Monday, July 9, 2018

Manhattan District Attorney Demands Access to Police Records



The Manhattan district attorney’s office is locked in a battle with the New York Police Department over electronic access to disciplinary records of officers and investigative reports that prosecutors contend they need to catch bad arrests earlier in criminal proceedings.

The level of access to police records that prosecutors are seeking would fundamentally change the flow of information between the police and prosecutors in New York City, upending decades of practice and altering the traditional roles of each institution.

The district attorney’s push to obtain disciplinary reports for officers is the latest front in an effort to break through the wall of secrecy surrounding police discipline in New York City. Calls for those records to be made public picked up momentum after the department refused to release the misconduct records of Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who placed Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold during a July 2014 confrontation on Staten Island. (A judge later ordered a summary of the records be made public.)

Click here for the full article.

Source: The New York Times

No comments: