Thread by @doctorow

In response to the June #BLM uprising, the NY state legislature revoked Bill 50a, which shielded police misconduct records from public scrutiny.

pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/dig…

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A police union lawsuit blocked the publication of these long-secret records, but it came AFTER @Propublica had assembled a searchable database of those dirty secrets, and they escaped the injunction:

pluralistic.net/2020/07/27/ip/…

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Thanks to that fast action, we are now seeing inside the sordid, violent, corrupt world of the multibillion-dollar private paramilitary that is the NYPD.

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Today, Propublica and @THECITYNY jointly published the tale of Christopher McCormack , "one of the NYPD's highest-ranking officers," whose promotions came despite repeated, substantiated complaints of racist violence and abuse."

propublica.org/article/over-a…

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McCormack's nickname was "Red Rage." He rose through the ranks like "greased lightning." The city settled multiple lawsuits over his violent and illegal conduct. The NYPD put him in charge of a precinct.

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His go-to tactic was strip searching Latinx and Black men in public: pulling down their pants and exposing their genitals, sticking his fingers in their anuses. As @mtaibbi writes in his 2017 book "I Can't Breathe," NY cops called this "social rape."

boingboing.net/2017/12/15/eri…

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When McCormack socially raped a suspect, shoving his hand in their assholes on a public street, he was so violent that the man had to go to the hospital.

77 complaints were made against McCormack. No other high-ranking officer has so many.

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A dozen of these were substantiated by the CCRB, a toothless agency that almost never substantiates civilian complaints. Only the most egregious, violent, public abuses are upheld. McCormack had 12 of 'em.

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Black and Latinx officers who complained about McCormack (including one who made damning recordings of McCormack's racist rants) faced internal retaliation.

McCormack was promoted.

eof/