firefighters were forced to jump out of a 10 window in the Bronx because of an illegal conversion 11 of an apartment. 12 It is rampant in New York City. 13 The housing shortage has forced people, some 14 with good intentions, but many landlords with bad 15 intentions, to turn a single apartment into an SRO 16 where three or four or five bedrooms now exist. 17 It is a hazard for the people who live there. 18 It's a hazard for the people who live in the 19 building. 20 And it is certainly a hazard for 21 New York City firefighters, because, when you crawl 22 into a burning building and you have zero visibilty, 23 you can't see where you're going, and you are really 24 in a maze now that's been reconstructed. 25 What was a one-bedroom with an open-floor 1 plan is now four bedrooms. 2 It's a nightmare. 3 It's what happened in the Bronx. 4 It happens time and time again. 5 It's a challenge for New York City 6 firefighters. 7 I would like the Senate to take a look at my 8 testimony on this topic, and any assistance you can 9 give us on this is critical. 10 The real problem and challenge is access. 11 How do we get access to review these 12 apartments? 13 How do we get to file, hear complaints, and 14 get in and say: This is unacceptable. You've 15 turned a one-bedroom into a four bedroom. 16 They're artificially inflating rents 17 throughout the city of New York because they can get 18 more money. 19 And, so, some of it is greedy landlords, but 20 it's a real challenge for safety for firefighters. 21 The second is something that's critical. 22 Since 2009, when then-Governor Paterson 23 vetoed the Tier 2 extender bill, all New York City 24 firefighters and police officers were dumped into 25 Tier 3. 1 There are no disability benefits in Tier 3. 2 It was an unintended consequence. 3 I spoke to Governor Paterson several times 4 about it. He had no idea that that was a part of 5 what was going to happen. 6 So all New York City firefighters and police 7 officers hired after 2009 do not have real 8 disability benefits. 9 When I say "real disability," I mean, they 10 get $27 a day for a new probationary firefighter if 11 he's injured in the line of duty. 12 They come out of probie school, 18 weeks, and 13 they run into burning buildings to earn their 14 paychecks. 15 They're willing to risk their lives, but they 16 need to have the benefits that everybody else has. 17 They need to know that if they're seriously 18 injured that someone will take care of them and 19 their families. 20 And that's the way it has always been. 21 This is not some massive benefit. 22 And by the way, I view it as a public-safety 23 component. 24 The people throughout the city of New York do 25 not want a firefighter getting off an apparatus, 1 looking up at a burning building, and saying to 2 themselves, "Oh, my God, I better not get hurt 3 today. Who's going to take care of my family?" 4 That thought has never been in our minds. 5 We took this job. It's a dangerous job, 6 we're willing to risk our lives. 7 But we cannot have to be worried about 8 what-if? 9 What if I get burned? 10 What if I get hurt? 11 You know, it's a bad policy. It needs to be 12 corrected. 13 We are having some challenges with the 14 City Council on this, although we do have some 15 momentum. 16 And I certainly would like the support of the 17 Senate and the Assembly. 18 We're going to need a bill to get this 19 resolved. 20 And, maybe, if we don't have the support in 21 the council for what I view as some possible 22 political reasons, there's some unhappiness, this 23 needs to be done for firefighters and police 24 officers in the city of New York. 25 And it absolutely is something they deserve. 1 You can't have some firefighters get off a 2 rig, look at a burning building and not be worried 3 about anything but doing their job, and some getting 4 off and saying, "Oh, my God, if I get hurt, who's 5 taking care of my family?" 6 So that's my testimony today. 7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Points well-taken. 8 Any questions? 9 SENATOR GOLDEN: Real quick, yes. 10 SENATOR SANDERS: The man is right. 11 SENATOR GOLDEN: He is absolutely right. 12 But you know what? I believe that we can 13 take a look at doing a statewide bill, versus 14 waiting for a home-rule message here, because this 15 is a universal issue across the state of New York; 16 so, therefore, it hits every county. 17 So, therefore, I think we, as four 18 Committees, should take a look at a statewide bill 19 on that disability bill, so that those officers, 20 both police and fire, have the ability to get that 21 disability. 22 There's only one county, I think, that is not 23 in sync in the entire state of New York, and 24 I believe that might be Nassau County. And 25 I believe that that can be corrected in this 1 statewide bill. 2 So, if we can't get that from the 3 City Council, we should, as a Senate body, seriously 4 look at this, and see how we can put a statewide 5 bill forward. 