(FreedomBeacon.com)- An independent watchdog group recently said that as many as 145 New York Police Department officers should be punished for how they behaved during protests for Black Lives Matter over the summer of 2020.
The Civilian Complaint Review Board for New York City said this week that they received substantiated complaints of misconduct for 145 of the NYPD’s officers, just related to BLM protests in 2020.
In total, the CCRB said it received 750 complaints against officers, and 39% of them were found to be substantiated.
On Wednesday, the watchdog group said:
“The CCRB has seen unprecedented challenges in investigating these complaints particularly around the identification of officers due to the failure to follow proper protocols, officers covering their names and shield, officers wearing protective equipment that did not belong to them, the lack of proper use of body worn cameras, as well as incomplete and severely delayed paperwork.”
For the 145 officers who received substantiated allegations of misconduct, the CCRB said they received a total of 267 allegations. Thus far, the CCRB said the NYPD has finalized 44 of those cases, imposing some form of discipline against 18 of them directly related to the complaints the group received.
In the past, Dermot Shea, the former commissioner of the New York Police Department, said the NYPD “responded to a very difficult situation,” referring to the protests. They exploded in New York City — as they did in many parts of the country — following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in May 2020 while he was in police custody.
Giving an interview in 2020, Shea said:
“I think the officers did a phenomenal job under extremely difficult circumstances. We were as ready as anyone is ready. And we’ll learn from it, and move forward.”
Shea is no longer with the NYPD, though, and the city of New York also has a new mayor. That man, Democrat Eric Abrams, has been trying to clamp down on gun violence in the city, which has exploded since the start of the pandemic.
In fact, gun violence in New York City has gotten so bad that President Joe Biden even visited the city earlier this year.
Speaking at an event with Adams at the time, Biden said he was opposed to “defunding” the police — a hot topic at the time that many protesters were calling for, and even demanding.
As Biden said at the event:
“Mayor Adams, you and I agree, the answer is not to abandon our streets. That’s not the answer.
“The answer is to come together, police and communities, building trust and making us all safer. The answer is not to defund the police. It’s to give you the tools, the training, the funding to be partners, to be protectors, and the community needs you, know the community.”
The CCRB published a full list of all the complaints they have received, along with the officers, on their website.
