Schumer & Bowman Join DA Rocah in Call for DOJ Investigation
Three New York elected officials have called on the US Department of Justice to investigate the Mt. Venron Police Department. On April 30, Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah took the drastiic step of calling on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the Mount Vernon Police Department (MVPD) for pervasive and persistent alleged civil rights violations including unlawful strip searches, excessive use of force, and other misconduct.
In March, DA Rocah wrote to MVPD Commissioner of Public Safety Glenn Scott regarding what appeared to be a routine practice of strip searches and body cavity searches of suspects. “My concern arises not from a single, isolated complaint, but from a number of them from 2012-20, making similar allegations of certain police officers illegally or inappropriately conducting these highly invasive searches without the high legal and/or factual predicate thresholds having been satisfied,” DA Rocah stated in the letter.
“The Westchester District Attorney’s Office is engaged in ongoing criminal investigations of certain individual MVPD police officers,” DA Rocah said. “In the course of those investigations, based largely on publicly available information, we have found disturbing allegations of patterns of inappropriate and potentially unlawful conduct by several former and current members of the MVPD. We have provided information that we gathered in this respect to DOJ.”
“While our criminal investigations of individual officers continue, we are requesting that DOJ scrutinize the MVPD’s operations, training and policies to determine whether the MVPD is systematically violating peoples’ civil rights and, if so, to take action to address these matters,” DA Rocah added.
“Since taking office in January, 2020 my mandate has been transformation and accountability across city agencies including the police department. We are working hard to dismantle systemic issues and reform policing to ensure that our community is a safe place for all,” said Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard. “Our administration referred multiple cases to the District Attorney for review and welcome DA Rocah’s request that DOJ add its resources to identify and address these issues for the benefit of our community.”
DA Rocah said that a DOJ investigation would focus on broader issues of civil rather than criminal law, which do not typically fall under the purview of the DA’s Office. She emphasized that the DA’s Office continues to work with the MVPD to investigate and prosecute crimes in Mount Vernon, and said this ongoing collaboration would continue without disruption during a DOJ investigation.
Since taking office in January, DA Rocah has greatly increased the focus of the Westchester DA’s Office on all forms of public corruption, including police misconduct. “All Westchester residents need to have confidence that they will be treated fairly and equitably. Public trust in our criminal justice system is critical to public safety and we must strengthen that confidence through any tools available to us.”
After Rocah’s call to investigate the MVPD, New York’s senior US Senator Charles Schumer stated, through Spokeswoman Allison Biasotti, “Senator Schumer strongly supports the City of Mount Vernon and the Westchester County District Attorney’s calls for a federal investigation and hopes that the Department of Justice does a thorough, top-to-bottom report to enact productive and meaningful change within the Mount Vernon Police Department.”
Rep. Jamaal Bowman released the following statement. “The City of Mount Vernon, the Westchester County District Attorney, and whistleblowers within the Mount Vernon Police Department have my full support in this important step toward accountability. I strongly urge Attorney General Merrick Garland and the U.S. Department of Justice to heed the call for an investigation into the Mount Vernon Police Department.
“Mayor Patterson-Howard and District Attorney Rocah both came into office at the beginning of this year, and I commend their swift action to make this issue a priority. It is my sincere hope that a DOJ investigation leads to accountability. Under Mayor Patterson-Howard’s leadership, our community can make meaningful strides toward necessary systemic and cultural change.”
This is the first time in decades that a Westchester DA, a US Senator and a Congressman have called on a police department in the county to be investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice
