by Eric Umansky
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What Happened: A monitor appointed by a federal court has found that a New York City Police Department unit has been unjustly stopping and searching New Yorkers, almost all of them Black and Hispanic men. The report on the NYPD’s Community Response Team echoes a recent ProPublica investigation that found the unit, championed by Mayor Eric Adams, has been ridden with abuses.
The federal monitor found that while the CRT was initially created in the early days of the Adams’ administration to focus on so-called quality-of-life issues such as illegal motorbikes, its officers have more recently been “stopping, frisking, and searching unconstitutionally.”
What They Said: In a sample of body-worn camera footage, the monitor found that 41% of stops, searches, and frisks by CRT officers were unlawful, a far higher percentage than with other NYPD units. What’s more, while officers are required to document such stops, which the department then releases as public data, the report found that officers often failed to do so, and even when they did there was a “lack of meaningful review” by supervisors.
As ProPublica previously reported, that behavior goes back to at least 2023, when an NYPD audit found officers were wrongfully stopping New Yorkers and failing to log the incidents. Soon after the audit, the mayor took to Instagram. “Turning out with the team,” he wrote, showing a photo of him wearing the CRT’s signature khaki pants.
The federal monitor had other striking findings. For instance, it found that “97% of the individuals stopped, frisked, and searched were Black or Hispanic men.”
It also found, as ProPublica previously reported, that the NYPD had not been straightforward about the CRT with the monitor itself. Department officials had initially told the monitor that the CRT was just a “pilot program” that already ended, only for the monitor to later learn the team was here to stay and actually expanding.
Background: Our March investigation detailed a wide range of troubling behavior by CRT officers that alarmed NYPD leaders. In the fall of 2022, department lawyers and others warned that highlight videos of the CRT that the team posted on social media showed problematic conduct. Other incidents included a CRT commander who punched a driver, another commander who shoved a pedestrian into a car window and a third officer who drove into a motorbiker, ultimately killing him.
Over the past two years, New Yorkers have filed at least 200 complaints alleging improper use of force by CRT members, according to Civilian Complaint Review Board records. Another NYPD team with a similar size and mandate has had about half as many complaints.
Adams’ connection to CRT has been so close, former officials said, that the mayor was given private access to a live feed of the unit’s body-worn cameras. This year, he chose one of the team’s leaders, Kaz Daughtry, to be deputy mayor of public safety.
Why It Matters: The federal monitor for the NYPD was created a dozen years ago after a court found that the department had been engaging in widespread unconstitutional stop-and-frisks, a practice overwhelmingly focused on Black and Hispanic men. The seminal ruling imposed court oversight — the creation of the monitor’s office — of the country’s largest police department. The monitor in turn files regular progress reports.
The monitor’s latest report was filed with Judge Analisa Torres, who oversees the case and has the power to impose fixes. But whatever Torres does, the monitor’s findings make clear that the problems identified by the court all those years ago still persist.
Former NYPD Chief Matthew Pontillo, who wrote the 2023 audit of the CRT, said that the conduct of the team may actually be worse than what’s described in the monitor’s report, noting that the recent investigation relied on body-worn camera footage to examine officers’ conduct. In his own review, Pontillo had found that CRT officers were often not turning on their cameras to fully capture incidents.
Lawmakers and civil rights advocates have called for the CRT to be disbanded.
Response: The mayor’s office declined to answer ProPublica’s questions and instead suggested contacting the NYPD. The department has not replied to our questions.
Adams has previously defended the CRT. Asked about the unit at a mayoral press conference this spring, Adams said: “CRT is here. I support all my units. And if they don’t all stand up and do the job the way they’re supposed to do, those who don’t will be held accountable.”
The NYPD has also defended the CRT’s work and touted the unit’s confiscation of illegal motorbikes and ATVs.
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