Findings Report Investigation Of The Mount Vernon Police Department

Investigation of the Mount Vernon 
Police Department 

United States Attorney’s Office 
Southern District of New York 

Civil Division 

and 

United States Department of Justice 
Civil Rights Division 

December 12, 2024 



 

 

 
 

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS  

EXECUTIVE  SUMMARY ...............................................................................................  2  

BACKGROUND  ............................................................................................................  3  

A.  Mount Vernon, New York  .........................................................................  3  

B.  Mount Vernon Police  Department  ............................................................  4  

C.  Financial Mismanagement Within City Government and MVPD  ..............  6  

D.  MVPD Incidents Undermining Public Trust  ..............................................  7  

FINDINGS  .....................................................................................................................  7  

A.  MVPD Engages in a Pattern or Practice of Conduct that Violates the  
United States Constitution and Laws  .......................................................  7  

1.  MVPD Uses Excessive Force  ...........................................................  8  

2.  MVPD Unlawfully Conducted Strip and Body Cavity Searches of All  
Arrestees .........................................................................................  13  

3.  MVPD Makes Unlawful Arrests in Violation of the Fourth  
Amendment .....................................................................................  18  

4.  MVPD’s Vehicle  Stops Raise Serious Concerns .............................  21  

5.  MVPD’s Evidentiary Practices Raise Serious  Constitutional 
Concerns .........................................................................................  22  

6.  We Have Serious Concerns that Some MVPD Officers Discriminate  
Against Black People,  Targeting Them  for Arrests  .........................  24  

B.  Systemic Deficiencies in MVPD’s Practices Lead to Constitutional 
Violations  ...............................................................................................  26  

1.  MVPD’s Policies and Policy Development Are Inadequate .............  27  

2.  MVPD Fails to Adequately Train Its Officers  ...................................  27  

3.  MVPD Fails to Adequately Supervise Its Officers  ...........................  28  

4.  MVPD Fails to Hold Officers Accountable for Misconduct ...............  29  

5.  MVPD Fails to Equip  Officers Appropriately and Deploy Resources  
Effectively ........................................................................................  32  

RECOMMENDED REMEDIAL MEASURES ...............................................................  33  
 



 

 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

In June  2020, Mount Vernon  Police Department (MVPD)  officers conducted a traffic 
stop  of two women, one  65  years  old and  the  other  75  years old, claiming  that they saw 
the women engage in  a hand-to-hand drug transaction. The  driver of the car explained  
that she  had given her husband  a five-dollar bill to purchase  a lottery ticket.  An Internal 
Affairs (IA) investigation later determined that the MVPD officer had  lied and there was  
no basis for the  traffic stop. Without a  basis  for the stop, the officers ordered the women  
out of the car and searched it, but they found  no contraband. The officers handcuffed  
the women and  took them to the  police station. At the police station,  with supervisory 
approval,  two  female detectives made  the women completely disrobe—including their  
bras and underwear—and told them  to bend  over and cough. No contraband was 
recovered, and the two women  were  driven  back to  their car and released. One  of the  
women filed an IA complaint, recounting that she was “very humiliated” and was “on the  
verge of fainting I was so scared for my life.”   

According to MVPD’s records, this is the only case in  the last ten years in which MVPD 
acknowledged that a strip search was wrongful. Yet both  of the female detectives who  
performed  the strip and cavity searches confirmed  to  IA  that they routinely conducted  
strip and visual cavity searches of all female arrestees, consistent with MVPD practice. 
One  of the supervising officers who approved the  arrest and search insisted  that he and  
his officers did nothing  wrong and were simply following long-standing practice. The  
only discipline imposed  on the officers involved in  the arrest and search was the loss of 
several days of accrued leave.  

This incident is emblematic of the inadequate policies, training, supervision, and  
accountability that have  contributed to  MVPD’s  conduct that violates the Constitution, 
including  the unconstitutional arrests and  invasive strip and visual cavity searches 
described above.  

After completing  a thorough investigation, the Department of Justice concludes that  
there is reasonable cause to believe that MVPD engages in  a pattern or practice of 
conduct that violates the Constitution. MVPD engages in a  pattern or practice of:  
(1)  using  excessive force; (2) conducting  unlawful strip searches and body cavity 
searches until at least 2023; and (3) making  arrests without probable cause, including  
unlawful arrests to perform strip searches, arresting  people merely present when MVPD 
served a search warrant without independent probable cause for arresting  those people, 
and  arresting  people for behavior that does not constitute a crime.  

While it appears that MVPD curtailed its unconstitutional strip search and body cavity  
search practices during our investigation, we are not confident that these  practices have  
ended. These unlawful searches were deeply ingrained in MVPD’s practices, occurring  
over many years, and  were  highly intrusive. MVPD only changed its practices during  our 
investigation. Without  sufficient oversight, we remain concerned that these practices will 
recur. We also have serious concerns about MVPD’s vehicle  stop  and  evidence  
collection  practices, as well as serious concerns  that MVPD’s practices may result in  
discriminatory policing.   

 

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MVPD’s practices are directly attributable to significant systemic deficiencies in MVPD’s 
policies, training, supervision, and accountability systems, all of which are rooted in a 
long history of municipal dysfunction. Municipal financial mismanagement has seriously 
eroded MVPD’s ability to follow basic practices standard in modern policing, such as 
keeping its 911 system up and running, providing its officers with Taser cartridges so 
they have a less-lethal force option, and ensuring that officers who interact with the 
public are equipped with body-worn cameras. 

Leadership failures have resulted in the absence of needed policies or ones that have 
not been updated in decades; a complete lack of training on critical topics; and 
ineffective supervision, including supervisors investigating incidents in which they were 
personally involved. MVPD’s data collection and records management are also deeply 
deficient. MVPD keeps no records of stops unless they result in arrests, for example, 
and despite our standing requests from early in the investigation for all misconduct files, 
MVPD continued to discover new files up until a few months ago. Put simply, MVPD 
does not have much of the basic infrastructure necessary to provide Constitutional and 
effective policing in the 21st century. 

