NY Court Order Doesn't Apply to ProPublica So It Has Posted Thousands of NYPD Discipline Records the NYC Government Kept Secret for Decades

From [HERE] Days after a federal judge paused the public release of New York City police disciplinary records, a news website has published a database containing complaint information for thousands of officers.

ProPublica posted the database of police complaints and downloadable data Sunday, explaining in a note to readers that it isn't obligated to comply with Judge Katherine Polk Failla's temporary restraining order because it is not a party to a union lawsuit challenging the release of such records.

Their site says, ‘The New York City police officer whose use of a prohibited chokehold led to the death of Eric Garner in 2014 had a record of misconduct. Garner’s last words — “I can’t breathe” — became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement.

The city investigator who revealed the existence of the officer’s record was forced to resign in 2017; the officer himself wasn’t fired until 2019.“ When the death of George Floyd and footage of his pleas for his life ignited worldwide protests, activists in New York renewed their push to repeal the statute that kept disciplinary records under wraps, known as 50-a. State lawmakers finally acted, voting to repeal the provision, which had been on the books for decades.

Soon after, ProPublica asked New York’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, or CCRB, for a list of officers, along with the complaints against them, and what discipline, if any, had been recommended.

Today, we are making this information public and, with it, providing an unprecedented picture of civilians’ complaints of abuse by NYPD officers as well as the limits of the current system that is supposed to hold officers accountable. We’ve published a database that lets you search the police complaints so you can see the information for yourself. Data experts can also download the data. [MORE]

Deputy Managing Editor Eric Umansky said ProPublica requested the information from the city's police watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, soon after last month's repeal of state law that for decades had prevented the disclosure of disciplinary records.

Unions representing police officers and other public safety workers sued the city on July 15 to block Mayor Bill de Blasio from making good on a pledge to start posting misconduct complaints on a government website. The unions argue that allowing the public to see unproven or false complaints could sully officers' reputations and compromise their safety.

A state judge who first handled the case had issued a narrower restraining order that temporarily blocked the public disclosure of records concerning unsubstantiated and non-finalized allegations or settlement agreements.

ProPublica said it excluded allegations that investigators deemed unfounded from the material it published. In all, the searchable database contains 12,056 complaints against 3,996 active NYPD officers.

"We understand the arguments against releasing this data. But we believe the public good it could do outweighs the potential harm," ProPublica Editor-in-Chief Stephen Engelberg said. "The database gives the people of New York City a glimpse at how allegations involving police misconduct have been handled, and allows journalists and ordinary citizens alike to look more deeply at the records of particular officers."

Failla's ruling Wednesday  blocks the CCRB, the police department and other entities from disclosing disciplinary records until at least Aug. 18, when she'll hear arguments in the case. In issuing the temporary restraining order, Failla also barred the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union from publicly releasing records it had already obtained.

The organization said it requested officer misconduct complaints from the CCRB under the state's open records law and received them before the union's lawsuit was filed. Like ProPublica, the NYCLU argued it was not a party to the lawsuit.

"The federal court has no authority to bar us from making it public, and we will contest this unprecedented order as quickly as possible," NYLU legal director Christopher Dunn said.