6 That's number one. 7 Number two, the illegal conversions that have 8 cost those six firemen their lives, they forget, the 9 people, the memories are short here in the city of 10 New York, when you lost another five firemen over in 11 Brooklyn on Flat Bush Avenue. That was not an 12 illegal conversion. That was a supermarket fire. 13 But, again, we lost large numbers of firemen 14 over the years. 15 When it came to 9/11, a captain looked at the 16 men on that truck as they were running into that 17 building, and he looked at the men and he looked 18 them in the eye and said, "Some of us are going to 19 die here today." 20 Not one of them, not one of them, turned 21 their back. Every one of them ran into that 22 building and ran up that stairs, and, some of those 23 men on that truck died. 24 So they went in there for a reason: to 25 protect life and property. 1 And we have to make sure that those officers 2 don't have to second-guess, when they're going into 3 a fire, if their family, and that police officer 4 that's going out that night on patrol, that their 5 families are not going to be taken care of. 6 It's wrong, and we got to make sure we do the 7 right thing. 8 STEPHEN J. CASSIDY: Well, thank you for your 9 comments on that. 10 SENATOR GOLDEN: The other areas that we 11 would like to talk to you, is if there's anything 12 else that we can do for the fire department, if 13 there is anything that you need to talk to our 14 finance people about, besides this three-quarter 15 bill, I would suggest you do it quickly, because 16 it's important that it get done quickly. 17 STEPHEN J. CASSIDY: Okay, I will. 18 And let me just add one thing. 19 The New York City Fire Department is going 20 through, after a federal lawsuit and court 21 challenges, a new hiring process. 22 They hired a company to come up with a new 23 exam. That new exam has yielded much more 24 diversity. 25 The last graduating class of probie school 1 was, two-thirds of the probationary firefighters 2 were Black, Hispanic, or women. 3 That's never happened before. 4 It's a good change for the department. 5 They need to reflect the diversity of the 6 community, as long as they continue to recruit good 7 people, which they are. 8 I've been an advocate for the standards, but 9 now that we are getting diversity in the fire 10 department that so many people have wanted, they 11 have second-class benefits. 12 It's a disgrace. 13 I'm not going to let it happen. It's going 14 to get resolved. 15 I want to have all of your help. 16 But we are not going to have -- we're not 17 going to have two separate groups of people running 18 into buildings, and some saying, "I'm okay if I get 19 hurt," and the new kid saying, "I'm not okay if 20 I get hurt." 21 It's unacceptable. 22 SENATOR GOLDEN: The unfortunate reality in 23 the New York City Police Department, the morale is 24 desperate. 25 In the NYFD, on the other hand, you see 1 firemen wanting to stay on that job 30 years. 2 When you're a police officer, you see them 3 counting the days and hours to get out on a 20-year 4 retirement. 5 It's unfortunate that we have that. 6 So we need to be able to change that dynamic, 7 and to find out how we can make this job a real 8 career job and keep these people on the job longer, 9 and do as you said, make these officers feel that 10 they have the support of the people of this state, 11 in making sure that there are benefits, as well as 12 the police department. 13 But you are a model for keeping people on the 14 job. 15 Keep up your good work. 16 STEPHEN J. CASSIDY: Thank you. 17 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: President Cassidy, your 18 testimony will be submitted in its entirety for our 19 record. 20 We want President Miranda to have the same 21 opportunities. 22 Your testimony, President Miranda, will be 23 part of the entire record. 24 If you would be so kind as to summarize your 25 major points. 1 ISRAEL MIRANDA: Yes, I'll keep it as short 2 as possible. 3 Thank you. 4 First of all, I'd like say, on behalf of the 5 firefighters and police officers, they're 6 100 percent right about those benefits, and 7 I support that 100 percent. 8 You know, this is a no-brainer. They should 9 have their three-quarters. 10 Everybody who puts their lives on the line 11 should have those benefits. 12 But now I'm going to get to my issues. Okay? 13 First of all, I thank you for the opportunity 14 to testify today. 15 My name is Israel Miranda. I represent about 16 3500 EMTs and paramedics. We do about 1.6 million 17 emergency calls a year. 18 That's about 4,000 a day. 19 Unlike our brothers and sisters in law 20 enforcement, we do not respond to emergency calls 21 expecting possible confrontation. 22 So what's been happening is, my people have 23 been getting assaulted, unfortunately. They 24 continue being assaulted at a higher rate than any 25 group in the 911 system. 1 Nationwide, assaults is the number-one injury 2 suffered by emergency medical personnel. 3 52 percent of reported non-vehicular injuries 4 are assaults. 