Comprised of approximately four square miles just north of the Bronx, Mount Vernon 
has significant poverty and has suffered from years of political turmoil. And even though 
Mount Vernon is located within one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, it 
struggles to adequately equip, train, and pay its officers. Instead, it consistently loses 
members of the police force to higher paying departments in neighboring towns. These 
long-standing challenges still plague the Department and contribute to the pattern of 
unconstitutional policing identified during this investigation. 

Fortunately, the current leadership of the City and MVPD are taking steps to remedy 
this dysfunction and improve policing, including by revising MVPD’s outdated policies, 
working to equip all officers with body-worn cameras and less-lethal weapons, and 
creating an officer and community wellness program. Although significant challenges 
remain, the City and MVPD have expressed a commitment to improvement. The City 
and MVPD have fully cooperated with this investigation, and we appreciate their 
engagement in this process. 

BACKGROUND 

A.  MOUNT  VERNON,  NEW  YORK  

The City of Mount Vernon is in Westchester County, New York, immediately north  of the  
Bronx. It has a  population of roughly 67,000.  The City’s population is approximately 
61% Black, 20% White, 17% percent Latino, and  2% Asian. The  median income in  
Mount Vernon is $68,300,  consistent with  the  national average, but far  below the  
median income of $114,650  for Westchester County.  

Mount Vernon is governed  by a  mayor and  a five-member City Council.  Both  the mayor 
and city  councilmembers, who serve at large, are elected  for four-year terms.  The City’s 
current mayor is Shawyn Patterson-Howard, who was elected to office in 2019  and  

 

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of Black Residents in 
Mount Vernon 
Percentage of Black Residents by 
Census Block Group 

0-20% -20-40% -40-60% -60-80% -80-100% 

-=-=--==--Mik>s 
0 0.1 0.2 0.5 0.7 1 

reelected in 2023. Mayor Patterson-Howard, who is Black, is the first female mayor of 
Mount Vernon, the first woman of color, and the first sitting mayor in 20 years to win 
reelection. The Mayor is responsible for appointing City agency heads, including the 
Commissioner of Public Safety. The City Council is presided over by Council President 
Cathlin Gleason, who was elected to the council in 2021. 

Like many cities in the United States, Mount Vernon is heavily segregated by race, with 
Black residents largely residing on the southern side of the city, closest to the Bronx. A 
majority of white residents live in the northern neighborhoods, closest to Bronxville, one 
of the wealthiest communities in Westchester. 

B.  MOUNT  VERNON  POLICE DEPARTMENT  

The Mount Vernon Police Department (MVPD) has a  force of approximately 164  sworn 
officers.  Forty-nine  percent of MVPD officers are Black, 27% are white, and  23% are 
Hispanic. The Department is led by the Commissioner of Public Safety, who is 
appointed by the  mayor.  Since May 2023, David Gibson  has served  as Interim  
Commissioner, assuming office following the retirement of  Glenn  Scott.  Commissioner  
Gibson  joined MVPD in the fall  of 2022 as Deputy Commissioner, after a  30-year career 
at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and  Explosives.  The Commissioner is 
responsible for the  administration, operation, and  discipline  of the  police department. He 

 

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■ 

is assisted in his responsibilities by Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Lackard and Chief of 
Police Marcel Olifiers. 

The Department has five divisions: the Patrol Division, Detective Division, Training and 
Personnel Division, Support Services Division, and Community Wellness Division. The 
Patrol Division covers seven geographic patrol areas within the City, as well as the K-9 
Unit. The Patrol Division also includes the Emergency Service Unit (ESU), which 
handles high risk search warrant entries and responds to calls of individuals in crisis. 
The Detective Division investigates criminal activity within the City and includes the 
Major Case Unit, which investigates homicides and other major crimes; the Violent 
Crimes Unit, which investigates pattern crimes; and the Youth Unit. 

The Department also has an Internal Affairs Unit (IA). IA investigates allegations of 
criminal misconduct against Department employees, although it also may investigate 
matters assigned to it by the commissioner or the police chief. IA is staffed by a 
sergeant and two investigators. 

The Mount Vernon Police Association represents the interests of sworn MVPD 
members below the rank of Deputy Chief. The union has a collective bargaining 
agreement (CBA) with the City which establishes the terms and conditions of 
employment, and the union is currently in the process of negotiating a new CBA. 

MVPD salaries in 2024 start at $45,567 for the most junior officers. In comparison, the 
starting salaries for police officers in two neighboring towns in Westchester County— 
Yonkers and New Rochelle—were $72,233 (as of 2021) and $61,183 (as of 2024). 

1

Officer Salary by Location and Experience 

80,000 

70,000 

60,000 

50,000 

40,000 

30,000 

20,000 

10,000 

0 

Mount Vernon Yonkers New Rochelle 

Junior Officer Salary 

1  Mount Vernon Police Department,  https://cmvny.com/525/Executive-Leadership-Organizational-Char   
[https://perma.cc/H9M3-ZF4R].  

 

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https://cmvny.com/525/Executive-Leadership-Organizational-Char
https://perma.cc/H9M3-ZF4R


 

 
 

 

C.  FINANCIAL  MISMANAGEMENT  WITHIN  CITY 
GOVERNMENT  AND  MVPD  

Mount Vernon  has a long  history of dysfunction  and  financial struggles, which  has 
significantly impacted  MVPD.  The  Office  of the New York State Comptroller audited  
Mount Vernon’s finances for the years 2017 through September 2020 and issued a  
report in January 2022.  The  State concluded  that the  then-comptroller failed  to  pay 
more than $2  million in claims  and  created a  voucher system that “restricted  the  ability 
of officials and employees to monitor operations” and “prevented  officials from  
determining whether vendors had been paid.”  The State  further found  that the  
comptroller had  made  more than $16  million  of unauthorized electronic disbursements  
and withdrawals.  The current administration is taking steps to address these financial 
problems, and  a new comptroller was elected  in 2021. However, the administration  
faced—and still faces—a serious financial shortfall created by the  prior years of  
dysfunction.   

