Over a decade ago, a federal court ruled that the New York City Police Department had been unconstitutionally stopping and frisking Black and Latino residents. The court ruling specified several mandatory reforms, one of which was straightforward: the NYPD must review officers’ stops to confirm they were lawful. Yet, for the majority of the past three years, the country’s largest police force neglected to conduct that oversight for a central component of an aggressive, politically influential unit while it detained New Yorkers. This court-mandated review lapse was only recently uncovered and reported by the NYPD’s federal monitor, who supervises the department’s adherence to the 2013 stop-and-frisk ruling. In total, data from the monitor shows that more than 2,000 stops went without proper scrutiny. The breakdown occurred within the Community Response Team, or CRT. Last year’s ProPublica investigation revealed that the unit frequently bypassed oversight while targeting minor “quality-of-life” offenses like unlicensed motorcycles and ATVs. The unit’s aggressive methods, such as high-speed car chases, and its secretive operations troubled some NYPD leaders, yet it grew substantially with backing from then-Mayor Eric Adams. The absence of oversight reflects the NYPD’s broader pattern of neglecting its responsibilities under a longstanding court mandate. For example, officers throughout the department have frequently failed to record stops. Reviews are especially important for aggressive units like the CRT, which has a history of unconstitutional stops. Since its establishment three years ago, it has also attracted hundreds of complaints from civilians. Over half the officers on the team have been cited by the Civilian Complaint Review Board for misconduct at least once during their careers, a ProPublica analysis of board records from last year found. This is in contrast to only a tiny percentage of NYPD officers as a whole. Before uncovering this latest issue, the federal monitor had already expressed serious concerns about the unit’s conduct.