5 Based on the size of my workforce, our 6 statistics reveal that emergency medical-service 7 field providers are, at most, twice as likely to be 8 assaulted in the line of duty than a police officer 9 or correction officer. 10 Many of these cases go unreported. 11 Under the current law, which is 12 Penal Law 120.5, assault in the second degree, which 13 is a Class D felony, the language of this law is 14 problematic. 15 Prosecutors in the court in pursuing a felony 16 conviction have a hard time with it. 17 Terms such as "physical injury" or 18 "impairment" or "intent" can be very subjective, and 19 vague, in the court of law. 20 Many violators receive community service. 21 We've had many members who have been 22 pummeled, and members with broken bones, and the 23 assailants were prosecuted to minor penalties with 24 no jail time. 25 I have attached stories that you can look at. 1 These assaults are not considered serious or 2 permanent in the eye of the law. 3 Unfortunately, the psychological aspects of 4 this encounter will affect this provider every time 5 they are in the back of the ambulance for years to 6 come. 7 Irrespective of whether such assault leads to 8 impairment or serious physical injury, we must 9 strengthen the existing law to protect our 10 front-line protectors. 11 When it's Ebola, or anything else, my people 12 are on the front line. 13 We need to protect these first responders so 14 they know that the law works for them. 15 You know, they say that you can indict a ham 16 sandwich. Right? 17 I heard that said here earlier today. 18 Then why is it that we can't indict someone 19 who punches a paramedic and pummels him, and he's 20 out six weeks, for performing his duty? 21 I don't understand it. 22 I'm asking this Joint Committee to include in 23 your legislative package some real language that 24 protects the best EMS professionals in the country. 25 I thank you, and I will answer any questions 1 you may have. 2 SENATOR GOLDEN: You have that bill? 3 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Yes, we do. 4 SENATOR GOLDEN: Yes, okay, so now we got to 5 get it passed. It's that simple. 6 I think it's the important thing for the 7 paramedics that are out there protecting our city, 8 that they have the protections of this great court 9 system -- 10 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And we pass this in the 11 Senate every year. 12 SENATOR GOLDEN: Yes, we pass it every year. 13 We can't get it passed in the Assembly. 14 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It's important to mention 15 that. 16 SENATOR GOLDEN: We cannot get this passed in 17 the Assembly, and we have to get it passed in the 18 Assembly, and we got to get the Governor to sign it. 19 And I think that's the problem, one of our 20 problems. 21 But we have new leadership in the Assembly, 22 and, hopefully, the individual that's taken over 23 leadership will see the value of this bill and get 24 this bill passed in the Assembly this year coming 25 up. 1 But it's an important bill, and I hate to see 2 anybody get hurt. 3 You're very important in your work. 4 ISRAEL MIRANDA: I want to thank you, guys. 5 Just like we have been here all day, you've 6 been here all day. And I want to thank you for your 7 patience, and staying here all day with us, just to 8 hear what we had to say. 9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Israel. 10 Israel, these clippings you showed were 11 terrible. Just absolutely terrible. 12 There are laws on the books that can be 13 prosecuted. 14 We are trying to get more of them in 15 Senator Golden's bill. 16 We have other bills, where there's the 17 indignity of individuals using their bodily fluids 18 as weapons. 19 The indignity to firefighters, to EMTs, 20 other emergency medical personnel, and police 21 officers, where individuals have just done the 22 unspeakable to people that are trying to help them. 23 And, we want to continue. 24 Thank you for putting your comments on the 25 record because we share your concerns. 1 We'll do everything we can, and we'll 2 continue to push for these measures. 3 SENATOR GOLDEN: One quick question. 4 On the Ebola issue, are you guys well-trained 5 on the Ebola? 6 ISRAEL MIRANDA: Actually -- 7 SENATOR GOLDEN: The police department, they 8 came up and made comments earlier that they're not 9 that well-trained. 10 ISRAEL MIRANDA: Actually, I think that the 11 process that we put together, because we have 12 members that were trained to respond to these type 13 of calls, based on their -- it's being followed all 14 over the country now. 15 Obviously, if it wasn't for these people in 16 place, working with the firemen, we don't know, we 17 could have had another Texas, or somewhere else over 18 here, where they were unprepared. 19 STEPHEN J. CASSIDY: The Fire Commissioner 20 did a great job. 21 The Fire Commissioner did a great job getting 22 firefighters prepared. 23 So, we're happy. 24 ISRAEL MIRANDA: We're very happy. 25 SENATOR GOLDEN: Thank you. 