These financial problems have significantly affected  MVPD’s policing operations. MVPD 
leadership explained that due to  the actions of the last comptroller, MVPD had difficulty  
paying  outstanding invoices, and  thus could not obtain  or replace  a sufficient amount of 
body-worn cameras or Taser cartridges. As of  September 2024, approximately 40  
officers still need  body-worn cameras,  and the Department has access to only a limited  
number of Tasers. During an interview on December 11, 2021, Commissioner Scott  
complained that officers lacked  Taser cartridges, stating  that officers “don’t have less 
than lethal force.”  In December 2021, the Commissioner reported that “911 ha[d]  been  
down three  times since January 2020  due to unpaid bills.”  Financial difficulties are also 
undermining MVPD’s ability to hire  new officers; in 2020, newly hired  Probationary 
Police Officers were not paid for seven weeks  and,  in 2021, new recruits were not paid 
for at least two weeks. MVPD officers are also forced  to  buy much of their own 
equipment, despite their low pay relative to  neighboring departments.  One  officer noted  
that her vest is fifteen  years old and thus likely ineffective, but that she cannot afford to  
replace it.   

The  City’s monetary challenges  have undermined MVPD’s ability to  hire and supervise  
officers, train them adequately, and  provide them with appropriate equipment to  police  
constitutionally. By the  fourth  quarter of 2023,  however, the City had  made some  
progress in reducing its debt and  managing its financial operations.  Nevertheless, it still 
faces significant monetary shortfalls.  Until the  City’s financial difficulties are fully 
addressed, MVPD will continue to be vulnerable to non-payment of invoices for 
equipment and resources it needs to conduct constitutional and effective policing.   
 

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2  Office of the New York  State Comptroller, City of Mount Vernon  –  Non  Payroll Disbursements (2021M-
163)  1  (2022), https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/local-government/audits/2022/pdf/mount-vernon-2021-163.pdf  
[https://perma.cc/XX8R-GXRH].   

 

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https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/local-government/audits/2022/pdf/mount-vernon-2021-163.pdf
https://perma.cc/XX8R-GXRH


 

D.  MVPD  INCIDENTS  UNDERMINING  PUBLIC  TRUST  

MVPD has also had  numerous incidents undermining community confidence in  the  
Department over the last few years. Former MVPD Police  Chief Richton Ziadie was 
suspended for overtime abuse  in 2019, leading to an investigation  by the Westchester 
County District Attorney’s Office  (WCDAO). The  WCDAO  ultimately declined to  bring  
criminal charges, but Ziadie retired shortly thereafter.  In  2017, an  officer,  after observing  
illegal searches and  uses of force,  recorded  his fellow officers discussing misconduct 
and corruption within the Department’s narcotics unit. As a result of the  public outcry 
following the recording’s release  by a media outlet in 2021, the  Department disbanded  
the  narcotics unit; however, that unit appears to have  been reconstituted under another 
name. MVPD initiated  an internal affairs investigation into the incident  but,  three years 
after the recordings were made  public, the investigation is still ongoing.   

Incidents such as these have come at a price to the City—both literally and  figuratively.  
One  officer, now retired, cost the City so  much in lawsuits and settlements that he was  
dubbed  by local media as the City’s “Million Dollar Man.”  More tellingly, however, these  
incidents have cost MVPD significant public  trust, as many community members lack 
confidence in the  Department’s ability to police lawfully and  hold officers accountable.  

FINDINGS  

A.  MVPD  ENGAGES  IN  A  PATTERN  OR  PRACTICE  OF  
CONDUCT  THAT  VIOLATES THE UNITED  STATES  
CONSTITUTION  AND  LAWS  

The  Department of Justice, through the  United States Attorney’s Office for the  Southern  
District of New York and the Civil Rights Division,  opened this investigation  on  
December 3, 2021. We conducted  the investigation pursuant to the  police  misconduct 
statute, 34 U.S.C. §  12601, which prohibits law enforcement agencies from engaging in  
a “pattern or practice” of conduct that deprives people of rights protected  by the U.S.  
Constitution or federal law.  Where we  develop reasonable cause  to  believe  that an  
agency engages in a  prohibited pattern or practice, we may bring  a lawsuit to eliminate  
it.   

We  find that  MVPD  engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the  
Constitution.  This pattern or practice is rooted  in MVPD’s deficient policies,  training,  
equipment,  supervision, and  accountability systems for officer activity, and  it  manifests 
in specific Constitutional violations: (1) MVPD  routinely uses unreasonable force; 
(2)  MVPD engaged  in  unlawful strip searches and body cavity searches  until at least  
2023; and (3)  MVPD unlawfully arrests individuals without probable cause, including  
unlawful arrests to perform strip searches. This includes  arresting people present when  
MVPD served  a search warrant without independent probable cause for arresting those  
people, and  arresting people for behavior that does not constitute a crime.  And  although  
we do  not make  a finding that MVPD’s vehicle  stop or evidence collection  practices 
violate the Constitution, or that MVPD’s practices result in discriminatory policing in  
violation  of the Constitution  or federal law, we have serious concerns about those  

 

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practices.   

