(NEW YORK) MintPress — The hits just keep on coming for the New York Police Department. It is already under fire for reports that it spied on Muslim communities in New York and New Jersey and infiltrated Muslim student associations at several universities on the East coast as well as for the recent killing of an unarmed teen in the Bronx and excessive use of the “stop and frisk” tactic.
Now comes the news that the NYPD hid a report that vindicates a whistle-blower whose career — and life — it tried to ruin. Earlier this month, the Village Voice newspaper revealed the findings of an internal police investigation into claims made by an officer in 2009 that police in his 81st Precinct in Brooklyn were manipulating crime reports at the urging of superiors.
In October, 2009, the officer, Adrian Schoolcraft, met with investigators for the Internal Affairs Bureau and told them about instances in which supervisors had ordered officers to put people behind bars without cause as well more than a dozen victims of felonies whose cases had either been classified as misdemeanors or were not included in statistics.
Things could have been even worse for his colleagues: For nearly two years, Schoolcraft, an 8 year veteran of the NYPD, had secretly recorded what went on inside the 81st precinct and had the tapes to prove it.
Drastic retribution
Instead, the situation got much worse for the messenger. On October 31, 2009, a few weeks after Schoolcraft’s meeting with investigators, his precinct commander and a deputy chief ordered him to be dragged from his home in Queens and taken to a nearby hospital psychiatric ward. The entire encounter was secretly captured on audiotape.
In a federal lawsuit that Schoolcraft has filed against New York City, he claims that the forced hospitalization, which lasted six days, was intended to shut him up. During his stay, Schoolcraft was handcuffed to a gurney and treated like a common criminal. He wasn’t allowed to use the phone and was given nothing but a hospital gown to wear.
The suit also claims that NYPD spokesman Paul Browne, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s top aide, was at the scene when the cops hauled Schoolcraft away. Neither Kelly nor his boss, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has said anything about the matter.
“While the police may bring someone who is potentially at risk to themselves or others to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation, they have no say over who is admitted or for how long,” said Frank Barry, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg. “That’s up to the mental health professionals at the hospital.”
Schoolcraft’s lawsuit seeks $50 million from the city and names 17 police officials as part of campaign to marginalize him, ignore his efforts to report misconduct, falsely arrest and falsely imprison him for six days in a mental institution, and ultimately violate his civil rights.
The truth be told
In 2010, the Village Voice published a five-part series, the “NYPD Tapes,” which prompted Commissioner Kelly to order an investigation into Schoolcraft’s claims. The report, “Investigation into 81 Precinct Crime Reporting,” which was prepared by the Quality Assurance Division, was finished in June, 2010 but never released.
The Voice managed to get a copy of the 95-page document, which shows that the NPYD confirmed the allegations. Investigators also found many other instances in the 81st Precinct where crime reports were missing, had been misclassified, altered, rejected, or not even entered into the computer system that tracks crime reports.
The victims included a Chinese-food delivery man robbed and beaten bloody, a cab driver robbed at gunpoint, a woman beaten by her spouse, and a woman burgled by men who forced their way into her apartment.
“When viewed in their totality, a disturbing pattern is prevalent and gives credence to the allegation that crimes are being improperly reported in order to avoid index-crime classification.” investigators concluded. “This trend is indicative of a concerted effort to deliberately underreport crime in the 81st Precinct.”
The seven crimes that comprise the index—murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny, and auto theft— indicate a precinct’s crime rate and how well it is doing in regard to law enforcement.
Public response
Neither Mayor Bloomberg nor Kelly, both of whom have maintained the city’s crime statistics are accurate, have commented publicly on the revelations. NYPD spokesman Browne told the New York Daily News, “It is not unusual for internal reports to stay private.” He also said the report shows Schoolcraft’s “accusations were taken seriously.”
But in the aftermath of the Voice’s expose, it says dozens of New Yorkers called or sent emails to describe their own “appalling experiences” about trying to report a serious crime. City Councilman Peter Vallone also acknowledged he has been hearing complaints from New York City residents for some time. “It happens far too often for it to be just mistakes,” he said.
Meanwhile, Schoolcraft is under a kind of indefinite suspension without pay and lives upstate with his father as his lawsuit continues to move ahead in a preliminary phase.
His lawyer, Jon Norinsberg, “The fact that the NYPD knew about a report that wholly vindicated Adrian’s claims but never released it to the public—much less acknowledged its existence—is disgraceful and a complete betrayal of the trust of the people of New York.”
He also acknowledges that his office has been “flooded with emails from other officers who have reported downgrading and non-reporting of crime merely to pad their commander’s stats.”
“It is a gross distortion of the truth to suggest that manipulation of crime statistics occurred only in the 81st Precinct,” he contends .”This is a citywide problem.”
Source: MintPress