#Health Department report shows NYC underreported police-related civilian deaths

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A general view of an NYPD vehicle blocking off traffic near a crime scene in the Bronx, NY
Christopher Sadowski

The city Health Department on Tuesday night quietly released a 2017 draft report that revealed the city vastly underreported police-involved deaths over a recent five-year period.

Officials dumped the report shortly before midnight as primary results rolled in, claiming the release of the draft document showcased City Hall’s commitment to “transparency & accountability.”

“We learned that our own system for recording these deaths — the same system applied by the federal government to all jurisdictions — is flawed,” Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in a statement Tuesday night posted on Twitter.

“We will continue to work with partner agencies to correct the process and ensure that what we present accurately reflects what is happening in our communities.”

The existence of the research, which examined police-related deaths from 2010 to 2015, was first reported Friday by The New York Times.

During the five-year period that the Health Department looked at, the city reported an official tally of 46 police-related deaths.

But, the Health Department — led by then-commissioner, Mary Bassett, identified 105 people that were killed either by police or during police encounters.

The findings in the report also shed a light on the racial divide among those who died during police encounters.

Six black people and five hispanic people, who were unarmed at the time, had died in police encounters, according to the report.

But zero unarmed white people died at the hands of police, according to the report’s results.

“Mortality data reveals truths to us about inequity, injustice, and structural unfairness in our society,” Barbot’s said in her statement.

The report noted a factor for why the city’s public tally of police-related deaths from 2010-2015 fell short of the researched results.

One-third of the identified 61 legal intervention deaths were never labeled as police-related on the decedent’s death certificate, the report said.

In other instances, as The Times reported, the city often excludes the death of somebody who dies in traffic in a police pursuit in their official tally.

The release came four days after the broadsheet revealed the report’s existence and after Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to release the report — “whatever it is.”

“My memory is that whatever was being looked at by the Health Department, I didn’t honestly remember a very consistent effort there because my message to them of course would be if they see something we need to understand better, you know, let’s pursue it,” Hizzoner said.

“Whatever it is, we’ll release it, and we’ll release it quickly. I’ll get to an exact date, but very quickly,” the mayor had said.