De Blasio CCRB Head Emery Pitches ‘CopStat’ to Keep Tabs on Police

Will Bredderman

Richard Emery, the civil rights lawyer Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed to head the Civilian Complaint Review Board last month, today proposed a “CopStat” system to track police abuse–just hours after police unions rallied to demand Mr. de Blasio commit to supporting officers in the wake of the chokehold homicide of Staten Islander Eric Garner.

At his first full meeting since becoming chairman of the independent board charged with investigating claims of police misconduct, Mr. Emery suggested the CCRB create a numbers-driven system for tracking abuse claims by precinct–modeled and named after the system Police Commissioner Bill Bratton instituted for monitoring crime statistics during the Giuliani Administration. The program, according to Mr. Emery, comes with the full approval of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“We are the repository of all civilian complaints,” said Mr. Emery. “That is a trove of information that tells us what’s going on with police-community relations in the city.”

The new chairman–who gained prominence for repeatedly suing the city–said that the CopStat system would ultimately help police and the CCRB by identifying trends and even individual troubled officers, and heading off potential cases of abuse before they even occur through transfers, training, and other measures.



Read more at http://observer.com/2014/08/de-blasio-ccrb-head-emery-pitches-copstat-to-keep-tabs-on-police/#ixzz39ZjS2zTX