New NYPD guidelines for use of force released

The NYPD’s use-of-force policy will be getting an overhaul according to Police Commissioner William Bratton.

With major changes in how force is defined, reported and investigated, the commissioner, alongside Mayor Bill de Blasio, said on Thursday, October 1 that he hopes to make for more consistent, transparent relations between New Yorkers and the Police Department.

“The NYPD has been a leader in firearms policy for more than 40 years, but our policies and training in other uses of force have lagged,” said Bratton. “We are moving now to address all other uses of force in a comprehensive way, with new policies, new reporting procedures, new investigative protocols and regular annual training.”

The Use-of-Force Committee, established last year and led by First Deputy Commissioner Ben Tucker, researched the policies of dozens of law-enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. Its findings suggested that while NYPD guidelines regarding the use of firearms were exemplary, guidelines and reporting standards about other uses of force were not.

The research determined that the use-of-force procedures were “inconsistent” and “scattered” throughout the Patrol Guide, according to the NYPD. Additionally, definitions about what constitutes force were broad, unclear or absent, and reporting and investigating procedures failed to capture the full range of possible uses of force.

“With these new policies, we seek to improve our understanding of how often our officers are confronted by violence or resistance while providing them with better training in how to respond to resistance with the appropriate tactics,” added Bratton. “When force is used against our officers, or when people physically resist arrest, the appropriate use of force is lawful and proper.”

The move was applauded by the mayor. “From the beginning, this administration has worked to build a city that is safer, but also more fair,” said de Blasio. “The power of the new use-of-force policy reforms Commissioner Bratton announced today sends a message to all New Yorkers that we’re going to enforce the law, but we’re going to do it in a way that only uses that force which is necessary. The analysis will provide transparency, empower the city to track precisely what is happening, and then make needed adjustments.”

The reforms to be implemented  include a new NYPD Patrol Guide section – Section 221 – that concentrates, in one place, all policies bearing on use of force; clear definitions of the levels of force and the reporting and investigation requirements at each level; and revised policies that require officers to intervene in and report any potential excessive use of force they may witness, along with several other changes to policy and training.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain, called the committee’s findings, “an important starting point in larger changes that must be made.

“For decades, the NYPD’s use of force has been a black eye on our city, with far too many incidents of overaggressive encounters and far too few cases of effective discipline and accountability,” Adams said. “I know this painful history first-hand, as a victim of police brutality when I was a teenager. There are thousands of men and women in New York’s Finest that go to work every day focused on serving and protecting their neighbors the right way, but the bad actors within the department have dominated headlines and damaged police-community relations to a great degree.

“We must continue to investigate, in partnership with the local community and law enforcement experts nationwide, [the] best practices to improve the NYPD’s approach to the use of force,” Adams continued. “The costs of addressing this issue proactively outweigh the costs of funerals and lawsuits that we have had to pay in reaction to improper incidents.”