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: President Cassidy and 2 President Miranda, thank you very, very much. 3 ISRAEL MIRANDA: Thank you. 4 STEPHEN J. CASSIDY: Thank you. 5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Last, but certainly not 6 least of our testifiers, is Michael Palladino, 7 president of the Detective's Endowment Association. 8 SENATOR GOLDEN: A man of great patience. 9 MICHAEL PALLADINO: The gentleman with me is 10 Philip Karasyk, general counsel to the detectives' 11 union. 12 Senator, before I speak, you mentioned before 13 about the difference between the police and the 14 fire. 15 The distinct difference, over the years, is 16 that instead of asking, "Hey, how much time do you 17 have on the job?" they ask, "How much time do have 18 you left?" 19 SENATOR GOLDEN: That's sad, though, isn't 20 it? It's a sad comment. 21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: It's almost like a 22 sentence. 23 MICHAEL PALLADINO: All right, if I may 24 start -- 25 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Please. 1 MICHAEL PALLADINO: -- my written statements 2 are brief. 3 Starts out with, "Good afternoon," but 4 I think I'll change it to, "Good evening." 5 SENATOR GOLDEN: It will be "good night" 6 soon, too. 7 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Good evening members of 8 the New York State Senate, and thank you for 9 permitting me to testify before you today. 10 Being last in the lineup, there is not much 11 left to say that hasn't already been said, but 12 I would like to re-enforce some key points. 13 In our post-9/11 world, law enforcement's 14 role has become even more essential as our daily 15 duties now include counterterrorism to go along with 16 proactively policing our neighborhoods against 17 traditional crime. 18 The brave men and women of law enforcement 19 strive each and every day to ensure a safe society 20 for all members of the public in a fair and 21 democratic way, pursuant to our Constitution. 22 As many of you already know, I hold two 23 positions. 24 I'm the president of the 25 Detective's Endowment Association, which represents 1 17,000 active and retired detectives of the NYPD. 2 At the same time, I hold the position of 3 president of the New York State Association of 4 PBAs, representing approximately 75,000 active and 5 retired law-enforcement officers throughout the 6 state of New York. 7 Equally important to me, though, I'm in my 8 36th year as an active member of the NYPD and very 9 proud of every minute served. 10 The NYPD is a magnificent agency charged with 11 the awesome responsibility of protecting this city 12 from crime and terror. 13 I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say 14 that New York City is the economic engine for our 15 great state, and maybe the world. 16 I do believe the energy source for this 17 engine is the public safety provided by the NYPD and 18 the other local, state, and federal law-enforcement 19 agencies operating in New York State. 20 The hard-working men and women of the NYPD 21 put their lives on the line every day for the people 22 of this city. 23 All we request in return is a little support 24 and respect. 25 I am before you today to discuss a few 1 important issues regarding the upcoming budget as it 2 relates to the NYPD and law enforcement. 3 The first is a request for funding to assist 4 the City of New York in increasing the NYPD 5 staffing, and to improve much needed equipment, 6 including up-to-date bullet-resistant vests. 7 The second issue is the Governor's proposed 8 legislation, bill Senate 2011, as it pertains to law 9 enforcement; specifically, an independent monitor. 10 With respect to the NYPD headcount, 11 pre-September 11, 2001, the NYPD's total headcount 12 was approximately 41,000, and of those, 7100 were 13 detectives. 14 Today the headcount is barely 35,000, and the 15 detectives have been reduced from 7100 down to 16 5,000. That's almost a 30 percent reduction. 17 This reduced-staffing model is going on at a 18 time when the world is in turmoil and our city 19 remains the number-one terror target. 20 The rank of detective has also been spread 21 quite thin due to the counterterrorism duties in 22 addition to investigating traditional crimes. 23 For instance, a precinct detective squad is 24 really considered the patrol force of the NYPD's 25 famous detective bureau. 1 The detectives assigned to those squads 2 investigate all the crimes occurring in their 3 respective commands; and more importantly, they deal 4 directly with the victims of the crime in a 5 one-to-one relationship. 6 The victims come to know their investigators 7 quite well during the course of an investigation, 8 and they rely heavily on them to investigate their 9 cases and bring them to a successful conclusion. 10 Needless to say, because the precinct 11 detective squads are so short-staffed, assigned 12 detectives are carrying caseloads far greater than 13 they once handled. 14 As a result, delivery of service to the crime 15 victim gets delayed by no fault of our detectives. 