Since 2010, when this story began, the NYPD has made Adrian Schoolcraft's life miserable. He has been living with his father in upstate New York since being suspended. He is suing the department for $50 million. A two year old internal report, hidden by the NYPD for those two years, has now been obtained by The Village Voice. It vindicates Officer Adrian Schoolcraft's actions. The VV's request for a copy of the report was blocked even though at the time, the report had been completed and therefore, should have been released.
Kelly's aides have also sought to marginalize Schoolcraft—to, in effect, kill the messenger. And the department has succeeded in making his life extremely uncomfortable. Schoolcraft has been suspended without pay for 27 months, he faces department charges, he was placed under surveillance for a time, and the city even blocked his application for unemployment benefits.
Adrian Schoolcraft, while working out of the 81st police precinct in Brooklyn, NY, became aware of a pattern of underreporting of serious crimes, while being required to meet illegal quotas for lesser crimes. Schoolcraft reported a number of these incidents to investigators. On October 29, 2010, a dozen officers in SWAT gear, and EMS, showed up at his home. He refused to return to the precinct on the grounds of being ill. In an obvious attempt to undermine his credibility for the lawsuit they knew would be coming, they had him taken to the psychiatric ward of the hospital and held against his will.
In October 2009, Schoolcraft met with NYPD investigators for three hours and detailed more than a dozen cases of crime reports being manipulated in the district. Three weeks after that meeting-which was supposed to have been kept secret from Schoolcraft's superiors-his precinct commander and a deputy chief ordered Schoolcraft to be dragged from his apartment and forced into the Jamaica Hospital psychiatric ward for six days.
Officer Schoolcraft had filled out a sick form at work and went home. Hours later, the officers showed up at his home saying he hadn't properly filled out the paperwork and had to return to the precinct so they could 'investigate' the matter. They said they were 'worried' about him because he didn't respond to calls and loud knocks on the door. (It was midnight and he had taken Nyquil for a cold). Nobody knew where he was so they had to send a fleet of squad cars to his apartment to check on him. When he refused to go back to the station, the officers conferred with EMS, who declared him an 'EDP' (emotionally disturbed person) which gave them grounds to take him to the psychiatric ward.
Schoolcraft's father was uninformed of his whereabouts and finally found him six days later by calling around to the area hospitals.
Schoolcraft alleged that commanders knew he had come forward and used the psychiatric stay to retaliate against him. For more than two years, the NYPD has publicly insisted that was not the case.
Schoolcraft, had been secretly recording his precint's roll calls during which there are orders from his commanders to fill quotas for minor violations (moving violations, cell phone while driving use, no seatbelts, etc). They usually referto these quotas with ambiguous phrases like ‘paying the rent’, but once towards the end of the quota period, the commander actually enumerated the requirements for each violation. They were also encouraged to make petty arrests such as arresting ‘roving gangs’ which they defined as more than two people standing around. This amounts to illegal arrest without cause, or kidnapping. They also were encouraged to conduct stop and frisk which would lead to marijuana arrests even though marijuana must be in public view to warrant an arrest.
At the same time, officers were discouraged from investigating or taking reports of more serious crimes which had the effect of lowering crime statistics.
This 2 year old NYPD report which the department hid for two years confirms the NYPD has been manipulating crime statistics.
The Voice has obtained that 95-page report, and it shows that the NYPD confirmed Schoolcraft's allegations. In other words, at the same time that police officials were attacking Schoolcraft's credibility, refusing to pay him, and serving him with administrative charges, the NYPD was sitting on a document that thoroughly vindicated his claims.
The focus on harassing innocent bystanders and 'juking' the minor arrest statistics makes it appear that the NYPD is efficient. The NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg have frequently bragged that serious crime statistics are down. Well sure, if you don't report them, that'll happen. On the other hand, stop and frisks (which rarely result in arrests) unfairly target the black and Latino population. These activities are up by 600 percent.
Over 684.000 people were subjected to the New York Police Department's aggressive tactics in 2011, a 14 percent increase over the previous year. Fifty-four percent of those stopped were African American. Latinos comprised 34 percent of the stops.
"Innocent New Yorkers on 600,000 separate occasions this past year were stopped, frisked and maybe thrown up against the wall. Barely six percent of these terrorizing encounters resulted in arrest," said Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union according to NY1.
The NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy, instituted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has increased by 600 percent since his first year in office.
Stop-and-frisk, as well as bogus pot arrests, can have devastating effects on community relations with police. But Kelly's memo was not taken seriously. Marijuana arrests actually increased slightly in 2011, meaning the NYPD continues to focus resources on harmless marijuana crimes -- so many, in fact, that minor pot charges generate more arrests than any other crime in the city.
According to criminologists, these are not isolated incidents but rather can be extrapolated to the rest of the department. Crime statistics are a major benchmark by with Bloomberg is evaluated. Bloomberg continues to
insist "the NYPD continues to keep our city safer than at any other time in recorded hisotry". So, he is trying to keep this quiet until his administration is over next year. Other reports have languished in the bureaucracy of the department.
John Eterno, a criminologist at Molloy College and a former NYPD captain, says that what was happening in the 81st Precinct is no isolated case. "The pressures on commanders are enormous, to make sure the crime numbers look good," Eterno says. "This is a culture. This is happening in every precinct, every transit district, and every police housing service area. This culture has got to change."
"This is just a microcosm of what is happening in the entire police department."
Indeed, it is clear from Schoolcraft's recordings that Mauriello was responding to pressure emanating from the Brooklyn North borough command and police headquarters for lower crime numbers and higher summons and stop-and-frisk numbers.
The seven index crimes—murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny, and auto theft—are the central public indicators of the city's crime rate and, by extension, its reputation. The crime numbers are also the bedrock in evaluating the Bloomberg administration and critical to attracting tourism and economic development to the city.
As a result, Mayor Bloomberg and Kelly have gone to great lengths to insist the crime statistics are accurate. They have publicly downplayed the Schoolcraft allegations and insisted that any "underreporting" is a tiny anomaly.
Ironically, a poll was released today by
Quinnipiac which found that the majority of New York voters thought the NYPD was doing a fine job, handling crime in the city and treating Muslims fairly. The only people who objected were, haha, Muslims, blacks and Latinos.
I have been called for NYS grand jury duty this month. I have done this before and almost every single case was one of these meaningless small possession arrests. What a waste of my and taxpayers' time and money, and now I have to do it again. Will justice be served if I sit there for 30 days (not earning any income, which is not grounds for dismissal) and raise my hand how ever many hundreds of times to say 'not guilty'?
Here is an interview with the Village Voice reporter who has been working on this since 2010
And here is a story with an interview of Schoolcraft on This American Life.
Here is a link to Schoolcraft's website where there is a 30 minute recording of the home invasion.