EXCLUSIVE | Internal police union memo claims CCRB member tasked with investigating cops is ‘flagrant anti-police activist’

The Police Benevolent Association (PBA) sent an internal memo out to its some 21,000 members this week, obtained by amNewYork, calling on the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to oust one of its own investigators whom the union has dubbed a “flagrant anti-police activist.”

The demands made in a Jan. 13 letter that referred to Andrew Battle, a CCRB investigator whom the union believes is unfairly biased against NYPD officers. The CCRB is tasked with independently investigating misconduct allegations against cops, as well as making findings and recommending disciplinary and legal actions against them if found liable.

However, according to the PBA memo that amNewYork obtained and reviewed, the union claims its members won’t receive a fair shake from the panel based on Battle’s findings. It blamed the CCRB for commissioning those with an agenda to take down police. In response, the PBA sent a letter to the police watchdog demanding Battle’s dismissal.

“In a letter sent to CCRB leadership last week, the PBA made clear that CCRB’s hiring and continued employment of this investigator constituted a breach of the New York City Charter, which required CCRB to conduct its investigations ‘fairly and independently.’ We demanded the investigator’s immediate removal as well as a comprehensive overhaul of the agency’s hiring process,” part of the internal PBA memo read.

The PBA accuses Battle of violating the CCRB’s code of conduct by openly writing and publishing anti-police rhetoric, which they say showcases a bias that will prevent the investigator from treating officers fairly.

As evidence for Battle’s alleged bias, the PBA pointed to an article published in The Indypendent in December of 2019, authored by Battle, titled “Police won’t fix NYC’s Subway.” In the piece, Battle appeared to label police as racists and bullies.

“It has become clear what police do. They intimidate, bully, harass. They target people of color for special abuse. They stare at riders with dull, detached eyes. They collect overtime. Their stretches of boredom are punctuated by outbursts of aggression, of brutality. A teenager is tased over a $2.75 fare. A homeless man is accosted, thrown out of the station,” Battle wrote.

In another article dated September 2022 titled, “Back to the Future: On Eric Adams’s New York” for the Brooklyn Rail, Battle again appeared to compare the NYPD to a street gang.

“The modus operandi of the street gang. The informal culture of the NYPD is full of expressions of this rank-and-file autonomy, from challenge coins to the upside-down New York City flag stickers that some officers affix to their work vehicles,” Battle wrote. “For eons, extortion, violence, and everyday humiliation have been normal features of the relationship between the police and Black people in American cities.”

Sources within the CCRB responded to these claims, telling amNewYork that CCRB employees undergo a Department of Investigation background review before being hired. The CCRB sources say that no single person makes a decision in an investigation; each case involves several layers of review.

They also stated that CCRB staff undergo special training to conduct investigations impartially, charging that claims of bias are flatly false.

Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the CCRB confirmed to amNewYork that the agency received the PBA’s letter and is taking the claim seriously.

“The CCRB is an oversight Agency, and as such, it takes complaints of bias by its staff extremely seriously. The CCRB received the PBA’s complaint regarding an employee, and it is conducting an investigation,” a spokesperson said.

The CCRB stated that Battle himself is unavailable for comment.

PBA president Patrick Hendry.Photo by Dean Moses

After learning of the letter sent to the CCRB, amNewYork also reached out to PBA President Patrick Hendry for comment. The union boss charged that Battles’ “bias is on another level.”

“Police officers already know that the CCRB system is stacked against them, but this investigator’s outrageous bias is on another level. There is zero chance that an individual who has publicly expressed such extreme anti-police views is going to conduct a fair and impartial investigation, as required by the City Charter,” Hendry said. “He should never have been hired. CCRB must not only remove him, but must also reform its vetting and hiring processes so our members are not subjected to this kind of hateful bias.”

It is not the first time the PBA has laid claim to a CCRB member holding prejudice toward cops.

In another internal memo dated April 2025, in the members-only section of their website, the PBA claimed to have driven out some four CCRB members, including a supervisor, they say, who added additional complaints to an officer’s record.

“After an investigation into the supervisor’s background, we found that this staffer was not only living in New Jersey (a violation of city rules unless an employee is granted a waiver) but had also publicly espoused extremist views, including support for terrorism and endorsements of political violence,” the memo read.