16 In addition, technology has created new leads 17 and new avenues of investigation that are quite 18 helpful in developing a case and tracking those 19 responsible. 20 However, you still need the warm body, the 21 human being, to chase down those leads. 22 It is extremely time-consuming, and 23 detectives can spend an entire day accessing 24 technological information and reviewing videotapes 25 on just one fraud investigation, so they can easily 1 get backed up on their other investigations. 2 Now, despite being short-staffed, too often, 3 detectives are reassigned from their active 4 investigations to police parades and demonstrations. 5 In the most recent series of demonstrations 6 following the Eric Garner case in Staten Island, 7 detectives were regularly reassigned to police those 8 demonstrations, putting their active investigations 9 on hold, while still catching new cases, even though 10 they were standing out in uniform working the demo. 11 Having worked in a Bronx detective squad 12 myself for 11 years, I can tell you firsthand that 13 the last thing a victim wants to hear is that you 14 could not work on their investigation because you 15 were at either a parade or a demonstration. 16 But this is common in a busy detective squad 17 that's understaffed. 18 And having said that, I would welcome any 19 funding that the State could provide, of course, for 20 equipment and bullet-resistant vests. 21 But what is really needed is for the budget 22 to include funding to restore the NYPD's overall 23 headcount to at least 38,000. 24 So I respectfully ask the members of the 25 Senate to consider that because it is in the best 1 interests of your constituents and mine. 2 Second issue I would like to discuss is the 3 Governor's proposal for an independent monitor to 4 review a grand jury decision not to indict police 5 officers when deadly physical force is used against 6 an unarmed individual. 7 I respectfully submit to you that it's 8 unwarranted, redundant, and it creates, at the very 9 least, a double-standard just for cops while 10 eviscerating their constitutionally guaranteed right 11 to equal justice under the law. 12 Sp I respectfully request that the Senate 13 reject the idea of the independent monitor. 14 The idea, obviously, emanated from the 15 Eric Garner controversy in Staten Island last 16 summer. The grand jury decision was not to indict 17 the police officers involved. 18 Legislating an independent monitor would 19 suggest that the integrity of Mr. Dan Donavon, his 20 assistant DA who presented the case, as well as the 21 integrity of every single prosecutor in this state, 22 is suspect. 23 It also implies that the 23 grand jurors who 24 were peers of Mr. Garner were being influenced by 25 their own prejudice and disregarded the evidence, 1 the eyewitness accounts, and testimony of expert 2 witnesses when they voted to clear the officers 3 involved. 4 I think it's simply absurd and could not be 5 farther from the truth. 6 In my 36 years in law enforcement, I have 7 found that our criminal justice system works very 8 well. 9 My experience with the district attorneys in 10 the five boroughs and the surrounding counties in 11 New York State tells me that they perform the duties 12 of their elected positions in a fair and even-handed 13 manner. 14 In my capacity as a union president over the 15 last 11 years, I can tell you firsthand, that if one 16 of my members was involved in criminal activity, 17 either on or off duty, they were prosecuted and 18 received no special treatment. 19 In 2006, three of my detectives were indicted 20 in the death of Sean Bell in Queens. 21 The case received global publicity and media 22 coverage consistent with controversial deaths in 23 police custody. 24 Death in police-custody cases receives so 25 much attention that a district attorney would have 1 to be out of his or her mind to give even the 2 appearance of special treatment to the police 3 involved in such a case. 4 When the detectives were indicted, 5 I disagreed with the indictment, but I didn't 6 condemn the justice system, nor did I call for 7 legislative reform, because I didn't get my way. 8 I accepted the indictments and I prepared for 9 the next phase in the system, because I believe in 10 the system, I trust the system, and I respect our 11 criminal justice system. 12 The independent monitor is unnecessary 13 because there presently exists two avenues to review 14 a grand jury's decision not to indict. 15 One is under the criminal-procedure law. 16 The other is provided by the executive law, 17 and already authorizes the governor to replace a 18 local district attorney with a special prosecutor if 19 he feels an injustice has been committed. 20 So I am opposed to the appointment of an 21 independent monitor for a number of reasons. 22 It can be easily construed to be a mandate to 23 indict police officers in controversial situations 24 when the facts do not justify an indictment. 