NYPD records show pattern of officer misconduct related to domestic violence, THE CITY reports

A newly released tranche of New York City Police Department disciplinary records reveals that the agency has dealt with a pattern of officer misconduct related to domestic violence, both in response to emergency calls and within its own workforce, according to a new investigation from THE CITY.  

The documents, which THE CITY obtained with free legal support from attorneys at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, unearth a broad range of police misconduct cases and “provide a previously unseen picture of how the department attempts to rein in wayward, often abusive, behavior,” the nonprofit news outlet reported. 

In several cases, THE CITY found that officers failed to protect survivors of domestic violence in response to emergency calls. In one instance, an NYPD official determined that officers’ disregard for agency protocol in response to four successive domestic violence reports “set in motion a chain of events” that ended in a murder. 

“THE CITY’s reporting shows that the yearslong legal battle to force the NYPD to comply with its obligations under the state open records law was a pursuit of tremendous public interest,” said Reporters Committee Staff Attorney Gunita Singh, who helped litigate the case on behalf of THE CITY. “These records shine a crucial spotlight on how a law enforcement agency tasked with protecting and serving the community deals with misconduct in its ranks.”

Yoav Gonen, a reporter for THE CITY, first requested the records in 2022. The request came two years after New York lawmakers repealed a controversial provision of a New York law long used to shield police misconduct records from public scrutiny.

At the time, NYPD’s officer disciplinary process was “kind of this black box,” Gonen recently told the Reporters Committee in a phone interview. “It seemed like inevitably I would stumble on new territory based on how opaque this whole system had been for decades.”

The NYPD denied Gonen’s request a year later, claiming the request was unnecessarily burdensome and the records at issue were protected from disclosure under the state’s public records law. 

Represented by attorneys from the Reporters Committee and Davis Wright Tremaine, Gonen and THE CITY sued the NYPD in November 2023 for unlawfully withholding the records. Months later, the NYPD agreed to begin turning them over. But it took a court order to get the department to comply with the agreement.

“Even once the judge had ruled in our favor, the NYPD was still dragging its heels,” Gonen said. “We were very happy to have a legal team that was essentially putting the NYPD’s feet to the fire.”

Ultimately, the NYPD released over 2,000 pages of records involving more than 130 police officers. As THE CITY reported, the disciplinary cases disclosed as a result of the lawsuit, which are from the first six months of 2022, were mostly resolved through private settlements between the officers and the department. 

Twenty of the cases involved allegations of domestic violence against NYPD officers, according to THE CITY. Most officers — including one accused of choking his wife until she couldn’t breathe for a few seconds — were allowed to remain on the force, typically receiving a year’s probation, counseling, and docked vacation days.

For years, Gonen said, the NYPD has faced scrutiny for letting officers accused of domestic violence keep their jobs. But before now, the public had been in the dark about the scope of misconduct related to officers’ response to domestic violence reports in the community. 

“It’s something the public would want to know about and would expect the department to fix,” Gonen said. “They’re much more likely to address it in the right way if it’s public than if it’s hidden.”

An NYPD spokesperson told THE CITY that the department is revising and expanding its domestic violence training for new recruits, and agency officials have said that they are prioritizing reform. 

To read more, check out THE CITY’s reporting.