Complaint #201607488,
August 26, 2016

Summary

A woman observed a man being arrested in the Bronx and approached him and the officers to ask what was going on. The man declined her help and the officers brought the man to a prisoner van. The woman took photographs of the incident. The man was taken away in the prisoner van and she later saw him; he told her he had been driven a few blocks away and released. Because there was no documented arrest that day, and no stop-and-frisk form prepared by the officers, the CCRB had to determine what happened almost entirely from officer testimony. All of the officers involved had been on a buy-and-bust operation (where an undercover officer buys narcotics and then provides other officers with a description of the person from whom he bought the drugs). While two officers recalled the incident, they stated that the man had been found with drugs, arrested, and transported to the precinct. In fact no arrest paperwork, or any other paperwork had been completed. Occasionally during a buy-and-bust, when officers arrest someone based on an undercover's description, that person is released when it turns out to be the wrong person, but in that case the team prepares paperwork documenting the stop. Officer Cole, in his interview, not only stated that he did not remember the incident, he stated that he could not recognize any of the officers in any of the photographs the woman took—including a photograph of himself that multiple other officers identified as him.
The CCRB found that the arresting officers abused their authority and that Officer Cole made a false official statement in his CCRB interview. Read report for details.