FTAA IMCAccording to Amnesty International's June 1996 report on the NYPD, which used official police statistics, in 1994, the first year that Timoney was second in command at the NYPD, the city saw "a 34% increase in civilians shot dead." In the same year, there was also a "53.3% increase in civilians shot dead in police custody" as well as "an increase in the number of civilians injured from officers' firearms discharge during the same period." Amnesty also reports that the New York City Civilian Review Board "reported that it received 4,920 new complaints in 1994, an increase of 37.43 percent over the previous year" (Amnesty International, Police Brutality in the New York City Police Department).
When Timoney was the First Deputy to New York City's Police Commissioner, civilian complaints about police abuse rose by 50 percent in communities of color.
Timoney then moved on to become first in command of the Philadelphia Police Department.
According to USA Today, in the time Timoney was commissioner of Philadelphia, "Philadelphia County has lost more people than any other in the USA" (8/13/00).
Complaints of police misconduct reached record levels in Timoney's Philadelphia: according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, reports to the city's Police Advisory Commission for the fiscal year 2000 were "the most the commission had had received in a single year."
Disciplinary recommendations by the Police Advisory Commission, which has no enforcement power, have been virtually ignored by Timoney. Of the 13 recommendations and 17 opinions the commission has issued, Timoney has implemented one; a meager one-day suspension. He has rejected even the most symbolic forms of punishment, such as ten-day suspensions. Commission members have publicly complained that Timoney has rendered their work completely useless. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/17/00, AP 11/17/00).
Timoney has adopted tactics like issuing decisions before he even receives the Advisory Commission's recommendations. The Police Advisory Commission's Executive Director Hector Soto has called Timoney's behavior "an attack on the concept of our commission" (Philadelphia Weekly, 11/29/00).
Timoney claims that he won't tolerate abusive cops, and has said that he's "got to be held responsible for the integrity of the department." What has he done to prevent police violence?
When he first took office, Timoney restructured the department's Internal Affairs division, giving himself the ability to fire officers who were found guilty by the division. But Timoney has only acted when forced to. In the case of officer Christopher Di Pasquale who killed the unarmed Donta Dawson, the Commissioner refused to fire the officer until after Philadelphia's District Attorney brought him up on manslaughter charges. Timoney also refused to act on an Internal Affairs report that found that officers who paralyzed 21 year-old Calvin Saunders engaged in brutality, conspiracy, and perjury. One of the guilty officers has even been promoted to detective. The commissioner justifies his inaction with the excuse that "Just because I.A. [Internal Affairs} sustains the allegations doesn't mean the men are guilty" (Philadelphia Magazine, 10/3/00).
In the case of Thomas Jones, where 10 officers were videotaped kicking and hitting the suspect 59 times in 29 seconds, Timoney told the media "When somebody doesn't want to get arrested there really isn't an easy way of doing it." Even after charges were dropped against the suspect, Timoney was adamant about the need to "look at what was on the officers' minds."
