The following appeared in today’s NY Daily News: 

The NYPD declined to pursue more than one-third of substantiated complaints brought by civilians against cops last year, according to the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

In 2007, the NYPD chose not to discipline cops in 102 out of 296 cases where the CCRB found misconduct by police – an unprecedented 34%.

Just 3.3% of cases were rejected in 2006, 2.3% in 2005, 2.9% in 2004, 0.8% in 2003 and 3.9% in 2002, the CCRB said.

“[The cases] were resolved with no disciplinary action taken against the officer,” CCRB Chairman Franklin Stone wrote in a letter summarizing the annual report, to be published today.

The CCRB report said the board was “concerned” over the NYPD’s refusal to take action against offending officers, especially because cases are now reviewed by a team of attorneys, the report said.

Most of the complaints that were disposed of by the NYPD were against cops who were found to have illegally stopped and frisked citizens, but some involved cops wrongly using their pepper spray and nightsticks.