NYC NOW - July 22, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Arva Rice, chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, is resigning this Monday at the request of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Also, the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel and Queens Midtown Tunnel will be closed overnight on select dates throughout the summer as the MTA tests massive flood doors. Plus, the New York City Council is considering legislation to erect a sign at the site of a former slave market on Wall Street. Finally, on this day 10 years ago, the Department of Justice issued a scathing report on Newark, New Jersey’s Police Department and appointed an independent monitor to oversee changes. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with the appointed monitor, Peter Harvey, for updates.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hanson. The chair of the city's police watchdog agency is resigning. Arva Rice has chaired the civilian complaint review board since Mayor Adams appointed her back in 2022. Adams asked for her resignation earlier this year after she publicly criticized the NYPD for its handling of the fatal police shooting of a Bronx man, Kawasaki-Torwick. In that case, Rice said agency prosecutors were unable to press disciplinary charges against officers because the NYPD took so long to turnover evidence. Rice has also said that the NYPD should not have the final say when it comes to officer discipline. You may have seen crews closing the giant door, capping the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel in Manhattan over the weekend.

WNYC's Catalina Gonella tells us why. Two New York City tunnels connecting to Manhattan are being closed overnight. on select dates throughout the summer. That's because the MTA is testing massive flood doors in the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel and the Queens Midtown Tunnel. It's part of hurricane and tropical storm preparation. The MTA says the doors are 29 feet wide, 14 feet high, and almost two feet thick, and they weigh more than 20 tons. The eight doors were installed in 2017 as part of the agency's flood mitigation program, and they're designed to stop water from getting into the tunnels and causing extensive damage.

The New York City Council is considering legislation to put up a sign at the site of a slave market that once operated on Wall Street. WNYC asked historians and artists which local black history sites hold special meaning for them. Garnett Kodogan is the Tunie-Lee-Lee Distinguished Lecturer in Urbanism at MIT and editor-at-Large of a book, non-stop metropolis, a New York City Atlas. Kodogan says he loves the old jazz clubs of Maurasania in the Bronx, such as Club 845, which have long since disappeared. The parts of New York Black history that are especially resonant to me, are the histories that we walk past or we walk over and they go unnoticed.

Club 845 is where jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie once played. Up next, it's been a decade since the Department of Justice issued a scathing report on the Newark, New Jersey Police Department and appointed a federal monitor to oversee changes. We check in on where things stand today. That story after the break. Ten years ago today, the Department of Justice issued a report concluding that the Newark Police Department has engaged in unconstitutional policing. The report came in response to a petition filed by the ACLU of New Jersey in 2010, documenting more than 400 incidents of abuse and misconduct by Newark Police and calling for federal oversight. Newark agreed to reforms under a court-ordered consent decree. The federal government also appointed former New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey to serve as a monitor. My colleague Michael Hill recently spoke with Mr. Harvey about what's happened in the years since.

Peter, first of all, how much different better reformed is the newer police division today compared to a decade ago? Is it achieving constitution or lawful policing? It's a much different police organization than it was a decade ago. It's a much different police organization than it was in 2016 when the consent decree started. There is more accountability. There are 15 policies that have either been rewritten or written brand new. Those policies include a First Amendment policy that protects a. rights of citizens to record the activities of police while they're on the street during their job.

A First Amendment policy is coupled with a bias-free policing policy that is one of the few in the nation that prohibits police officers from engaging in bias-based police work. And last but not least, a stronger Internal Affairs Department unit that takes complaints seriously and investigates them thoroughly. Peter, the pandemic delayed some progress and led to an extension of this consent decree, but in May, a federal judge terminated about half of the agreement because of documented progress briefly. Some of the important areas, which ones are better now? Well, better practices and policy review and revision training, community engagement

will continue to review community engagement pursuant to an agreement with the parties. investigatory stops and detentions, stops, searches, arrest, training. First Amendment rights in car and body worn cameras. Those are cameras on the bodies of police officers as well as in the cars. And theft and property. Newark is about to open a new property room. We will review that new property room and how Newark takes in property and keeps track of it. as well as evidence.

But it still leaves a number of areas left for supervision. One is supervision itself, management of police officers by supervisors in the police division, searches with or without a warrant, arrests with or without a warrant, bias-repolicing, internal affairs, complaint intake, internal affairs, discipline, and data systems. We will continue to review these seven areas. Peter, reform is not cheap. Newark is paying the tab on this. What's the cost so far and what's it likely to cost in the final tab? Well, the cost in the consent decree set forth $7.4 million, but that was for all professionals used. We use subject matter experts who are former police officers, not in Newark, in other cities that have undergone reform.

Some of our former officers are high-ranking managers from Philadelphia, Los Angeles. We also have maybe one of the best internal affairs subject matter experts attached to our team. So we have expended that $7.4 million over the five-year period for which it was allocated. And there are a couple million more that has been paid by Newark. But the reality is that Newark is going to spend a lot more because it had to upgrade its data systems. it has done made some progress in that area newark also had to upgrade its technology body-worn cameras have a cost associated with them in-car cameras have a cost associated with them but you know michael this is what happens when you neglect the police department for 30 years sooner or later you have to

improve the systems that you didn't pay attention to for 30 years so you have to do it all at once so yes it is costly but it would have cost a lot less had newark and other city's been doing it all along. Peter, what do stakeholders, residents, things say about the reforms so far? It depends on who you ask. I think you probably would get better responses than we would. We hold community meetings, community forums, and we hear comments. I think a number of members of the Newark public know that policing is better than it once was.

the abusive police policing tactics that once existed in Newark just don't exist today. Secondly, you don't have the disrespect of the community that once was rather prevalent in Newark. You also have, you don't have the use of force,

excessive use of force incidents by police that touched off the 67 Newark riots. You know, you may recall that the reason that people had had enough and decided to fight it out in the streets was because a taxi cab driver drove around a police car and was pulled out of his taxi and beaten nearly to death. That just doesn't happen in Newark today. That's my colleague Michael Hill in conversation with Peter Harvey, the court-appointed

federal monitor overseeing reform at the Newark Police Department. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Tiffany Hanson. We'll be back tomorrow.