We  make these  findings after a comprehensive investigation into MVPD’s practices.  We  
consulted  a broad set of sources and sought the  perspective of numerous stakeholders.  
In total, we conducted  more than  one  hundred interviews  of current Department officers 
and command staff, City Hall officials, leadership of  the  Mount Vernon  Police  
Association, residents of Mount Vernon,  local civic associations,  prosecutors,  and  
witnesses and lawyers involved in criminal and civil litigation with the Department.  We  
examined more than one hundred thousand  pages of internal Mount Vernon  
documents, including  MVPD’s policies, use of force reports, arrest reports, civilian  
complaints, internal discipline files, command  discipline files, training materials, video  
footage, and  years of  stop, search, and arrest data.  We conducted  multiple tours of the  
Department, which  include  participating in overnight ride-alongs with patrol officers.  
During the course of our investigation,  we consulted with  law enforcement experts  with  
experience in  the relevant issues and  hired  data technicians  to assist us in  analyzing  
MVPD data on stops, arrests, and  other enforcement activities.  

At all times, MVPD and City leadership  took  a cooperative and  professional approach  to  
our investigation.  We  are grateful to MVPD personnel for their candor and insights 
during interviews.  We  are likewise grateful to  the leadership of the  Mount Vernon  Police  
Association, which met with us on  multiple occasions and invited us to speak to union  
members.  We  also met with  a substantial number of people in the broader Mount 
Vernon community.  We are thankful for the  many  community members who came  
forward to share information with  us, even when  doing so involved  reliving difficult 
personal experiences.  

1.  MVPD Uses  Excessive Force   

MVPD engages in  a pattern or practice of using excessive force  that  manifests in  
various ways, including: (1) by unnecessarily escalating  minor encounters,  resulting  in 
excessive force;  and (2) through  excessive use of Tasers and closed-fist strikes, 
including  against  individuals  who have  already been taken to  the ground, are controlled  
by a large number of officers, and/or are already fully or partially restrained.  

Excessive physical force claims are analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s objective  
reasonableness standard.  The analysis requires balancing  the intrusion on the  
individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the governmental interests at stake.  
The criteria to assess whether a law enforcement officer used excessive force include  
the severity of the crime at issue, the presence of  an immediate safety threat to the  
officers or others, and the subject’s  resistance to  or attempt to evade arrest. Objective 
reasonableness is determined from the  perspective  of a reasonable officer at the  time  
the force was used, or whether a reasonable officer would be aware that the force used  
was excessive.  Reasonableness is a fact-dependent inquiry based  on the totality of the  
circumstances.  

Even if the use of some  force is justified, the  particular level of force used may still be  
excessive if it is disproportionate  to the resistance  or threat encountered.  “The fact that 
a person whom  a police officer attempts to arrest resists, threatens, or assaults the  

 

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officer no doubt justifies the  officer’s use of some  degree of force, but it does not give 
the  officer license to use force without limit.”   It is well-established that use  of force on  
an arrestee who is already handcuffed  or confined in custody is excessive when  the  
arrestee is not actively resisting or reasonably perceived to be a threat.  Similarly, the  
use of force following surrender is excessive because the  threat of force and level of 
resistance is low, even where the subject is being  arrested  for a violent crime.  High  
levels of force used to  effectuate an arrest for a non-violent, non-threatening violation  
are more likely to be unreasonable. Force may also be  excessive where it is in  
response to simple noncompliance.  And courts have held that it is “an excessive and  
unreasonable use of force for a  police  officer repeatedly to  administer electrical shocks 
with a taser on an individual who no longer is armed, has been brought to the  ground, 
has been restrained  physically by several other officers, and no longer is actively 
resisting arrest.”

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a.  MVPD’s Overly Aggressive  Tactics Unnecessarily Escalate 
Encounters and Result in Excessive Force   

We  found  numerous instances where relatively minor offenses that could lead to a  
peaceable arrest instead  led  to significant use of force due to  overly aggressive MVPD 
tactics.  Many of these incidents involved  Tasers,

4 

  which  courts have recognized “is a  
serious use of force. The weapon is designed to cause  . . . excruciating pain and  
application can burn a  subject’s flesh.”

5

  As discussed in the next section, MVPD’s use  
of Tasers is often  excessive even where some use of force is justified, but we also 
found MVPD officers using  Tasers when  no  force was likely justified but for MVPD 
officers escalating the  situation.  The following examples illustrate MVPD’s use  of overly 
aggressive tactics which resulted in  excessive force:  

•  Five MVPD officers used force on a  man  they suspected  of selling narcotics 
despite not announcing their presence beforehand or attempting to peacefully 
arrest him. One officer approached the  man from  behind  and attempted an  

 

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3  Sullivan v. Gagnier,  225 F.3d 161, 165-166 (2d Cir. 2000); see  also Curry v. City  of Syracuse, 316 F.3d 
324, 332 (2d Cir. 2003) (holding that fact that arrestee  struck police officer did not automatically defeat 
excessive force claim if arrestee could show that officer used  more force than necessary to subdue him).  

4  Meyers v. Baltimore County, 713 F.3d 723, 734 (4th Cir. 2013).  

5  A Taser is  a  weapon that  “‘can  be used  either  in ‘probe’  mode or in ‘stun’  mode.  In  probe  mode,  two probes  
are fired  from  a distance, attached  to thin electrical  wires, to lodge  in  the  skin of the  subject. The  Taser then  
delivers  a fixed  five-second cycle of electricity  designed  to cause electro-muscular disruption, effectively  
freezing  the  subject’s  muscles  and thereby  temporarily  disabling him. In stun  mode, the  probe  cartridge is  
removed  and the  Taser’s  electrodes  are applied  directly  to the  subject. The  Taser operator can  then  deliver  
a painful electric shock, the duration of which is completely  within the operator’s control. In stun mode, the  
Taser does  not  cause  muscular disruption or incapacitation, but rather  functions  only  as  a ‘pain  compliance’  
tool.’”  Meyers  v. Baltimore  County, 713 F.3d  723, 728 n.3  (4th Cir. 2013)  (alterations  omitted)  (quoting 
Meyers, 814  F. Supp. 2d  552, 555 n.3 (D. Md. 2011)). “[U]sing  drive stun  mode  ‘to achieve pain compliance 
may  have  limited  effectiveness  and, when used repeatedly, may  even exacerbate  the  situation.’”  Armstrong  
v. Pinehurst, 810  F.3d  at  902  (quoting  Police Exec. Research Forum  &  Cmty. Oriented Policing  Servs., 
2011 Electronic Control  Weapon Guidelines  14 (2011)).  

