Police
Commissioner D-Grading for
African-Americans
For as long as my recollection allows me the local tabloids
have made a habit to rate the Mayor's first 100 days in office. As the
previous Chairperson for the Grand Council of Guardians, an African-American law
Enforcement group we adopted this same rating system to grade the Police
Commissioners. After leaving the Grand Council and becoming a co-founder of 100
Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, we continued this method of evaluating the
police force progress. Commissioner Lee Brown was the first Police head we rated
and the tradition continued up to the current Police Commissioner, Raymond
Kelly.
The same system of judging the police department progress was used for all five
of the previous Police Commissioners. Our group examined the following
categories during our rating: Recruitment, Police Morale, Law Enforcement,
Community relations, and Promotions and appointments. Drawing on our law
enforcement experience we believed that an evaluation in these areas will allow
one to obtain a true picture of the direction that the police department was
heading. In the past we evaluated the commissioners after 30 days in office, but
in this case we waited 100 days. The extra time allotted was due to the after
effects of 9/11 and the fact that this administration had an awesome
responsibility due to the budgetary issues.
Primarily these evaluations were used to give our community an indicator of what
direction the Police Department appears to be moving in. D grades were
given in the areas of promotions and assignments, police enforcement, police
department morale and addressing disparate discipline. A C- grade given for
establishing community relations and an F grade for recruitment campaign.
I want to emphasize that the grade addresses how we view the
direction the department is heading and not the final progress of the agency. We
strongly disagree with those who believe that 100 days is not enough time to
determine the tone of an administration. In many cases 100 days are too late to
stop some of the plans that an administration has begun to put in place. Many of
the major appointments and decision have started to take shape during the first
30 - 100 days of an administration. Our goal has always been not to wait for the
proverbial horse to leave the barn before we attempt to fix the barn door.
In the area of police recruitment where there appeared to be the greatest
concern, Police Commissioner Kelly made some decisions that we felt would
further harm the attempts to diversify the department. The first sign was his
decisions to remove the successful program that was instituted by previous
Commissioner, Bernard Kerik allowing School Safety Officers and Traffic
Enforcement agents to waive the two-year college requirement. He eliminated this
program in spite of the objection of his own Personnel Bureau and without
quoting any study that shows empirical data that 60 college credits and a 2.0
GPA makes a better or less abusive police officer. In fact the studies point to
the contrary that many officers continue or obtain degrees after enrolling in
the police department.
Previous Commissioner Bernard Kerik understood that many professions substitute
experience for classroom education. The department already has in place a
requirement that in order to get promoted to a higher rank, you must have the
necessary college credits. The current two-year college requirement is the
leading culprit to the recruitment crisis. This change that impact on Blacks and
Hispanics was carried out while the military services continue to use their
experience as a waiver for college.
In the area of Appointments and Promotion we looked at the fact that the Police
Commissioner made eight major appointments and only one of them was an
African-American. There is a void of diversity in the command staff aspect of
the policing component of the New York City Police Department. Far too many
officers of color are relegated to less significant positions such as commanders
of the Housing Bureau and School Safety. The sought after positions of precinct
commanders assignments and day to day police operations have appeared to allude
officers of color. We also lost the opportunity to have an African-American as
the number two person in charge. Instead Commissioner Kelly chose George Grasso,
a male-white. This discretionary appointment further added to the racial
imbalance of his command staff. Deputy Commissioner, George Grasso was found
culpable in the Sandra Marsh Federal lawsuit. As the Former Deputy Commissioner
of Legal Matters he was the legal authority for the Police Department when civil
pay-outs for abuses were extraordinarily high. He also made the legal decisions
in regard to the surveillance of groups such as 100 Blacks in law Enforcement
Who Care.
The problems surrounding the 1st Deputy Commissioner's appointment was
compounded with the appointment of Chief Raymond King as the new Executive
Officer of the Internal Affairs Bureau. Chief King testified under oath in
federal court that the unit he was in charge of had monitored the activities of
100 Blacks in Law Enforcement. There is pending federal litigation that could
possibly expose a series of violations that took place in this unit. He is now
elevated to the 2nd in command at the highly touted investigative unit under
Chief Campisi.
It was decisions like these in all the areas that we evaluated that led us to
rate the commissioner as we did. Many criticized our rating because they felt
that the commissioner is well liked and publicly popular Police Commissioner.
What they failed to understand is that we did not rate him on his popularity. We
rated him on his ability to address those five major areas. Some critics even
went as far as to mention that the Commissioner visited Black churches and allow
our community leaders into 1 Police Plaza, something that his predecessor
Commissioner Safir did not. My comment to them is "Please listen to
yourselves." Our community request for adequate services from city agencies
is met with an insulting response. While other citizens' concerns are
intelligently responded to, heads of city agencies address African-American
residence concerns by reminding us how often they worshipped in a Black church
or allow leaders from our community to visit their publicly accessible office.
Mayor Guilaini effected the physic of African-Americans so much that we now
consider progress what all other New Yorkers take for granted.
It is the absence of early ratings of agencies that allow the problems to reach
the proportions that they are. If African-American school teachers would rate
the School Chancellor during his first 100 days in office we would have caught
many of the failures in our school system. Black firefighters rating of the
previous and current Fire Commissioners would have clearly identified the fact
that New York City Fire Department more segregated than 1955 Birmingham
Alabama's Fire Department. Every city and state agency should be rated by
African-American professional organization in those agencies. Sanitation
employees should rate how garbage is picked up in our community. Traffic
Enforcement agents should look into how tickets are wrote and cars are towed in
one part of the city and not in others. Black doctors and nurses rating the
Health and Hospital Corporation will have identified the fact that our mothers
and fathers receive inadequate health care in comparison to their white
counterparts. Black attorneys rating of the court system can stop men in Black
robes from administering Black injustice.
There is not a city agency or profession that does not have a Black organization
affiliated with it. These groups must start using their knowledge and skills to
shed an earlier light on the disproportionate amount of services and progress
that are made in their agencies. The early warning signs from these groups will
mobilize the community, and elected officials to carve out an appropriate agenda
that will start the process of addressing the problems in the inner city.
Not until this is done will agency heads stop responding to our request for
services with an answer of what Black church they visited on Sunday.
12/01
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