For all New York politicians’ pious talk of the important work of the Civilian Complain Review Board in examining allegations of cop abuses, the mayor and City Council have crippled it by leaving five of the 15 commissioner slots vacant.
That’s led to major delays in board rulings, leaving both accused police officers and credible complainants hanging as their cases sit in limbo.
We’ve long been skeptical that the CCRB is actually needed: The NYPD is scrutinized by an independent monitor as well as the council; its tactics are reined in by a host of consent decrees (many of them ill-advised).
But having a board that can’t do its work is even worse.
Two of the vacancies are on the City Council to fill; two, on Mayor Eric Adams; the third — the board’s chair — is on both.
Board members review cases in three-person teams; this means only thee committees are at work instead of five, so the backlog keeps building.
The interim chair, Arva Rice, resigned in July.
First appointed by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and named interim head by Adams in 2022, she left after Deputy Mayor Phil Banks asked her to step down over the summer.
The City Council’s Rules Committee is set to vet one replacement, Staten Island resident Dr. Mohammad Khalid, on Oct. 9; no word on any candidate for the Bronx seat.
City Hall claims to have an “ongoing process” to fill its slots, and to reappoint two members before the mess gets worse.
Since neither the council nor the mayor can bother keeping the CCRB running properly, they ought to admit it’s outlived whatever use it once had — and start the process of amending the City Charter to get rid of it.