6  Estate of  Armstrong v. Vill. of Pinehurst, 810 F.3d  892, 902 (4th  Cir. 2016) (internal quotation  marks and 
citations omitted).  

 

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“upper body hold” simultaneous with announcing his presence. This prompted an 
altercation in which one officer threw the man to the ground, breaking his nose; 
another officer drive-stunned him with his Taser five times; a third officer 
punched the man repeatedly in the head; and a fourth officer used his baton to 
pry apart the man’s arms. The man suffered a fractured nose and bruises to his 
face and back. This force was not only unreasonable, but potentially 
unnecessary had MVPD officers attempted a less confrontational initial 
approach. Instead, the situation rapidly escalated due to MVPD officers’ 
immediate aggressive actions. Officers recovered a small amount of drugs and 
MVPD found the uses of force justified. 

• Seven officers responded to a welfare check for a person who had behavioral 
health issues. Instead of attempting to calm the individual, the officers 
immediately handcuffed him. This increased the person’s alarm and distress, and 
he began to struggle. The officers further escalated the encounter by placing him 
in a body wrap restraint, but the individual was able to reach out and grab an 
officer’s hand. MVPD officers then tased him seven times to gain compliance, all 
while he was handcuffed, on the ground, and in a body wrap restraint. Two 
officers received discipline; the sergeant who deployed the Taser lost 32 hours of 
leave and had his Taser certification suspended, while another sergeant was 
given verbal counseling for failure to intervene. As explained below, such 
discipline is exceedingly rare, allowing an incident like this one to occur in the 
first place. 

• Two officers responded to a domestic disturbance that appeared to be 
resolving—the man was walking away from the apartment when officers arrived. 
Instead of escorting him from the scene and interviewing the parties, the officers 
immediately attempted to arrest the man when he pushed past one of the officers 
and attempted to leave. The reports give no indication of the probable cause for 
that arrest; the man was ultimately charged only with obstruction of a government 
officer and resisting arrest. During the arrest, both officers deployed their Tasers. 
One officer tased the man; then the second officer attempted to tase the man, 
but accidentally tased the first officer instead; finally, the second officer tased the 
man (successfully this time), after which the man was handcuffed. While the 
second officer was counseled to “better visualize his target when deploying a 
Taser,” the use of force was found “justified” and “within Department guidelines,” 
and no disciplinary action was taken. 

• One MVPD officer pushed a handcuffed woman in MVPD detention into her cell 
so forcefully that she stumbled over a trash bin and hit a cinderblock wall face-
first. The incident was captured on body-worn camera video, and the officer was 
subsequently charged with reckless endangerment. The case against the officer 
was ultimately dismissed by a judge.  

 



 

b.  MVPD Regularly Uses  Tasers  and Closed-Fist Strikes to the  
Head When This  Level of Force Is Not Reasonable  

Even when  some force may be required, MVPD’s use of  Tasers is frequently excessive  
and  unnecessary, particularly in circumstances where officers already have sufficient 
control of a  person.  MVPD officers also frequently punch  individuals  in the head and  
face  during  physical confrontations, even when multiple  officers are in the process of  
restraining the  person  and  at times when the  individual  has already been taken  to the  
ground.  While the  use  of a  Taser or closed-fist strikes can be justified under certain 
circumstances, officers’ use of force must be reasonably related to the threat posed. 
MVPD’s use of Tasers and  closed  fist  strikes often occurs even  when the arrestee  does 
not pose an active  threat and  officers have sufficient personnel  to gain compliance  
without this level of force.  

For example, four officers pursued a  man  on  foot on suspicion of selling marijuana.  
When they caught him,  they took him to  the ground and used significant force while 
attempting to handcuff  him: based upon the officers’ own descriptions, one officer kneed  
him in  the chest and  punched him  multiple  times in the body; another punched him  
twice in the face with  a closed  fist; another officer punched him multiple times on his 
body and then twisted  his ankle (a tactic described by MVPD as “pain compliance”); and  
the fourth officer  used  a baton  to  force  his arms behind his back. Despite  their numbers 
and already  substantial use of force, a  fifth  officer arrived and  twice fired his Taser into  
the  man’s back. The officers eventually recovered seven  grams of marijuana  and the  
individual was charged with possession  of marijuana, resisting arrest, and obstructing  
governmental functions. While some  of the initial  force may have been justified, the  
head strikes to the face and the two instances of tasing  after the  man  was already on  
the  ground and  being restrained by four officers were unreasonable.   

In another incident, two officers confronted a  man  who  had been acting erratically, but 
not dangerously,  in a store. The officers took the  man  to  the ground  but—stating that he  
displayed “extra  ordinary strength, possibly due to the fact that he was high on  
narcotics”—were unable to  place him in handcuffs. Additional officers appeared on the  
scene  while the  original officers  attempted  to  handcuff him. During  the struggle the  
lieutenant advised the  officer to use his Taser and drive-stun the  man, which  the officer 
did four times. Body-worn camera footage reveals that,  at the  point where the  Taser 
was deployed, several  officers were on  top  of the  man, who was refusing to turn over 
onto his stomach so that he could be handcuffed. Again, given the  degree  of control the  
officers already had  over the  man, the use of the  Taser was unreasonable.  

