CM Cabán on specialty units and constitutional violations
Cabán cites the federal monitor finding specialty units like CRTs perform significantly worse on constitutional compliance than patrol officers. She asks why NYPD leans into specialty units. Gerber says specialty teams are deployed to high-crime areas and notes PST teams no longer exist.
Thank you.
Inspector, you testified several times that you're data-driven.
Very data-driven.
Yes.
And you also mentioned a couple of times that part of what you...
leave you need to be doing is you need more specialty units.
You need to lean into your specialty units.
So, you know, the most recent report from the monitor details persistent constitutional violations, particularly from the specialized units.
They found that the specialized units, like the CRTs, the PSTs, as examples,
that those units continue to perform significantly worse than regular patrol officers and that they failed to meet nearly every constitutional compliance benchmark established by the independent monitor.
So my question is, if you're data-driven and you want to lean into what works while also...
You know, holding your folks accountable.
Why do you believe that what you need is more specialty units when your specialty units are some of the worst actors in terms of perpetrating unconstitutional stops?
Yeah, Councilmember, so, so.
No, that was for Inspector.
No, no, no, Councilmember, I'm gonna answer your question.
I'm going to answer your question.
And for starters, I don't think the inspector said that we need more special teams.
I think what he said was we surge resources, a variety of resources, specialized resources, and sometimes specialty units, yes, into high crime areas.
That is 100% true.
We do that.
I think my question was, Inspector, why do you think we need to lean into more specialty units?
It wasn't Mr.
Gerber.
It was Inspector.
And we are picking here for the NYPD.
Right?
And again, we didn't say...
more specialty units, we said we deploy the resources, including specialty units, focusing on high crime areas.
We do a spike in shootings, a spike in violence.
We're going to deploy resources, including at times specialty teams, to that area.
You mentioned PSTs.
The PST teams no longer exist.
Well, he testified that he wanted more of that, more specialty teams.
He didn't say that.
And in any event, the PST teams no longer exist, as I'm sure you know from reading the monitor reports.
But why can't the inspector speak for himself?
He can speak for himself.
Can he?
And I'm telling you, council member, you don't get to decide who answers on behalf of the NYPD.
If I ask a particular person what they thought about a thing, I would hope that that particular person would answer.
Well, except for the fact that you actually said...
It's based on his testimony.
He didn't say, he did not say what you said he said.
He didn't say that.
Okay, well, Inspector, based on that information about the specialty units being some of the worst actors, what are your thoughts on
continuing the use of specialty units as opposed to, for example, the regular patrol officers?
Councilmember, we use the specialty teams, as you know, to get guns off the street to address violence.
Okay.
Since he can't answer my question, I'm going to ask a new question.