The City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board reported a decrease in the number of complaints it received against the NYPD in 2014, according to the board’s annual report released Thursday.
The report also suggests a reorganization of how the agency investigates the complaints it does receive, splitting itself from six teams into 16 smaller ones.
According to the report, in 2014 there were 4,788 complaints filed, an 11% decrease from the year before. It was also a 26% decrease from 2010. The time it takes to process a complaint has also decreased, the agency said, from 329 days in 2013 to 271 days in 2014. So far in 2015 the average investigation — handled by the smaller groups — is completed in 63 days, according to the report.
The agency pointed to a decrease in stop-and-frisk as “likely the main factor” in the decline.
The report also said the NYPD has gained respect for the CCRB’s decisions, pointing to an increase in disciplinary actions on substantiated CCRB complaints. The NYPD acted on 68% of those cases substantiated by the CCRB in 2014, higher than the 57% they acted on in 2013, according to the report.
Many criticized the effectiveness of the CCRB’s recommendations after Eric Garner’s death shone a light on the many reported incidents of chokeholds.
The CCRB received more than 1,000 chokehold-related complaints from 2009 to 2014, CCRB spokeswoman Linda Sachs has said. Of those, 10 cases were substantiated and most of those resulted in a virtual slap on the wrist or no punishment at all, according to a review of the dispositions.