We  examined other cases reflecting poor police tactics that led to  unnecessarily violent 
encounters, including  head strikes  with closed fists. For example, an officer stopped a  
vehicle based upon  a report of vehicular assault on an officer in another jurisdiction.  
Rather than wait for additional backup  (beyond the second officer already at the scene), 
which was only minutes away, the  officer reached in through the  driver’s  window to turn 
off the ignition. This prompted an altercation,  during which  both  officers struck the  man  
multiple times  with closed fists, including in  the head,  to subdue  him  and  get him out of  
the vehicle. Though  force may have  been justified once  the driver reacted to the  
officer’s initial movement, the  officer’s actions in reaching through the window likely 

 

11  



 

escalated the incident.  The officer’s actions also put him  in an  extremely dangerous  
position that may have resulted in  his  being dragged by the car, had the  driver 
accelerated when  the  officer reached through the door. In addition, once several more  
officers arrived  and the individual was on the  ground, they  continued to repeatedly strike  
him  in the head  with their fists.  These head strikes by the officers after the  individual 
was already on the ground were unreasonable. No  discipline or counseling resulted, as  
it was determined  that the  officers “used proper tactics during  this incident.” Indeed, 
none of the incidents listed  above resulted in  any disciplinary action.   

c.  MVPD’s Excessive Force Is Attributable to Inadequate 
Policies, Training, Supervision, and Accountability  

MVPD’s use of force policies and training  do  not provide  adequate  guidance to officers 
on how to  use force consistent with the Fourth Amendment. For example, MVPD’s use  
of force policy states that “[f]orce shall not be  used  by an officer . . . [a]gainst persons 
who are handcuffed or restrained unless it is used to prevent injury, escape, or 
otherwise overcome  active or passive resistance posed by the subject.”  This language  
allows MVPD officers to deploy force against a handcuffed suspect who is merely failing  
to comply with demands  (passive resistance),  which would be  unconstitutional in most  
circumstances.   

Officers also fail to consistently report force so it can be appropriately investigated. As is 
evident from  many of the descriptions of force incidents above, reports about those  
incidents vary widely, with some officers reporting that little to no force was used, while  
other officers document significant force such  as head strikes and  Taser use. For 
example, in the incident where five officers collectively struck a  man  multiple  times in  
the  head, one  officer’s report stated that he “did not observe officers using  other than  
restraining force” during the entire struggle.  

MVPD’s use of force training is likewise inadequate. While  use  of force is one of the few 
areas on which regular training is provided, that training is often inadequate, ad hoc,  
and  poorly organized. For example, although  MVPD’s policy on conducted energy 
weapons states that  Tasers may not be used “[o]n  a handcuffed  or secured  prisoner,  
absent overtly assaultive behavior that cannot be reasonably dealt with in any other less 
intrusive fashion,” the incidents described  above demonstrate that  MVPD officers do  not 
adhere  to this policy.  Indeed, MVPD’s use  of force training suffers from  the same  
failures that we found  pervade all of MVPD’s training: a lack of full-time  training staff,  
standardized materials, or any systemic training for supervisors. These failures are 
described in  more detail in Section B.2  below.   

Finally, supervision and accountability after use of force incidents are also inadequate. 
Supervisors who are involved in  use  of force incidents often provide  the first level of  
review, notwithstanding their personal involvement in those incidents.  In  one case, for 
example,  a sergeant who was on  the scene for an  arrest also completed the initial use  
of force review in which he found the officers’ use  of force was justified.   

Moreover, MVPD leadership signs off on officers’ actions in nearly every instance, 
including  all but a  handful of those discussed  here. This approval occurs even though, 

 

12  



 

as described  above, officers’ accounts contain numerous inconsistencies, including  
whether officers used  force at all  and the  amount of  force used. MVPD supervisors 
make no attempt to reconcile these inconsistent statements or to hold officers 
accountable for  deficient  force reporting  even when it is obviously insufficient or non-
existent. In the rare instances when MVPD does carry out a  force investigation, it is by 
an inadequately experienced, trained, or staffed Internal Affairs.  

2.  MVPD Unlawfully  Conducted  Strip and Body Cavity Searches  of 
All Arrestees  

Until at least October  2022, it was MVPD’s practice to subject every person  they  
arrested  to  a strip search—and, in many cases, a visual cavity search —which are  
among  the most degrading  and intrusive searches officers can perform.  In the words of 
a commanding  officer who oversaw many of those searches, MVPD officers strip  
searched “every single person who walked in  th[e] building.” After an internal review of 
its strip and cavity search practices in 2023  that was prompted by our investigation, 
MVPD concluded as follows: “There is a  question of whether the Mount Vernon Police  
Department had a history of regularly conducting  strip searches  on  arrestees. The  
simple answer to this would be  []  yes . . .  .” The  Department  found “the regular 
searching of an  arrestee so  as to have their underwear exposed” was the result of 
MVPD’s inadequate  policy and training; with a policy change in October 2022  and  
subsequent training, MVPD aimed  to “ensure that a strip search was, in fact, a rare 
occurrence.” Because  strip  searches  and visual cavity searches are permissible only 
when  an officer has reasonable suspicion that evidence  or weapons were concealed in  
a person’s clothing  or body cavities,  this practice was a gross violation of Fourth  
Amendment rights.  

During this period, MVPD searches of  individuals suspected of possessing  narcotics 
sometimes included  unconstitutional manual cavity searches.  Manual body cavity 
searches, where an  officer inserts or removes something from  a suspect’s body, are so  
intrusive that they are wholly prohibited (outside the  prison context) absent a warrant 
explicitly permitting such a search or exigent circumstances.

7

 We did not find  evidence  
that MVPD’s manual cavity searches were justified by exigent circumstances or 
authorized  by a warrant.  

Arrestees were not the only ones subject to  unconstitutional strip  or cavity searches.  
Prior to 2023, MVPD officers regularly conducted strip searches and visual cavity 
searches of individuals prior to  any lawful arrest. As with the other unconstitutional 
policies and practices we have found, MVPD’s practice of conducting unconstitutional 

 

8 

7  “A ‘strip search,’ though  an umbrella term,  generally refers to an inspection of  a naked  individual, without  
any  scrutiny  of the  subject's  body  cavities. A  ‘visual  body  cavity  search’  extends  to visual  inspection  of the  
anal  and genital  areas. A  ‘manual  body  cavity  search’  includes  some  degree of  touching or probing  of body  
cavities.”  Blackburn v. Snow, 771 F.2d 556, 561  n.3 (1st Cir.  1985).   

