For decades, the State Police, New York’s second-largest law enforcement agency, has had no formal disciplinary guidelines for misconduct, and action against officers is inconsistent and sometimes lax, according to reporting by Sassy Sussman for The New York Times and New York Focus. With support from the Fund, Sussman reviewed thousands of police disciplinary files. He identified cases of misconduct without significant discipline that included an officer who helped get a friend’s traffic ticket reduced in exchange for her sexually explicit photos and an officer who stunned a suspect with a Taser and held the trigger down for 33 seconds, which can be fatal.
Loose rules let state police in New York hand out lax discipline for misconduct, grantee finds
