CM Ariola on crime reporting refusals and Washington Square Park video
Ariola raises videos of officers refusing to take crime reports, including a Washington Square Park incident. Gerber calls the video unacceptable, confirms IAB investigation, and says most officers take reports properly but misconduct is disciplined severely under Commissioner Tisch.
Do you know how many additional New Yorkers were assaulted this year by defendants who had already been arrested for another violent offense while a previous case of theirs was still pending?
So we will pull that for you.
I don't think we have it here, but that is data that we have and we can provide.
Okay.
So I just want to talk now about reporting of crimes.
We've all seen the videos circulating online most recently from officers in Washington Square Park and heard that several reports from Times Square or elsewhere in the city of officers either refusing to take a report or...
Dissuading individuals from filing reports.
Do you ever receive complaints from the public about officers refusing to take a report or misclassifying what they say?
Yeah, so first of all, I just want to say that with that video, I'm familiar with the video, totally unacceptable.
It is under investigation by IAB, right?
We have that case.
It's under investigation.
And yes, this is not a new issue, right?
Most officers do this the right way.
I want to say it's actually very important, right?
Most cops are taking crime reports.
They're there to help victims.
They're trying to achieve justice for them.
You're going to have a small number of officers who don't do this the right way, right?
There are times when that's negligence.
lack of training, a training issue, and there are times when it's misconduct.
And I want to be very clear that when we have misconduct, particularly under Commissioner Tisch, these matters are investigated rigorously and the disciplinary consequences can be severe.
I also, if I may, I just want to...
There are many reasons why it's so problematic, right?
The obvious reason is just terribly wrong, right?
Someone experienced a crime, they're trying to report it, and officers not taking their complaint, and in that case, apparently almost seeming to mock it.
That's just wrong, full stop.
It undermines credibility of the public, which is a terrible thing.
There's also another issue, which is the department, like everything we've been talking about, it runs, the department runs on crime data, right?
And we need good data for deployment, for resource allocation, for follow-up.
Okay, so I'm going to stop you there because I have a couple more questions.