NYPD must log more interactions with civilians, under new City Council bill

NYPD cops would need to log all investigative encounters with civilians, beyond the 2001 requirement to document those in which a person has been detained and isn’t free to go, under legislation passed Wednesday by the New York City Council.

The bill’s final version tweaked a draft, amid criticism that it meant any police-civilian interaction would be subject to needless bureaucracy. The new version clarified that casual conversations between police officers and the public are not covered by the legislation.

A veto-proof majority — 35 to 9, with three abstentions — passed the bill, known as the How Many Stops Act, Introduction No. 586-A. If Mayor Eric Adams vetoes the bill, it would be sent back to the council, which can override the veto with a 2/3 vote.

In a news release, the council speaker’s office cited how the NYPD has been found to have underreported even those stops it’s long been required to track. The new law, the office said, “would create a more consistent and uniform reporting standard to address underreporting and close data gaps through improved transparency.”

Adams opposes the bill, and his office Wednesday evening issued a statement warning that what the council passed “will unquestionably make our city less safe.”

The statement said of the new requirement: “it will slow down police response times and divert our officers from responding to emergency incidents. In every City Council district in this city, our officers will be forced to spend more time in their cars and on their phones, and less time walking the streets and engaging with New Yorkers.”

Requirements that the NYPD track and report statistics of police stops have had profound policy implications. Figures showing that Black and Hispanic men had been disproportionately stopped, questioned and frisked — despite most not found to have done anything wrong — led to a federal judge, in 2013, finding that the NYPD’s policies were unlawfully discriminatory, and the NYPD agreeing to change its policies.

Under the legislation, all “investigative encounters” between a civilian and a police officer would need to be documented, with compiled statistics tallied and publicly reported.

Currently, only so-called “Level III” or “reasonable suspicion” stops — in which an officer has the legal authority to detain and search a person and prevent the person from leaving — are subject reporting.

The law would take effect immediately, if enacted.

“Effectively producing public safety based on results, not hysteria, means getting critical information about whether and how policing reforms are being implemented on the ground in our communities,” the city’s elected public advocate Jumaane D. Williams, said in a news release.

Asked about policies on Long Island, neither county police force immediately provided the requested information. Suffolk’s police press office said to file a formal records request. Nassau didn’t respond.

Also Wednesday the council also banned solitary confinement in the city jails, required the NYPD to turn over body-worn camera footage to the city Department of Investigation upon request within 10 days, broadened rules for reporting on the justification for police traffic stops, and limited criminal background checks by landlords of of prospective tenants.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.