8  See Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 770 (1996) (“[A]bsent an  emergency,” “[s]earch warrants  are 
required where intrusions into the human body are concerned.”); accord People v. Hall, 10 N.Y.3d 303, 
311 (2008).  

 

 

13  



 

strip and body cavity searches was the result of deficient policies, a  lack of training, and  
a lack of meaningful oversight and  accountability.  MVPD now represents that the  
Department has put a  stop to these practices  by updating its policy and  providing  
training,  but  it  admits that it has not put oversight and  accountability measures in place  
to verify that representation  or ensure that it remains  true.  We remain concerned that 
MVPD’s unconstitutional strip and body cavity search practices may  still be occurring or 
could recur. The  practice was a serious violation of the Fourth Amendment,  and it was 
deeply ingrained  in MVPD’s culture. MVPD did not take steps to end the  practice 
through a new policy on these searches  until nearly a year into our investigation  and, as  
described below, then  took months to  begin training  officers on the  new policy. Without 
meaningful oversight,  we are not confident that MVPD’s  unconstitutional strip  and cavity 
searches have been eliminated.  

a.  MVPD Officers Subjected Arrestees to Suspicionless  Strip 
and Visual Cavity Searches  

Until at least October 2022, it was MVPD’s practice to subject persons  they arrested to  
a strip search and, in  many cases, a visual cavity search. They did so as a matter of 
course, regardless of any reasonable suspicion to  believe contraband or evidence was 
secreted under the  arrestee’s clothing.  Many of these  arrestees—particularly those  
arrested in connection  with narcotics—were also made  to remove their underwear and  
subjected to visual cavity searches, whether or not the MVPD officers had reasonable  
suspicion contraband  was hidden inside  a body  cavity. As MVPD arrested  about 8,000  
people across approximately 14,500 arrests from 2015 to 2022,  this practice resulted in  
a gross violation of the Fourth  Amendment on an  enormous scale.  
 
MVPD has conceded that it subjected all arrestees to strip  searches until the  
Department issued a  new written policy governing strip  and cavity searches  in 2022.  
MVPD’s practice of subjecting all arrestees to strip searches and, in many cases, visual 
cavity searches led MVPD officers to conduct suspicionless—and thus unlawful—strip  
and cavity searches of many arrestees. Though MVPD officers rarely noted in their  
incident reports or elsewhere that they conducted these routine strip and cavity 
searches, they did document these searches in a few cases. For example, MVPD 
officers conducted a visual cavity search of an individual from whom they had recovered  
two plastic twists of suspected cocaine  during a search of his pockets.  One  of the two  
sergeants who supervise the Violent Crime Unit authorized the cavity search. However, 
in their incident report  concerning the  arrest, the officers documented no  reasonable 
basis to believe the  person  was concealing contraband in  his body cavity, and  no  
contraband was found  during the search.  Without such a  basis, the  search was 
unconstitutional.  

In addition, a number of arrestees reported  to  us during interviews and in civilian  
complaints that MVPD officers conducted multiple, redundant strip searches or visual 
cavity searches, even though  they were under MVPD observation at all times between  
these searches. Because  MVPD rarely documented strip and cavity searches, it is 
difficult to determine whether, or how often, this occurred.  Because  there can  be  no  

 

14  



 

reasonable suspicion of contraband in such a  situation, redundant searches like those  
alleged are unconstitutional.  
 
MVPD circulated  to its officers a  new written policy governing strip  and cavity searches  
in October 2022—backdated to July 2022—meant to  end suspicionless strip and cavity 
searches. However, we are not confident that MVPD stopped subjecting arrestees to  
suspicionless strip  or cavity searches in  October 2022. MVPD has no record of training  
on the  new policy until January  2023; the Department did not begin to document strip or 
cavity searches until 2023; and, to this day, MVPD has not taken any steps to audit or 
otherwise test officers’  compliance with the new policy, which  depends on officers only 
conducting such searches in  the presence  of a supervisor and that supervisor logging  
the search.  

According to MVPD’s new log, it has conducted only a single strip search and  no cavity 
searches since  2023. One  of the  primary supervisory officers responsible for approving  
requests to conduct strip searches who  was re-interviewed in 2024  stated that, since  
the change in policy in  the last year or so,  he  was aware  of only that  single strip  search.  
In addition, there have  been no recent civilian  complaints concerning  strip or cavity 
searches—though MVPD’s civilian complaint intake  process has, historically,  been  
unreliable, see infra  Section B.4.  If MVPD’s log is accurate, and the  Department  has  
almost entirely stopped conducting strip  and  cavity searches, that would be  a dramatic 
change in  practice  in a short period  of time. However, in  April 2024,  another supervisory 
officer told us that, contrary to the  new policy, officers may be conducting strip searches  
outside the presence of supervisors. While it appears that MVPD has at least curtailed  
its practice of subjecting arrestees to suspicionless strip and cavity searches, given the  
above, we are not confident that the practice  has ended.  

b.  MVPD Officers Conducted Unconstitutional Strip and Visual 
Cavity Searches  Prior to Any Lawful Arrest  

MVPD officers not only conducted suspicionless searches of arrestees, but they also 
regularly conducted strip searches of people  prior to arrest.  Until at least 2023, when  
MVPD officers lacked  probable cause  to  arrest individuals suspected of possessing  
narcotics,  they frequently conducted illegal strip searches and visual cavity searches in  
the  hopes of recovering narcotics that would support an arrest.  In  many cases, an  
MVPD officer searched  an individual’s pockets for narcotics,  found  no contraband,  and  
then  conducted  an  unconstitutional strip search—sometimes after detaining and  
transporting the  person  to  the station—even  though  the  individual was not seen to  
conceal anything under his or her clothing and the officer lacked reasonable suspicion  
to believe that narcotics were concealed there.  When no contraband was found, MVPD 
would release these  individuals, as they lacked probable cause  for an arrest. This 
unconstitutional conduct is exemplified by the unlawful detention  and visual cavity 
searches of the  65-year-old woman and  75-year-old woman  described in the  beginning  
of this report.  
 
