‘The Situation with the NYPD Running Warrant Searches During Aided Calls Just Got Worse’: Sources
Officer: Cops Will Get “CDs” If They Don’t Follow
Orders and EMS/FDNY is Being Impacted by the Policy
By Gary Glennell Toms
In June of 2018, an exclusive investigative report was published on the original version of this news site entitled “NYPD Conducting Warrant Searches During Medical Distress Calls.” Here are two excerpts from the report.
In 2016, the New York City Council passed legislation indicating that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had to publish its Public Patrol Guide online to ensure transparency. According to a New York Daily News report, “The guide — which contains a slew of rules and procedures for cops to follow on everything from conducting a stop and frisk to handcuffing students at school or responding to a bicycle crash — will also have to be publicly updated within 24 hours whenever the department makes a change.”
Subsequently, in 2018, the publication reported that all NYPD officers would receive iPhones in effort to implement a hi-tech approach to fighting crime. New York City residents and legislators at the state and local level applauded these decisions, but From The G-Man has obtained an NYPD Interim Order/Revision that may pose serious concerns and questions about the department’s use of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus going forward.
On May 17 of that year, as per the order, officers throughout the five boroughs were instructed to use the department-issued phones to conduct warrant searches when responding to medical distress incidents, which are classified as “Aided” calls. To date, people experiencing asthma and heart attacks, diabetic shock or other medical emergencies are subject to the searches, even if no crimes or violations have been committed. According to the interim order, the policy was enacted “in order to ensure the safety of all uniformed members of the service.” From The G-Man later learned that the NYPD was solely responsible for developing and testing the app.
A little over two weeks ago, From The G-Man spoke with longtime and trusted sources in the NYPD, and they expressed serious concerns over the fact that the app has been significantly upgraded and now allows warrant searches to be conducted seconds after entering the name of the person in need of medical assistance. Previously, officers had to press a button to submit the information and wait several minutes for a response from a database. That is no longer the case, according to the members of service.
“The department wants collars, plain and simple, so this is what it came up with to generate numbers,” said one source, who has worked for the department for over two decades. “Once you type in the person’s full name, sexual identity, address and date of birth, what the NYPD calls their ‘pedigree’, a warrant search is immediately generated without their consent or knowledge.”
“I’d like to know who authorized this? Did Commissioner Shea and Mayor de Blasio sign-off on it?” asked a 9-year member of the force. “We’re running warrant checks on people who got sick and needed assistance. They didn’t do anything wrong. How is this not a problem?”
A third source noted that the department hasn’t changed the phones since they were issued over two years ago, but software updates are constantly installed on the devices.
“If you have a medical emergency and cops arrive on the scene, you will have your name run for warrants without your consent or knowledge. That’s a fact. If the department says otherwise, they’re blatantly lying to the public,” said an NYPD officer who worked in the department’s transit division for several years before, as he put it, “joining city.” From The G-Man asked the officer what would happen if a person receiving medical assistance refused to give their name to the officers, and he said the officers would pull the EMS/FDNY workers to the side and ask them for the information. “Officers have told me the EMTs or paramedics often comply,” the officer stated. He was then asked if EMS/FDNY workers had a right to provide that information to the NYPD. “I’m not sure,” he said. When asked if the officers were doing this on their own or if it was mandated by the department, the officer stated that it’s something that’s regarded as mandatory. “We must get names and run them on these calls.”
A PBA delegate was asked if there was any way for officers to avoid running warrant searches during aided calls. He said the department’s Domain Awareness System, also known as DAS, prevents that from happening. “Every time a job comes over, that job is directed to the officer that’s working in that area. When an officer picks it up, it’s on his or her cue. Every precinct has sectors. It will stay in the your cue until you finalize the job,” said the officer. “If sector one picked up an aided call, anyone in that precinct area can go ‘Sector Adam-1’. If it’s an aided call, then they expect an aided card from that sector. The officer must have an aided card on his or her iPhone in order finalize the job, so the only way an officer can avoid doing the warrant search is by refusing to run it. If they do that, they’ll get tagged with a command discipline, or what the department calls a ‘CD’, and the ‘CO’ or commanding officer will make the officer’s life a living hell for not following orders.”
The delegate shared a section of the NYCPD Public Patrol Guide, #212-66 (Pages 537 to 539), City Policy Concerning Identifying Information and Access to City Services, which clearly explains how to treat immigrants and collect information on them without violating their rights. For example, officers can only inquire about a person’s immigration status or obtain identifying information “in connection with the investigation of a crime that has been committed, or credible information about an attempted or impending crime.” There are five additional guidelines in this section that are strictly enforced by the department. “Anyone who reads this section of the patrol guide will see that the NYPD is ignoring the very rules it put in place to protect the rights of immigrants,” said the officer. “It’s right there, in black and white, so how can the department tell us to run warrant searches during aided calls if no crime or violation has been committed? How does that make any sense?”
From The G-Man contacted the press office of Apple, Inc., Mayor Bill de Blasio, the NYPD’s Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information (DCPI), the NYPD’s Department of Information Technology, Oren Barzilay, president of FDNY EMS Local 2507, the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, and William Anthony Allen, national crisis and service director for the National Action Network, in effort to obtain comments regarding the aforementioned allegations. No comments were provided, but From The G-Man will publish any comments submitted, in their entirety and unedited, in the wake of its report.