25 Speaking realistically, no one wants to be 1 scrutinized or second-guessed, especially by a 2 politically-appointed monitor. 3 I feel the specter of the monitor looming 4 over the district attorney could have a chilling 5 impact on the impartiality of the prosecutor's 6 presentation to a grand jury. 7 A strong possibility would then exist that a 8 prosecutor could be inclined to indict simply to 9 avoid the monitor and the negative publicity 10 accompanied with it. 11 An independent monitor could pervert the 12 system by substituting political considerations in 13 place of the facts and the law, resulting in a 14 police officer being denied his or her due process. 15 On any given day in this city, there are 16 about 10 million people, between the commuters, the 17 tourists, the residents; and at the same time, there 18 are about 35,000 police officers in the city that 19 cross paths with the public. 20 That equates to hundreds of thousands of 21 interactions a day. 22 On rare occasion, there's an encounter that 23 generates intense media attention. 24 However, the controversies are miniscule in 25 comparison to the overall number of interactions 1 between the public and the police. 2 What occurred in Staten Island was tragic, 3 but it is unfair to condemn the NYPD and deprive 4 dedicated police officers of their right to due 5 process. 6 New York City police officers are the most 7 restrained officers in the country. 8 Annually, we effect about 400,000 arrests per 9 year, and despite the countless number of encounters 10 with armed felons, we discharge our weapons far less 11 per capita than other departments in other big 12 cities. 13 The Governor's proposal for criminal justice 14 reform misses the real point and focuses only on the 15 police. 16 The proposal fails to address the underlying 17 problem that led to the Eric Garner incident, and 18 that's resisting arrest. 19 So how do we train for, and what do we do in 20 a situation, when an unarmed suspect verbally 21 resists and does not offer any physical resistance? 22 Should we be expected to simply walk away? 23 And even though resisting a lawful arrest is 24 a crime, many district attorneys rarely prosecute 25 defendants for resisting unless the officer receives 1 a serious injury. 2 Many assistant district attorneys view 3 resisting arrest as simply a cost of doing business 4 and they decline to charge the suspect. 5 Effective criminal justice reforms should 6 mandate stricter penalties for resisting arrest and 7 require that district attorneys prosecute offenders 8 to deter them from committing resisting arrest. 9 In closing: 10 In recent weeks, the Governor has been 11 quoted, reminding the public, to "Trust and respect 12 the justice system." 13 Well, I agree with the Governor, as long as 14 that trust and that respect extends to the men and 15 women of law enforcement who risk their lives every 16 day. 17 I would be happy to answer any questions. 18 But, being that Senator Perkins isn't here, 19 if I may, you know, fill in the blanks with respect 20 to the interrogation questions, the videotaping 21 questions, he asked. 22 Quite a few years ago, when 23 Commissioner Kelley was in charge of the NYPD, 24 working along with me and the DEA, we put a pilot 25 project together, and that pilot project was to 1 commence videotaping in the 48th Precinct in the 2 Bronx, the 67 in Brooklyn, the 122 in Staten Island, 3 and the 113 detective squad in Queens. 4 And the original pilot project was the 5 videotaping of simple assaults. And, I think we 6 were just videotaping the suspects. 7 As a result of the pilot project, it was 8 expanded slightly to include now homicides. 9 And, we're going to start including 10 assaults -- I mean, burglaries and robbery, first 11 and second degree. 12 And we also are finishing out the 71 Precinct 13 interview room and getting that ready for 14 videotaping as well. 15 So that's where we are right now with that 16 pilot project. 17 I like pilot projects. 18 That's why I agreed to it with 19 Commissioner Kelley, because it gives both labor and 20 management an opportunity to examine the issue, work 21 the kinks out, see if it works, and, see what's good 22 and what's bad. 23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: What have the results been 24 so far? 25 MICHAEL PALLADINO: The results have been 1 pretty good so far. 2 You know, it was limited to the crime of 3 assault. They're going to expand it a little bit. 4 I have been on the record quite a bit over 5 the years with respect to the videotaping. 6 My concern is that, you know, it works in 7 some of these smaller police departments, but 8 I think the issue that we are going to have in the 9 NYPD, especially, you know, with short-staffing and 10 the detective squad and the caseload being so low, 11 is that the volume of cases that we handle in a 12 detective squad, I don't know if one interview room 13 is going to be enough. 14 And, I foresee it being, you know, an 15 overtime bonanza for detectives. 