The impossible task of covering the NYPD
By Nick Pinto
May 23, 2019
Nearly five years ago, Officer Daniel Pantaleo of the New York Police Department was charged with killing a 43-year-old man named Eric Garner. Since then, Pantaleo has managed to avoid criminal prosecution. For the past two weeks, he has been on administrative trial with the NYPD. The worst punishment he faces is the loss of his job and pension. That is the extent of the justice Garner’s family can expect.
The trial is also the only public accounting there will be for an episode of police violence that, thanks to its capture on video, rocked the country, fueled the Black Lives Matter movement, and helped trigger a national reevaluation of America’s relationship with policing. Yet reporters assigned to cover it, myself among them, have come up against a remarkable lack of transparency. There are no public transcripts or recordings of the proceedings, nor are any of the underlying documents—charges, motions, rulings, exhibits—publicly available. Journalists and members of the public are allowed into the courtroom at police headquarters while the trial takes place, but space is severely limited. Reporters who haven’t lined up hours beforehand, or who haven’t brought the right police-issued credentials, have found themselves shut out.
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The arguments conclude next month, at which point Rosemarie Maldonado—the deputy police commissioner, who is acting as the judge in the trial—will make a recommendation about what discipline, if any, Pantaleo should face. That recommendation will be secret. James O’Neill, the police commissioner, will not be bound by her recommendation; he will make his own, final decision on Pantaleo’s fate. This decision, too, will be secret.
For national media and other reporters unaccustomed to covering the NYPD, this situation can seem a bit baffling. Veterans with some experience covering the New York Police Department shrug. The NYPD is one of the most stubbornly opaque public organizations you’ll find, and it’s been that way for as long as anyone can remember.
https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/nypd-media-journalists.php