A never-released internal NYPD report paints a damning picture of the department’s handling of the George Floyd protests in 2020 that led to days of rioting and looting across the city — finding that no single police commander was calling the shots, officers lacked “timely intelligence” in the first days of the unrest, and there was a failure to utilize highly-touted resources to better control the situation.
The report, reviewed by the Daily News, was ordered up by then-Police Commissioner Dermot Shea in the wake of the demonstrations that started on May 27, two days after Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis cops. Some of the protests devolved into riots, looting and vandalism during which more than 400 cops were injured — many in assaults — while scores of protesters accused police of beating them.
The 47-page document praises in many ways how the department, its ranks thinned by the ravages of COVID-19, “stood tall and walked alongside more than a quarter-million people to ensure that their rights to protest were protected.”
But it also comes down hard on the upper echelons of the nation’s largest police force for “missteps” in the NYPD’s response to the protests.
“Despite being faced with multiple unforeseen developments and challenges, the leadership of the Department made many divisive and sound decisions that protected the lives and property of New Yorkers as events unfolded,” the report states. “There were, however, shortcomings and missteps in the initial response to these events that elicited both internal and external criticism.”
As some of the demonstrations turned ugly, rather than activate emergency response protocols — CIMS, for Citywide Incident Management System — with different chiefs assigned to citywide responsibilities, Chief of Department Terrence Monahan opted to initially use the “Stand-Alone Plan,” with the operations unit under his command working with each borough commander.
An “inefficient deployment of resources” followed, the report said, most notably on June 1, when hundreds of Bronx cops — including officers from the Strategic Response Group specially trained to deal with protests — were moved to deal with chaos elsewhere in the city.
That night, many of the relocated Bronx officers and SGR cops patrolled streets around Macy’s in Herald Square, which became the target of looters. But in the absence of a formidable police presence, Bronx businesses were also looted that night.
Smaller stores and mom-and-pop shops along Fordham Road were set on fire while rioters on the roofs of buildings at Fordham Road and Tiebout Ave. pelted officers on the street with rocks and bottles.
A former police official defended the Stand-Alone Plan to The News, noting the department was still nimble enough to move personnel around to deal with spates of violence or hordes of protesters moving from one borough to another. The official, in fact, cited the transfer of Bronx cops to Midtown that was criticized in the report as an example of the department’s ability to pivot quickly.
But the report noted that prior large-scale protests and civic unrest, such as the 1991 Crown Heights riots, was contained to two Brooklyn precincts. The next year, a riot in Washington Heights was limited to just one command.
The Floyd riots, the report said, flared up in multiple precincts citywide and the Stand Alone Plan was structurally insufficient to deal with potential issues, especially in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx where the bulk of them occurred.
“At any given time, each day, no more than two executives were working to monitor the events affecting all eight patrol boroughs across the entire city,” the report said. “There really was no overall incident commander.”
Such a commander, the report said, should be put in place “to make long and short term, well-informed deployment decisions based on real-time citywide evaluations of current conditions.”
The report also cited the “lack of timely intelligence“ during the early days of the protests, coupled with the little or no communication between police supervisors in different boroughs. On May 29, for example, there was no advance notice that Manhattan protesters were heading to Brooklyn to join forces with those gathered at Barclays Center.
That night, protesters stormed and nearly breached the 88th Precinct station house in Clinton Hill, where they damaged several police cars by breaking mirrors and windows and spray painting profane graffiti like “F—k the police,” and set an NYPD vehicle on fire.
The report noted that many of the demonstrations were organized over social media, giving police little time to assess each one, and that troublemakers often used encrypted apps, “making it more challenging for investigators to identify planned acts of organized violence.”
But intelligence investigators and analysts adjusted, learning more quickly about potential hot spots. The report noted in particular the June 4 protest in Mott Haven, the Bronx, for which police were widely criticized for surrounding more than 300 protesters so they couldn’t leave and arresting more than 200 of them.
The report also backs what police said at the time — that there was credible evidence about planned violence against police officers that night.
Still, the report noted that a number of senior police executives complained that there were times when such information was not getting passed to them.
The report also found that police brass failed to properly use some of the resources at their disposal. The NYPD’s Joint Operations Center, where various city agencies gather at 1 Police Plaza during major events to share information and coordinate a response, was not “officially activated,” and thus wasn’t providing the level of assistance for which it is capable.
The department also didn’t take advantage of the video surveillance network it monitors in a building in lower Manhattan, the report said.
The NYPD refused to answer any questions about its own report for this story. A police spokeswoman said it couldn’t comment because of pending lawsuits.
Shea, now retired, did not respond to a request for comment. Monahan, who won praise when he kneeled with protesters outside Washington Square Park in a show of solidarity, is also retired and said he would not comment.
The NYPD’s internal report was among several others that were highly critical of the police department’s tactics during the George Floyd protests.
A scathing analysis by the city’s Department of Investigations in December 2020 said the NYPD had no “clearly defined strategy,” made key errors that heightened tensions and suppressed protesters’ First Amendment rights.
An earlier report by state Attorney General Letitia James in the weeks after the protests said “many New Yorkers have lost faith in law enforcement.” And a report by the Civilian Complaint Review Board released last week was also critical, noting 36 cops against whom it substantiated misconduct allegations were never disciplined.
Sources familiar with the NYPD report said the plan was to release it before the DOI put out its findings in late 2020, but the NYPD’s analysis wasn’t finished in time and Shea held back on making it public because another report would “just muddy the waters.”
