In the latest in a string of document releases by the Brooklyn DA’s Office, a database of internal misconduct documents originally meant for the courts has been released in a searchable format.
The release consists of District Attorney’s office letters prepared for defense attorneys and defendants to inform them of past police conduct that could undermine the credibility of officers called to the stand. Roughly two-thirds of the letters, which were generated for upcoming criminal cases between last January and this March, contain some sort of disclosure, including lawsuits, Civilian Complaint Review Board determinations, NYPD disciplinary actions, and honesty assessments made by judges.
In an interview with WNYC/Gothamist, Gonzalez noted that the release was possible thanks to last summer’s repeal of Civil Rights Law 50-a, a personnel records law that previously shielded most police disciplinary records from public scrutiny.
“The system had been more concerned about protecting the privacy rights of police officers than it was about making sure that community members had the information about who was given the responsibility of keeping them safe,” Gonzalez said. “This now treats police officers the way any other witness would be treated in our justice system.”
The release is the latest in a series of similar disclosures from district attorneys on NYPD misconduct over the last two years. In 2019, WNYC/Gothamist broke news that prosecutors across the city maintained secret compilations of such records, and has since pursued their public release through numerous FOIL requests and appeals.
Gonzalez’s release is, thus far, the biggest of any of the prosecutors in the five boroughs, and experts say it may be one of the largest across the country.
“Mass protests and organizing over police brutality last summer led New York lawmakers to repeal the state’s secrecy law on police disciplinary records,” said Gideon Oliver, a public records attorney who negotiated the release on behalf of Gothamist/WNYC. “This is just the kind of mass disclosure that every prosecutor’s office in our state should do to meet that promise of transparency.”
WNYC/Gothamist is making the thousands of new Brooklyn records available to the public here for the first time.
Makes sense that police records are all public. I mean, police are the ones who always want mug shots and arrest records to be public fare, and turnabout is fair play.
plus, police are public servants, so all their records should be public as well.Report
If the cop that busted me for finding a bag in my back seat had been reprimanded a dozen times for planting bags in the back seat of people, I would want that trumpeted by my attorney.Report
Or, if said cop has a history of having drug cases tossed for bad evidence, even if they never got reprimanded…Report