Attached in this post below are screen shots from the NYPD’s Civilian Complaint Review Board 2015 annual report

In the report they list every single NYPD precinct in New York City and the number of complaints that have been lodged against each precinct. Here they cite a five year total 2011-2015

Most precincts have 200,300,400 complaints; 500 in a rougher precinct. Two particularly dangerous crime ridden areas in the Bronx patrolled by the 44th and the 40th precincts have 700 complaints. And that’s it, a complete picture of crime and community police relations in the city.

But there’s one glaringly how the hell can this be allowed tolerated (italics mine but they should be yours and the NYPD’s) exception.

The 75th police precinct of East New York Brooklyn. For that same period it had a number absurdly higher than any other place– 1,344 complaints — you hear, one precinct in one community had 1,344 complaints lodged against it. Almost double the number of those two for real rough precincts in the Bronx .

I know I might be beating a dead horse, I’ve written and reported on East New York a lot.

But what the hell NYPD, CCRB- Garner, chokeholds, stop and frisk are legitimate and important issues bit in some ways they’re individual isolated of a time. This is endemic, its been like this in East New York since CCRB stats were being compiled. No sarcasm, but where’s your white paper on this, your New York Lawyers for The Public Interest led civil suit on this, even a damn mention on your website that’s chock full of every imaginable statistical minutiae — a 1,344 complaints against cops in one community.

Commanding Officer of the 75th Michael Lipetri seems like a decent and honorable leader (as much as you can tell from a twitter account) and the 75th is a hard hard precinct to work.

But sincerely how the heck do you look in the eye of a decent East New York resident and rationally justifiably explain without apology 1,344 complaints when,say, Murray Hill where my girl lived has 260 complaints for the same period. People don’t have a right to live like this (on a side note when I was reporting in East New York I could’ve filed legitimate CCRB complaints on different police officers maybe 12 times).

On a larger side note I got yanked off a Port Authority bus by a group of police officers on some false charge of making a 911 call to endanger East New York police. I was handcuffed to a bench for six hours. When I went back to that precinct a week later as the desk sergeant instructed me in a phone conversation, an officer there whose badge number and name I will never forget – – how do I say this properly — degraded me, taunted me, confiscated destroyed my property, had me on my knees, lies to me, then assaulted the hell out of me hard — in his precinct right there in Port Authority with 12 other cops there who witnessed it. I’m laying there crumpled on the ground and I said to him why the hell did you do that? He said because I hit him first. Since I’m not dead or doing a 2 year bid in Dannemora Correctional, you he and I know that that’s a straight up ugly lie, and coming from a police officer it’s essentially a damn false criminal charge. And God help the defendant who gets this officer on the stand testifying against him.*

I called 911, EMS, Internal Affairs, Port Authority Integrity Unit, CCRB, reported it to another precinct trying to file assault charges – no one ever got back to me, nothing at all happened. Call the Port Authority Integrity Unit (their version of Internal Affairs) anytime and it just rings and rings, no one ever answers, they don’t even have voice mail. I had to leave my complaint with a secretary in administration.

So this heavyweight Port Authority officer got to play UFC with me sending me flying 6 feet thorough the air into a concrete wall (though maybe play UFC is not quite right, when I looked up at him as he was standing over me after the assault his whole body was visibly shaking).

I hope he’s sorry, maybe PTSD, he served in the military in combat, but at my worst I sometimes imagine he tells the story over beers laughing about what he did to that fucken reporter. No macho on this but if I ever somehow impossibly heard him doing this word is just about bond please put money on my commissary books because I would proudly do 2 years on the gate on the count in the dayroom etc for that kind of violation.

Seriously these 75th Precinct numbers are too exceptional; something is very wrong at that precinct and command should do something otherwise you’ll have more Michael Dowds running your streets hurting people, communities, and tarnishing the image of good cops.

QUEENS and STATEN ISLAND

MANHATTAN

BROOKLYN

BRONX

*On not naming this officer, I know this is not strongly defensible or consistent with how I operate as a journalist but I can’t bring myself to fuck with him that way, something he would probably do, low-grade coward snitch to hurt or to ruin a man without giving him a chance. And it’s for a similar reason I went down to the precinct when the sergeant told me to over the phone. I knew I was walking into a lions den, the desk Sergeant was being obnoxious, game playing hostile. But I went because I hate the idea of being afraid or having to watch myself or call a lawyer to fight in the shadows; not confront them man to man when I did absolutely nothing wrong and they acted so immoraly. That cop wouldn’t have done it, and I don’t want to be that kind of man. In fact in between throwing a folder of my papers across the room screaming in my face and body slamming me he told me maybe three times “Get the fuck out of here, call a lawyer.”

But I may be wrong about this, if I had an emergency and to call 911 meant this officer would show up I would just quote NWA and handle it myself. He either learned his lesson after coming close to being burnt (after this happened I raised hell to him and every other cop in the precinct, to 911, to EMS who responded while I was in the precinct (first it was get the fuck out, after the assault they wouldn’t let me leave even though I said I wanted to repeatedly) called my wife, a lawyer and told her what happened gave the officer’s badge number and spelled out his name all in front of him, them; strong loud and emphatically. Or the cop doesn’t give a damn about a kevin heldman and doesn’t belong on the streets with a gun and extraordinary powers.