Civilian Complaint Review Board interim head Arva Rice leaves post after more than two years

One of the city's agencies tasked with investigating police misconduct at the NYPD is losing its interim chair after she announced recently she was resigning.

The NYPD's Civilian Complaint Review Board head, Arva Rice, who was appointed to the post by New York City Mayor Eric Adams 2½ years ago, resigned her post effective August 15.

Her resignation came after months of tension between the police oversight agency and City Hall over budgeting matters, as well as criticism from police union and department officials about the fairness of CCRB actions. 

Rice’s departure dismayed some progressives who want the CCRB to have strong leadership. They say they are losing an outspoken public face and a major policy advocate at the same time the CCRB has been pushing for more resources and power.

"Ms. Rice’s departure from the Civilian Complaint Review Board is part of a clear pattern by the Adams administration of undermining NYPD accountability," said Chris Dunne, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union in a statement. "As reports of NYPD abuse have reached their highest level in more than a decade, New Yorkers need more police accountability, not less."

Adams' office did not respond to requests for comment on Rice's resignation.

In addition to losing Rice, the agency is also short two of its 15 board members, something that has increased the workload on those members remaining who have to assess the validity of complaints against the NYPD. The agency caseload of complaints is expected to hit over 6,000 cases this year, officials said.

The CCRB did not make Rice available for comment, referring a reporter to previous statements she made at public events.

In her last budget appearance before the City Council in March, Rice noted the CCRB has been chronically underfunded for years, making it almost impossible to do its job. She also said she had been unable to fill vacant investigative spots due budget constraints.

Seventy-three more investigators were needed to deal with an exploding caseload, Rice told city council members. Investigators are paid a starting salary of $44,000 wage, which Queens City Council member Dan Halloran described as paltry.

"How do I live on $44,000 a year in New York City,?" Halloran asked rhetorically.

CCRB investigators probe allegations of police misconduct involving use of force, discourtesy, abuse of authority and offensive language. If the allegations are sustained, the CCRB will recommend to the NYPD that the officers be disciplined, which usually means lost vacation days or retraining. In rare instances, officers can be fired.

Rice had asked for $37.7 million in funding, $15 million more than City Hall had requested for its budget in the coming fiscal year. City Hall had actually proposed a small cut to the CCRB budget, she said. Eventually, the CCRB got almost $28 million, in increase of about $ 4 million.

Rice has also asked over the years for the CCRB to have more power over its cases. Under current procedures, the NYPD police commissioner has final authority over discipline and can remove cases from the CCRB docket or reverse guilty findings when CCRB attorneys win cases in departmental trials, something that doesn’t happen often.

For police union officials and some in the NYPD, the CCRB appears biased against officers.

In June, the Police Benevolent Association wrote Adams to say a union analysis of the voting patterns of CCRB board members indicated the board was "little more than a rubber stamp" for what CCRB investigators believed were substantiated cases of wrongdoing by officers.

Those voting results, according to the PBA President Patrick Hendry, were an indication that the CCRB board members were not using their own judgment and discretion to challenge determinations of board investigators.

Sometimes the votes were almost 100% in favor of initial allegations of wrongdoing, Hendry said.

Rice has denied the allegations, telling the city council the CCRB was committed to being a fair and impartial arbiter of complaints against officers.

Another problem for the CCRB has been its ability to win departmental trials against officers. Under a 2012 agreement with the NYPD, the police and the CCRB agreed to have certain serious misconduct cases brought to departmental trials by CCRB lawyers while many of the other cases are brought to trial by department lawyers.

But in recent years, particularly under the Adams administration, CCRB attorneys have had mixed success in departmental trials. In recent weeks, NYPD commissioner Edward Caban noted in a statement that the CCRB’s special trial unit only won guilty findings in 30% of its cases. By contrast, NYPD lawyers win nearly 100% of the time at trials..

Part of the problem for the CCRB in trials is that some complaining witnesses don’t testify or cooperate further, possibly because of pending lawsuits. Other times, the agency doesn’t have enough evidence to win a verdict.

Referring cases to the NYPD close to or after the 18 month statute of limitations expired creates an additional problem for the agency.

The case of Kawaski Tyrone Trawick, a Bronx man shot dead in an April 2019 confrontation with the officers, illustrates that problem. 

Records show the CCRB had trouble getting the department trial ready after it couldn’t get access to police body camera tapes. As a result, the statute of limitations lapsed.

After a department trial last year, deputy commissioner Rosemarie Maldonado found that the CCRB couldn’t meet the higher burden of proof and dismissed the charges of assault and other wrongdoing. Trawick’s family and other officials, like Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, were outraged over the ruling. Eventually, Caban approved the verdict, leaving no recourse to reverse the decision.

"The CCRB’s inability, at times, to bring charges to the police department within the statute of limitations, despite the NYPD’s efforts to fulfill its document, body-worn camera, and witness-production requests, raises concerns about the CCRB’s capacity to efficiently handle cases, as well as fairness to both the complainants and the accused officers," Caban said last month.

Adams has yet to announce a replacement for Rice. The mayor has been guarded in his comments, saying only Rice was only to be an interim chair and that he wants to appoint a permanent head for the agency.

By Anthony M. DeStefano

tony.destefano@newsday.comtonynewsday

Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.