On February 7, 2023, Paul DiGiacomo, Paul Morrison, Jim Moschella, as well representatives from the other unions, met with CCRB Executive Director Jon Darche to discuss several issues of importance to our members, including, but not limited to, the issue of protecting informants during investigations, and biased based policing policies. In November 2022, CCRB issued a memo to its investigators setting forth a policy in regard to what CCRB will do in cases which involve incidents which implicate the use of informants by members. The DEA had immediately and very vocally opposed this new policy as we believed it would potentially endanger informants and/or Undercover Officers. Based on our objections, CCRB has agreed to rescind the November 2022 memo and instead issue new guidelines to its Investigators which will ensure the safety of both informants and Officers. Specifically, where a member is called down to CCRB on an incident and has concerns about questions which may implicate an informant’s or Undercover’s safety, such concerns will be discussed off the record with the Deputy Chief of Investigations (not the CCRB Investigator himself/herself) and the fact that enforcement action was based on information from an informant will not be placed on the record or made part of CCRB’s file. This will ensure that if their file is FOILed in the future, there will be no information in the file which could be used to identify or implicate our informants.
We also discussed another important issue to our members, namely, the stigma that attaches to our members’ records when they are the subject of bias based policing allegations. Specifically, CCRB is formulating a policy whereby if a complaint of sexual misconduct or bias based policing is unsubstantiated or exonerated by CCRB, that allegation will not be part of members’ CCRB online records. We are ever-vigilant regarding the many ways in which CCRB may attempt to trample on our members’ rights, and will continue to monitor these issues to ensure our members are protected. As always, please keep us and our attorneys informed of any particular cases that come to your attention.
