Hundreds of thousands of records pertaining to police misconduct in New York City are now available in a free online database dubbed the most comprehensive publicly accessible collection on city officers to date.
Law Enforcement Lookup debuted Monday with a massive assemblage of records, more than 450,000, on officers within the New York City Police Department and Department of Correction.
Compiled by the Legal Aid Society, the LELU holds files on thousands of lawsuits filed against NYPD officers, complaints filed to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, internal police department misconduct records, as well as district attorney files that include records on officer credibility.
"By making these records public, advocates will have additional information when seeking justice for the victims of police violence and accountability for the officers who too often get away with abusing their power and harming New Yorkers," Legal Aid said in its announcement of the database.
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Everyone from advocates, reporters, attorneys and the general public will have access to the new online tool, intended to make transparent data previously safeguarded by state law.
Legal Aid expanded out LELU from a previous record collection, created for public defenders before the repeal of 50-a, which made complaints against officers, as well as transcripts and final dispositions of disciplinary proceedings, public for the first time in decades.
“For decades, prosecutors were allowed to portray police officers as untainted and unbiased witnesses, while laws were used to shield the public and the court from the truth regarding the misconduct and misdeeds of those very witnesses. The Law Enforcement Lookup will provide transparency and real accountability where it is needed most: our courtrooms," Stan Germán, executive director of New York County Defender Services, said.
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The head of the Police Benevolent Association rebuffs the suggestion that the LELU is about "transparency," and rather another reason officers are leaving the force "at record rates."
“Most of the information in this database was already public and searchable. This isn’t really about ‘transparency’ – it’s about advancing the anti-police narrative and making it easier for cop-haters to target individual police officers," PBA President Pat Lynch said.
The city's union for correction officers called the database a "publicity stunt" for Legal Aid Society that is "another attempt to hurt the careers of essential first responders," and criticized the group for filing many lawsuits against the city.
"Rather than recycling information that is already publicly available elsewhere, there should be a database showing New York City taxpayers all the frivolous lawsuits that legal aid ambulance chasing lawyers have filed against the city over the past decade in the hopes of cashing in on a big pay day,” said Correction Officers' Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio.
