Mayor Eric Adams is trying to oust the interim chairwoman of the civilian oversight board tasked with investigating complaints against the NYPD, according to sources.
Adams’ close advisor Philips Banks asked Arva Rice to resign from her position at the head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) sometime last week, sources with knowledge of the matter told The Post.
Rice, who was appointed to the board by Adams’ predecessor Bill de Blasio, was named interim chair by the current mayor in February 2022 and was believed to be on the path to a full appointment, the sources said.
But in recent weeks the chair has been outspoken about the effects of budget cuts on the board’s ability to do its job and publicly critical of the NYPD’s handling of the 2019 police shooting of a black man in his own home.
With Adams slashing budgets of city agencies left and right due to the swelling pricetag of the migrant crisis, CCRB also saw its coffers dip — and Rice was vocal about the true cost of the cuts.
Last December, the board was forced to stop investigating officers for threats, property seizures, untruthful statements, discourteous words or actions, or refusal to provide their name or shield number over the cuts and vacancies.
Rice asked the City Council for $15 million of additional funding in order to fill vacancies and tackle a long backlog of cases.
She said the risks of continued underfunding include “not being able to investigate complaints, police misconduct going unaddressed, and the public losing faith in our public safety system” in testimony at a council budget hearing last month.
“We need 73 additional investigators of a variety of experience levels to manage the current workload,” she added. “This does not account for the 20 investigators who have had their promotions and pay raises delayed due to budget cuts. Without timely promotions and fair compensation, we are at risk of losing many of our most experienced and talented investigators.”
Earlier this month, the chairwoman thanked the council for supporting her request for added funding.
“As civilian complaints rise, we need an adequate budget to serve NYC,” Rice said on X. “Chronically underfunded CCRB is a key component of public safety & budget should reflect that.”
In the same March 20 testimony, Rice bashed the NYPD’s handling of the case of Kawaski Trawick, who was shot dead by NYPD officers in his Bronx apartment in April 2019.
The department refused to hand over evidence, including body cam footage, to the CCRB while it was concurrently investigating the shooting — which “made it impossible” for the board to complete its probe before the statute of limitations was up, Rice said.
“Essentially, the NYPD did not thoroughly investigate the killing of Kawaski Trawick, cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, refused to share evidence until it was beyond the statute of limitations, and then has once again tried to avoid holding the officers accountable because the case was not closed within the statute of limitations,” she testified. “This circumvention of the disciplinary system is unacceptable and further proof why the CCRB is such an important entity for public safety.”
Last week, during the CCRB’s monthly meeting, Rice again slammed the NYPD for its alleged failure to properly investigate the officers’ actions — as well as the NYPD judge’s “flawed recommendation” that the two cops had committed no wrongdoing in the death of Trawick and the police commissioner’s endorsement of the judge’s decision.
It was also last week that Banks — the deputy mayor for public safety who, in 2014, stepped down from the top of the NYPD amid a federal corruption investigation — went to Rice to ask that she resign.
Following that meeting, the chairwoman asked a person she trusted within City Hall to go to Adam’s chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, to try to get a meeting directly with the mayor.
Lewis-Martin reportedly referenced the backlog of open NYPD complaints that the board has not been able to get to and said “we need to make a change,” sources with knowledge of the meeting told The Post.
Rice did not immediately want to comment when reached by phone.
City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak told The Post “Rice was a holdover appointment by the previous administration.”
The source said they don’t believe Rice will resign.
“She wants them to replace her,” the person said.
It’s unclear if Rice will step down or force Adams to find a replacement that would knock her out of her interim job.
The New York Times, which first reported on the mayor’s desire to push the chairwoman out, said that Rice is expected to comply with the administration’s request and will leave the job in the coming weeks.
