The NYPD Tapes: A Shocking Story of Cops, Cover-ups, and Courage (28 page)

Under the law, an agency was allowed to set goals, but they couldn’t tie those goals to disciplinary action or any penalty. The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association had long opposed the use of quotas in the NYPD.

Perez went on to criticize any officer who volunteered repeatedly for critical response, a special anti-terror detail ordered by Commissioner Ray Kelly that drove around the city with lights and sirens.

“If nobody cares, I don’t care, either,” he said. “You’ll work when I tell you to work. You don’t have to be happy about it. And if you don’t write, that’s fine. Because after I bounce you to a different platoon for inactivity, the next thing is to put you on paper, start writing you below standards and look to fire you. I really don’t have a problem firing people. . . . If you don’t wanna work, fine. I cut the line. I’m not going to tow you.”

Mauriello also defended his tenure as precinct commander. He repeatedly demanded that his supervisors tell cops not to drive by troubled areas without getting out of their cars. He talked at length about his work ethic and noted that his father worked three jobs.

“The cops gotta know their function,” he said. “You’re out there to prevent violence, to prevent shootings.”

Mauriello said his bosses were nervous and were increasing the pressure on the precincts. “They are panicking up there,” he said. “They are worried
about this. They are worried about that. Oh, crime is crime, but they are going to make sure they take your toes, your fingers, your elbows, they are going to cut one by one. Almost like the movie ‘Hostel’.”

The unnamed supervisor recorded a second meeting of bosses in mid-May, after the first two
Voice
articles had been published.

In this second tape, Mauriello scoffed at the QAD investigation of his precinct, calling it a bullshit investigation. He expressed frustration with QAD second-guessing the initial crime reports. He referred to an incident where, he claimed, the victim initially told police he lost his wallet, then much later changed his story to theft.

“This is how QAD fucks me,” he said. “The cop thinks that he [the victim] lost the stuff. At no time did anybody touch him or anything, so when the guy calls back now, now this is two months later. QAD called back a year later and saying they are going to upgrade this to a grand larceny. But the cop is saying one thing. The guy tells the cop on the scene one thing, and now we call back two months later, the guy is fucking pick-pocketed.”

Essentially confirming one of the durable allegations of crime downgrading, Mauriello emphasized to cops that they should not take a report on any incident that happened outside the precinct. “We’re not doing favors for people,” he said. “It’s a robbery in the 32[nd Precinct in Harlem]. You know what. That’s it. Let the 32 call them up.”

“Other commands have no problem dumping stuff in this computer without even calling us up,” he added.

He referred to Schoolcraft as “that fucking asshole upstate” and warned his underlings to be careful about the rank and file. “These guys and girls are nice people, but they aren’t your friends,” he said. “The PBA is telling them to wear fucking wires. . . . There’s an epidemic right now of rats coming out here wearing tape recorders and distorting the facts. . . . Haters, malcontents, losers. And you know we got some in this place.”

Mauriello and his supervisors discussed the first two parts of the
Voice
’s NYPD tapes series and whether Schoolcraft violated eavesdropping laws in making the secret recordings. “You know, I thought it was a dead issue until the
Village Voice
came out,” he said.

Of the
Voice
series, Mauriello declared, “I ain’t worried. . . . The
Village
Voice
’s got their own agenda,” he added. “Anybody who would say this guy
[Schoolcraft] did the right thing by wiretapping, it is what it is. He has an agenda. It wasn’t to be a police officer. It was to sue the job one way or another. So, that’s what he got in the end. So what are you gonna do? I’d rather not talk about it.”

Mauriello didn’t talk about sending Schoolcraft to the psych ward. But he did complain about how the
Voice
got into the station house to take photographs. “How does the
Village Voice
take pictures inside the precinct and you guys don’t see that?” he asked.

Later, in September, when these tapes were made public, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne insisted the media was confusing “what was being said on the tape in terms of numbers.” “There’s no quotas discussed. . . . It’s absurd to think that managers can’t establish goals that require minimum productivity. To suggest otherwise would mean no recourse but to let slackers do nothing. Fortunately, most police officers do their job well. Some of the few who don’t cry ‘quota.’ In no case is anyone demanding police take action on nonexistent conditions. These are minimum productivity goals in an environment where there’s still plenty of conditions that require police attention.”

Since in fact there were numbers mentioned in the recording, Browne seems way off base, but this became another example of the stubborn defense strategy that Kelly had adopted. In the face of the revelations of the year, Kelly simply built a stone wall.

But Citizens Crime Commission president Richard Aborn criticized quotas on the basis that they caused “officers to make decisions they would not otherwise make. It’s perfectly fine for a police department to encourage activity, but when you set a quota people are going to feel compelled to make that quota, and that’s where bad decisions can be made.”

Aborn wanted something that wouldn’t happen: He wanted Kelly to make public the annual audits of the crime statistics. “Nothing will douse the brushfire of suspicion faster than some transparency,” Aborn said. “Since the department already does these audits, and verifies the numbers, I think it would help the NYPD to release the audits.”

PBA president Patrick Lynch had said nothing about Schoolcraft’s treatment. His union had done basically nothing to come to his assistance. But he did offer a comment on the quota issues raised by these new recordings. “From what I’ve seen reported about those tape recordings, to my ears, it sounds like
a quota,” he said. “What separates a managerial target from an illegal quota is the punitive action for failure to achieve that number,” Lynch said.

On May 26, Councilman Vann, not wanting to let the issue drop, composed a letter to Kelly that was co-signed by three other leading black Brooklyn politicians, including Congressman Ed Towns, who had previously lauded Mauriello in the Capitol. The letter called for the removal of Mauriello as precinct commander. Vann noted that he previously met with Assistant Chief Gerald Nelson, who “expressed his dismay and disappointment with the disrespect that Mr. Mauriello demonstrated to our community.”

