To those in the City Council chamber on Thursday, the bitter exchange between Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Councilman Albert Vann over a letter from the lawmaker to the commissioner might have been confusing.

But behind the showdown, which was brief and vague, lies a months-long controversy involving charges of manipulated crime reports, quotas, the department’s street-stop tactics and several instances of questionable police behavior — an array of provocative charges being met with a blanket response from a department that says it is broadly investigating.

A tipping point for Mr. Vann came last month, after The Village Voice published transcripts of audio recordings of what it said were station house conversations made by an officer in the 81st Precinct, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, that laid bare what the newspaper’s report characterized as a pattern of pressure exerted by commanders there onto the precinct’s rank-and-file officers.

Mr. Vann was so concerned that he convened a meeting of elected officials, clergy members and community leaders on May 25. They wrote a letter to Mr. Kelly and delivered it to 1 Police Plaza the next day.

Mr. Vann has declined to make the letter public. But he said it noted the “secret tapings” cited in The Voice.

In repeating the charges in the audiotapes, Mr. Vann described the letter further, saying “it showed how innocent citizens were victimized; innocent people were arrested for no cause at all; how some of their complaints had been suppressed.”

“I mean,” he continued, “the whole array of inappropriate and perhaps, even, illegal action. So we reiterated that which was on the tapes and then we asked for him to take appropriate action.”

The issue popped up suddenly at a budget hearing on Thursday. It pierced an otherwise dry recitation of spending projections as Mr. Vann used his five minutes of speaking time to let Mr. Kelly know he was awaiting a response to or acknowledgment of the letter.

Mr. Kelly said he received it only on Tuesday.

The ensuing verbal sparring between the men moved fast. At one point, Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., the chairman of the Public Safety Committee, tried to tamp things down, only to be overrun.

“Before I respond to your letter, I need to find out the facts,” Mr. Kelly said to Mr. Vann. “You make allegations in that letter, and I need to find those facts before I respond.”

Mr. Vann shot back that the audiotapes stood on their own.

“We didn’t make allegations,” Mr. Vann said. “We responded to what was on the tapes; this is not hearsay.” He added: “You know what happened over there; we only responded to what is on the tapes, that cannot be denied.” He said he owed his constituents an update.

Mr. Kelly said it was not unusual, in the course of governmental give-and-take, for responses to take more than two days. Mr. Vann protested.

They traded a few more barbs before dropping the issue.

Afterward, Mr. Vann said he believed that the charges were so corrosive that they were damaging effective policing in the area. He said he would leave to others the job of discerning whether the conduct reported in the 81st Precinct was systemic in the Police Department. He said he had not called for an outside inquiry, though he was in touch with state lawmakers, as well as Representative Edolphus Towns.

Questions about conduct by some officers in the 81st Precinct go back four months, when The Daily News reported that an officer there, Adrian Schoolcraft, had come forward claiming that crime reporting was manipulated to improve the precinct’s statistics.

Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, confirmed then and again on Thursday that there was an internal inquiry on the matter. On Thursday, he said no one at the precinct, which is headed by Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello, had been disciplined in connection with Officer Schoolcraft’s accusations.

The department’s Office of Management Analysis and Planning’s quality-assurance division “is looking into charges by a police officer there that complaints were discouraged or not properly recorded,” Mr. Browne said.

When pressed, he acknowledged that the audiotape recordings disclosed in The Voice were part of that review. The Office of Management Analysis and Planning “is looking at this whole issue, and has been for some time,” Mr. Browne said.

Roy T. Richter, the president of the Captains’ Endowment Association, said he believed there was a “reasonable explanation,” for each of Officer Schoolcraft’s claims. He said Inspector Mauriello “has the overwhelming support of his community.”

Mr. Richter said he was confident that the department would investigate anyone whose voices were heard on the tapes. He said the recordings struck him as a kind of clipped station house “banter,” that was meant to be motivational but that might have veered into the inappropriate at times.

“It’s more meant as an informal approach versus a formal training,” he said. “It’s someone telling you in 30 seconds your function, and what you need to get done, when that explanation really requires all day.”

(Source: NY Times)