By Benyamin Davidsons
Members of the NYPD’s top-brass Internal Affairs Bureau have been focusing their energy merely on plugging leaks in the media more so than on corruption, as per police sources.
As per a recent article in the NY Post, The IAB has spent much of its time in the past few months, questioning cops over photos and videos leaked to the press. In particular, there were three, high-profile investigations that were played out by the press, and two of those cases led the IAB to discipline police officers, sources told The Post.
Two weeks ago, two officers were stripped of their guns and badges for sharing unnerving videos, which were then leaked to the press, of a cop-hating madman who opened fire in a police station. The Bronx’s 41st precinct shooting had left a lieutenant wounded, and the source comments the focus there should not have been to censure the lawmen for negative publicity. In December, a photo was circulated of a civilian who broke into Brooklyn’s 71st Precinct station house, wore a police officer’s unattended uniform and pretended to be a cop. The IAB reportedly grilled one detective who was in the photo’s background and temporarily placed him on modified duty. He told investigators that he didn’t know who had taken the picture. “Instead of worrying about who put a video out, they should worry about precinct-house security,” one source said of the incident. “But they won’t talk about that.”
The source complained that the IAB’s effort to shush and censure the officers comes at the expense of more serious probes which it should be focused on. As per the NYPD website: “The Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) is dedicated to preserving integrity, which is critical to the function of the Police Department, and fighting corruption within the NYPD. The department cannot successfully serve the public without maintaining the public’s trust.”
In another example of media plugging, in October, after photos surfaced depicting the gory quadruple homicide at a Brooklyn gambling den, the IAB tried to identify the source of those leaked pictures. It went so far as to subpoena the Twitter account for the Post’s Police Bureau Chief Tina Moore, only withdrawing the request after being contacted by the Post’s lawyers.
Meanwhile, earlier in the month, the NYPD issued a strong new social-media policy for its officers, underlining that cops should not post any case details or images from crime scenes, that have not officially been made public.
An NYPD spokesman defended the policy saying “Inappropriate postings can damage a case, alert a suspect [or] further wound a victim”.
