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Complaints Against Police Drop 26 Percent in Late 2014, City Says

By Aidan Gardiner | December 5, 2014 4:46pm | Updated on December 8, 2014 8:52am
 Protesters march down the streets of New York City on Dec. 3, 2014, following a grand jury's decision not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner. Complaints against police fell 26 percent in late 2014, officials announced Friday.
Protesters march down the streets of New York City on Dec. 3, 2014, following a grand jury's decision not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner. Complaints against police fell 26 percent in late 2014, officials announced Friday.
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DNAinfo/Jeanmarie Evelly

MANHATTAN — Efforts to reform the NYPD's relationship with New Yorkers seem to be bearing fruit, according to city data released Friday that shows a significant drop in civilian complaints against police officers.

There was a 26 percent drop in civilian complaints against police between July and November, with 1,813 filed compared to 2,450 from the same time last year, according to the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

The decline, which officials said was the largest over a five-month period since the agency was created in 1993, is due to reforms to stop-and-frisk, marijuana policies and racial profiling, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. 

"We're steadily bringing crime down while drawing police and community closer together," de Blasio said.

"As we embark on the retraining of every single officer and continue along this path to reform, I hope to see a continued drop in complaints," he added.

Complaints about an officer's use of force dropped 28.7 percent, the most significant drop of all the CCRB categories, with only 906 complaints compared to the 1,270 that were filed during the same period last year, data shows.

There was a 5.7 percent increase in complaints for the first half of the year, which ate into the annual totals, records show.

The months between January and November saw a 9.9 percent drop in overall complaints, with 4,510 this year compared to 5,004 from the same time in 2013, records show.

The numbers come in the wake of a wave of protests throughout the city about the police force, particularly an NYPD officer who was not indicted for the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

"It appears that this precipitous decline in complaints means police are getting the message. The goal now is bringing down complaints even further," said CCRB chair Richard Emery.

The data coincided with the release of the board's new online maps feature, which it hopes will create more transparency about police misconduct, officials said.

The Complaint Activity Maps will be updated weekly and show the precinct in which the complaints occurred. The highest number of complaints was filed in East New York with somewhere between 200 and 249 so far this year, according to the map.

The map is static for now, but the CCRB hopes to make it more interactive with other features that allow users to type in their address and see exact locations of complaints near them, among other things.