16 But, certainly, it's going to be difficult, 17 I think, for the police-department budget and the 18 City Council to fund the overtime that's going to be 19 had by detectives, you know, sitting in an interview 20 room. Or, you know, some detectives have 10, 21 12 detectives in a squad catching cases, and I could 22 see them lining up, just waiting for that interview 23 room to free up. 24 And you can't say, Well, the 48, let's send 25 them over to the 52 up in the Bronx and let them use 1 their interview room, because the 20 detectives in 2 the 52 are going to be lining up to use that 3 interview room as well. 4 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I'd like to take you to 5 another point, President Palladino, the issue of -- 6 that you addressed, and we've asked others to 7 address as well; and that is the issue of upping the 8 penalties for those who are resisting arrest, again, 9 as an effort to protect those officers, particularly 10 line officers who are making the arrests. 11 The proposal, or suggested proposal, is to 12 take it to a Class E felony. 13 Your opinion? 14 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Well, I think a stricter 15 penalty would be helpful. 16 And, certainly, I think that it has to be a 17 commitment by the district attorneys to charge it, 18 though. 19 So, they have to go hand in hand. 20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: With a misdemeanor, 21 there's less of a reason, I think, for district 22 attorneys, we find it, generally, that if an issue 23 rises to the level of a felony, they're more likely 24 to prosecute them on a measure such as that, as 25 opposed to a misdemeanor. 1 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Yes. And, once it rises 2 to the level of a felony, then it has to be 3 presented to the grand jury as well. 4 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: So that's something we are 5 certainly going to be considering as a 6 recommendation, and your endorsement of that is an 7 important element to us. 8 The other issue you recommended was, 9 basically, to oppose the so-called "monitor" 10 proposal to add an additional layer of review. 11 Elaborate on that just a bit. 12 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Well -- 13 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And maybe to be helpful, 14 District Attorney Donovan suggested he already has a 15 monitor when he has to present a case, and that's a 16 supreme court judge. 17 Isn't it different, if you have a 18 supreme court judge having to decide not to report a 19 case [unintelligible] negative -- 20 MICHAEL PALLADINO: As opposed to a monitor. 21 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: -- as opposed to a monitor 22 reporting a case? 23 Yes. 24 In effect, that adds the additional layer, 25 regardless. 1 In effect, you have, in order not to 2 prosecute a police officer, you have to have an 3 additional layer, as you would today, if there's 4 no-bill, there's no-bill by the grand jury. 5 Here, under the proposal, if you had no-bill, 6 you would have to have another review, and that 7 being that of the supreme court judge. 8 That was District Attorney Donovan's 9 suggestion. 10 I think the Governor has another so-called 11 "independent" review process that he's proposing. 12 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Well, my understanding of 13 the law that I read, I guess the CPL, and that's 14 with respect to the CPL, that if a no-true bill is 15 voted, then a second grand jury can be convened, if, 16 there is new significant evidence. And the other 17 reason would be, if there was some type of 18 procedural error. 19 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Let me be more clear. 20 That we're not talking about the mechanisms 21 today. 22 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Okay. 23 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: What we're talking about 24 is the proposals that some are making, to say to the 25 grand jury process, if a police officer is involved, 1 that, in effect, another review, above the grand 2 jury, or on top of the grand jury, has to be 3 established. 4 I think you in your testimony indicated that 5 you thought that that was inappropriate. 6 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Oh, we're against that, 7 yes. I think it's redundant, and I do not think 8 it's necessary. 9 I mean, you know, realistically speaking, the 10 district attorneys, they lock us up all the time. 11 You know, there's no special treatment that's given 12 to us. 13 And, you know, to suggest that either 14 Dan Donovan, or the assistant who presented, or even 15 the 23 grand jurors, just, you know, abandoned their 16 civil duty just to give the cop a break, I mean, 17 that's absurd. 18 This is 2015 in the United States. It's not 19 the 1960s. 20 It's quite different time. 21 And you have videotaping that's out there, 22 too. 23 So, you know, I just do not think it's 24 necessary. 