In an emotional hearing Tuesday afternoon, the New York City Council voted 42–9, with zero abstentions, to override Mayor Eric Adams’s veto of a police transparency bill known as the How Many Stops Act.
After the controversial bill passed an initial December vote of 35–9, with seven abstentions, Mayor Adams vowed to stop it in its tracks with a veto when it came up for a final vote this month. Here things stood when the council deliberated on Tuesday afternoon and voted on whether to override the veto. Councilmembers voted one at a time, most of them asking permission first to explain their vote. A bulk of the comments they delivered heavily criticized what the councilmembers viewed as racial bias on the part of the police and the disproportionate number of black and brown New Yorkers subject to stops and arrests.
“A system that will more readily invest in the carceral [approach] than in our communities and in mental health is a broken system,” said Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez in the Tuesday session, explaining her vote in favor of overriding Mayor Adams’s veto. Her comments were typical of those who voted to override the veto.
But the bill has vocal critics who have raised a litany of concerns about its practical consequences and say that its supporters ignore the daily realities of policing.
An officer hot on the trail of a rape suspect or a bank robber; a cop arriving on a scene where there had been reports of a possible mass shooter; police trying to track down suspects in serious crimes before the suspects are able to jump on planes or trains and escape permanently to another jurisdiction; and many other types of time-sensitive police actions and investigations will all have to follow new and more time-consuming clerical and administrative procedures and protocols under the legislation. They will not be able to question people at the scene, in any circumstances or for any purpose, without taking detailed notes of every single interaction.
The vote is a political move undertaken without a full understanding, on the part of councilmembers, of what the bill will mean in practice, a former New York City detective has told The Epoch Times.
Transparency vs. Efficiency?
The bill’s backers believe that such record-keeping provides transparency and makes the police answerable when they stop and question members of racial and demographic groups that have received scrutiny from the police and been victims of harassment out of all proportion to their numbers within the city’s population.But critics of the How Many Stops Act argue that it is not only redundant, given that footage of interactions is available from bodycams, but makes police investigations—where every second can mean the difference between catching a suspect and losing the trail forever—slow and burdensome without providing any real benefit to communities.
“The How Many Stops Act is an exercise in futility. It’s clear that the City Council members do not fully understand what the bill is,” Michael Alcazar, the former detective who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, told The Epoch Times.
“What’s the bill’s purpose? Proponents are looking for data to help determine or prove that police are racially profiling the people they stop. That information is already recorded on the stop-and-frisk reports and body-worn cameras,” Alcazar said.
It may be hard for people who are not police officers to understand the extent of the documentation that the bill requires, the burden it adds to day-to-day police work, and the effect on officers whose jobs are difficult and strenuous enough as it is.
“This bill wants to document every investigative interaction with citizens regarding a crime investigation. Think about that, every single interaction. Whether it is probative or negative information, the bill requires this to be documented. This will only result in the delay of basic investigative techniques employed by an already depleted NYPD force,” Alcazar said.
Investigations will become significantly less efficient, and the communities whose job the police seek to protect and serve will be the losers, he stated.
Distinct Roles
As a former detective, Alcazar understands how the new bill shifts much of the clerical and administrative work that detectives have done at their desks onto the backs of officers on the streets operating in very different circumstances.He recalled how, when he worked on detective squads, he and his colleagues canvassed for witnesses to shootings and other serious crimes, and documented their interactions on a form called a DD-5. This was, in essence, a complaint follow-up, he said.
This meant, in essence, that the squads were performing the type of function that the How Many Stops Act shifts to officers.
“It was necessary—and essential—tedious work normally done by detectives in the squad. Under the How Many Stops Act, it will now be performed by all personnel, especially patrol officers, our first-line personnel for investigations, and will burden them with more paperwork that will only delay investigations,” Alcazar said.
Alcazar sees another—highly negative—consequence that advocates on both sides of the bill may not have given due consideration.
“It may also deter civilians from cooperating with police officers for fear that their information will be documented,” he said.
Indeed, anonymity is often a critical precondition for anyone who may be considering providing input needed to solve crimes. It is worth asking who will want to interact with police in an investigation, or offer them any information at all, when their identities will quickly appear on a public website, making them potential targets for retaliation from the criminals the police were after.
“Solving crimes is a partnership between law enforcement and the community. And I fear that this act will just further strain an already weakened relationship. Is this bill helping the community, is it helping the police, or is it helping criminals?” Alcazar said.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the City Council for comment.