“Not only did officers treat our community as if it were the subject of a military occupation, they also were dismissive of criminal complaints made by residents,” the letter read. “We are clear that Insp. Mauriello is responsible for the actions and behaviors of his officers, in addition to attitudes permeating the precinct.”

Kelly did not respond to the letter. Vann, irritated, raised the issue with the commissioner during a June 3 council hearing. This hearing took place as Mayor Bloomberg was announcing that New York was the “safest large city in the county.” That statement, of course, was based on the very crime statistics that were now under fire.

The exchange became tense. Kelly told Vann there was an ongoing investigation. He testified that he had received the letter but had not had time to review it.

Vann suggested that Kelly was downplaying the issue. Kelly didn’t like that comment at all, saying Vann could not expect a large agency like the police department to respond so quickly. “You make allegations in that letter and I need to find out those facts before I respond,” Kelly said.

Vann replied that Schoolcraft’s tapes stood on their own. “We didn’t make allegations,” he told Kelly. “We responded to what was on the tapes. This is not hearsay. . . . You know what happened over there; we only responded to what is on the tapes; that cannot be denied.”

After the hearing, Vann told the
New York Times
that the tapes showed “how innocent citizens were being victimized; innocent people were arrested for no cause at all; how some of their complaints had been suppressed.”

“I mean the whole array of inappropriate and perhaps even illegal action. So we reiterated that which was on the tapes, and then we asked for him to take appropriate action.”

Kelly finally responded in writing on June 4, only to acknowledge receipt of the letter. He later wrote that he had “directed a review and analysis of the assertions” in the
Voice
articles.

Meanwhile, up in Johnstown, the police returned to Schoolcraft’s apartment four days later to serve more charges on Adrian, with their video cameras, listening for voices or movement.

Vann did not sit on his hands. He obtained support from four more black leaders, including three leading clergymen, and sent a second letter to Kelly. He repeated the call for Mauriello’s removal and asked for a meeting with Kelly.

“We believe the residents can no longer trust the precinct to protect and serve them in its current leadership,” the group wrote.

City Council member Darlene Mealy, who also represented Bed-Stuy, weighed in as well. “We have to now start protecting our constituents,” she said. “Something has to be done. This is a disservice to our community. And it’s up to the commissioner to do something. If we keep seeing the same things, we have to try something new or move some people out. That behavior cannot be tolerated anymore.”

On one occasion, she said, she walked into the station house with a number of senior citizens to speak with the police about an arrest in which a young man had been injured. “I was told to get the F out,” she said. “I told them this is our house. We pay for it with our taxes. We don’t have to go anywhere. Just by that day I know something is wrong with system.”

On another occasion, she said, she complained to officers who were handing out tickets to people who were double-parking during a street cleaning period. New Yorkers routinely double-park while the street cleaning rule is in effect on a given block, and elsewhere police don’t give tickets for it.

“On the summons quota, I had a problem just recently,” she said. “A police came and gave everyone double parking tickets. But if you don’t do that in every part of the city, you can’t do it here. You’re taxing people $150, and that’s an extra burden on people’s lives.”

But Mauriello also had his defenders among Bed-Stuy’s black community. Butch Thompson, owner of Malcolm X Pizza, said that Mauriello not only knew the names of store owners, but he was proactive in stemming crime. “He is concerned about the community he works in,” Thompson said. “He’s always in the street. He puts in the work. This is a commander who gets the job done. He’s a hands-on officer. His tactics are unorthodox, but he gets the job done.”

In conversation, Thompson said he has no problem getting searched by police because he did nothing wrong. “It’s a hot area,” he said. “I don’t mind bending the rules a bit because of that. If you are innocent, it’s not a problem.

“What do you want him to do? Let it continue or change the tactics, and a few of us get caught up in the fire. The cops can’t do more than they do if the community don’t get involved. And you can’t blame cops for everything.”

Community activist Brenda Fryson says Mauriello’s initiatives got results. The police and other agencies, aided by business and block associations, targeted two buildings along Malcolm X and were able to reduce problems there, Fryson said. “You could hardly walk on Malcolm X,” she said. “They were throwing garbage off the roof.

“So many negative articles in the press revolve around what’s happening in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and this is a case where we have cause on a number of levels where we can point to a success,” she said.

Precinct officers, Fryson said, often do their jobs well, but there are also those who don’t. Mauriello, meanwhile, had shown the willingness to work with the community.

“Our expectation is that when these officers come they are trained on how to discern what is criminal quality of life that is a threat, and differentiate that from police harassment,” she said. “They expect that in Bay Ridge, Boro Park, and wherever else in the city. Over the past couple of years, I think that culture is slowly changing. He’s been willing to work with the community on several different levels. He’s demonstrated at least the willingness to do that. That’s very important.”

In an extremely closely held move, later that June, the commander of the Quality Assurance Unit passed the conclusions of the QAD investigation into Schoolcraft’s allegations to his boss, Deputy Chief Mary Cronin.

Cronin passed the report to Deputy Commissioner Michael Farrell and certain other select bosses. Farrell briefed or passed the report on to the Chief of Internal Affairs, the Chief of Patrol, the Chief of Department, and,
presumably, Kelly’s office. And then it went into a safe. It did not reappear in the public consciousness for more than 18 months, its conclusions viewed by a few top brass and no one else.

A source familiar with the report said there was deep concern in the upper echelons of the department that the conclusions of the report were so explosive that if it were leaked, it would damage the department’s reputation. Some officials thought too many copies have been made. So all copies of the report were very closely tracked, the source said.

“There was serious concern that it would get out,” the official said.