25 I think it was, you know, just a political 1 response by the Governor, you know, due to the 2 marches, and due to -- let's face it, I'm sure that 3 it ran parallel with Ferguson, what happened out in 4 Ferguson, Missouri. 5 And I think that, you know, running parallel 6 with that, there was a lot of emotionally-charged 7 feelings there. 8 And I don't think it's necessary at all. 9 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator Golden. 10 SENATOR GOLDEN: I think your testimony was 11 outstanding. 12 And I want to thank you for putting in the 13 time here this evening and being here, and giving us 14 your testimony. And that's why you are the 15 president of the greatest detective unit in the 16 country. 17 But I got a question for you. 18 The -- you see the number of detectives that 19 you have today, and you see the impact on these 20 different events that going on around the city of 21 New York, and how you have to participate, and how 22 you are pulled out of the precincts to go to do 23 these different events, and how it puts a drain on 24 manpower. 25 Then we talk about having video on the 1 violent crimes, we'll say. 2 So we're are going to video them, so that's 3 going to be more work that your men and women are 4 going to have to do. 5 And then, of course, what's brought into it 6 is technology. 7 Technology is -- has become a tremendous 8 friend of the police department; but, obviously, 9 that is immensely time-consuming. And that, again, 10 takes the men and women from case to case, and it 11 takes them a long period of time. 12 So how many men and women do you effectively 13 need to be able to run your unit, especially with 14 the -- or the detectives here in the city of 15 New York, especially coming up, as the Commissioner 16 has announced, that he has another new unit coming 17 out of which I'm sure you are going to be part of? 18 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Well, in my testimony 19 I said that, if we can bring the headcount up to 20 38,000, and I don't mean a one-shot deal. 21 We have to continue to hire above and beyond 22 to offset the amount of retirements and to keep the 23 NYPD head count at around 38,000. 24 I say 38,000. 25 You know, I don't know what the -- you know, 1 what the Commissioner would say. 2 But, 38,000. And we get, about 15 percent of 3 the headcount is of the rank of detective. 4 So that would give us probably another 450 to 5 500 detectives, and that will help us staff the 6 understaffed detective squads. 7 SENATOR GOLDEN: The redefinition of -- not 8 the redefinition -- but the focus of the Governor on 9 deadly physical force, you didn't mention that in 10 your testimony. 11 What is your -- since we haven't seen the 12 language on the bill, so, that is very concerning. 13 But, do you believe that the council that he 14 wishes to create, where you have deadly physical 15 force, a council that would create a legislation on 16 deadly physical force on a statewide level? 17 And then if you did not adhere to what the 18 council -- the way I understand it, that you did not 19 conform to the council, that you would have to come 20 up with your own independent "deadly physical force" 21 legalization, which all counties, cities, towns, and 22 villages already do across this state. 23 Do you see a problem with that? 24 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Well, yes, I do. 25 I guess what the Governor is proposing 1 that -- with whatever "deadly physical force" policy 2 he comes up with, that would be the bare minimum 3 that departments around the state would have to 4 employ. 5 Well, you know, without seeing the 6 legislation, or exactly what he is talking about, 7 it's very difficult to really weigh in, but, you 8 know, I find that really problematic. 9 I think what we have done here in 10 New York City, I think it works, it has worked. 11 And as I said, the controversial police 12 incidents that we have, when you compare them to the 13 hundreds of thousands of encounters a day that the 14 police have with the public, they're really 15 miniscule. 16 So I think the Governor is trying to address 17 an issue that, really, it doesn't exist. 18 SENATOR GOLDEN: I want to thank you. 19 No, that's all right, we're finished. We're 20 finished. 21 I want to thank you for coming here today, 22 for putting in the time. 23 But I also want to thank the Senate staff, 24 from all of our offices, that came down from Albany, 25 and the Mayor's people that are still here, and, 1 Kelly Comings [ph,] and all of the -- Beth and 2 Garvey, and all of the staff, and Adam, for putting 3 in this extra-long day. 4 There's is no overtime for this. 5 So we want to thank you guys for doing all 6 the great work that you do. 7 Thank you very, very much. 8 MICHAEL PALLADINO: Thank you, gentlemen. 9 10 (Whereupon, at approximately 6:06 p.m., 11 the public hearing held before the four 12 New York State Senate Standing Committees 13 concluded, and adjourned.) 14 ---oOo--- 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25