Unconstitutional strip searches prior to  any arrest were particularly common when  
MVPD officers executed search warrants on suspicion  of narcotics violations. When  

 

15  



 

 

executing these warrants, MVPD officers routinely conducted strip searches and visual 
cavity searches of the individuals present, regardless of the requisite reasonable  
suspicion. This is  unconstitutional.  

 
In 2015, a  federal district court, in connection  with a private lawsuit alleging  that MVPD 
officers conducted illegal strip searches while  executing a search warrant, reminded  
Mount Vernon that “it is clear that the  existence of a warrant authorizing the search of a  
person  or persons, without more, does not justify the extraordinary invasion of privacy 
caused by a strip search.”  The  officer who supervised the searches at issue in that 
lawsuit—which was ultimately settled—went on to  become MVPD’s Commissioner from  
2020 to 2023.  

 
Despite  this 2015 judicial decision, the MVPD continued the strip search practice for 
years. In a video  of a search conducted in  an  apartment pursuant  to  a general warrant,  
an MVPD officer tells a visitor to the  apartment, “All right . . . you know the  deal, we got 
a search warrant,” and then proceeds to conduct a visual cavity search. A supervisory 
officer who reviews many of MVPD’s warrants wrongly insisted, when we interviewed  
him in  2022, that such  searches are authorized by a general search warrant.  Many  
other  supervisory  officers also advised us during interviews that it was standard practice  
to conduct strip searches, if not visual cavity searches, when executing a general 
search warrant.   

 
c.  MVPD Officers Conducted Unconstitutional Manual Body 

Cavity Searches of Narcotics Suspects  

Though MVPD’s written policies have long recognized that manual cavity searches are  
prohibited absent a warrant expressly authorizing such a search or exigent 
circumstances, until at least October 2022  MVPD officers nevertheless conducted  
manual cavity searches in violation of this policy and  individuals’ Fourth Amendment 
rights. Illegal manual cavity searches occurred in the field, when MVPD officers were  
executing general search warrants, and at the police station, when conducting  post-
arrest searches of individuals suspected  of narcotics activity.  This conduct violated  
MVPD’s written policy, which required  a warrant or exigent circumstances and  that “a 
medical doctor” conduct such  a search in a  medical facility. More importantly, it violated  
these  individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights.   
 
We found  complaints alleging that  MVPD officers conducted  manual cavity searches in  
the field while executing general search warrants related to narcotics investigations. For 
example, MVPD executed  a search warrant authorizing the search of an  apartment and  
those present at the time  of the search in connection with  a narcotics investigation.  
When MVPD officers attempted to conduct a  strip search of one  of the individuals 
present in the  apartment, he resisted; the  person  alleges that an MVPD officer held him  
down and inserted a finger into his rectum at least twice. A contemporaneous video  
captured MVPD officers speaking about a “search” of this individual  and instructing the  

9 

9  Green v. City of  Mount Vernon, 96 F. Supp. 3d  263, 292 (S.D.N.Y. 2015).  

 

16  



 

officer alleged to  have  conducted the  manual cavity search to “get some gloves.” No 
narcotics were recovered from the  person.  
 
We  also found  in the years prior to 2023, nine individuals filed civilian complaints or 
lawsuits alleging MVPD officers conducted manual cavity searches  at the station. The  
details alleged in these  complaints—including how, where, and by whom those  
searches were performed—are consistent and mirror video evidence of other MVPD 
visual cavity searches.  

Complaint of  Manual  Cavity Search  at Police  Station  
 
A  man  filed  a  complaint alleging  that, after he  was arrested  for selling  narcotics  
to  an  undercover officer, an  MVPD officer placed  him  in a  holding  cell, instructed  
him  to  remove  his clothes and  then  bend  over, spread  his buttocks, squat,  and  
cough. After he  dressed  himself  again,  the  officer’s partner came,  removed  him  
from  the  holding  cell  (which had  a  camera),  and  took  him  to  another  room  without  
a  camera. The  complainant  alleges this officer put on  blue  gloves, removed  the  
complainant’s pants, put a  hand  on  his  back  to  bend  him  over, and  then  inserted  
a  finger into  the  complainant’s anus.  MVPD has no  record  of  investigating  this  
complaint.   

 
d.  MVPD’s Unconstitutional Strip and Cavity  Search Practices  

Are the Result of Inadequate Policies, Training, and 
Supervision  

The unconstitutional strip and cavity search practices described  above result from  
MVPD’s failure to provide officers with  adequate  policies, training, and supervision.  At 
the time we started  our investigation,  MVPD’s policy  on strip and cavity searches  had  
not been revised since it was  issued in  1993.  It did not define  a “Strip Search”  and  did  
not distinguish between strip searches and visual body cavity searches.  The policy set 
out inconsistent standards on when  a strip search is permissible;  in its initial paragraph, 
the  policy erroneously suggested  that a “full strip search” may be  permissible if an  
officer had  a “rational basis for doing so.”  Later  on, the  policy correctly referenced  the  
need for reasonable suspicion of concealed contraband or evidence.  And MVPD’s 
policy made no mention of visual cavity searches. MVPD leadership  has admitted that,  
at least prior to  2022,  MVPD officers did not understand that stripping a person down to  
undergarments constituted a strip search, and they did not understand that visually 
inspecting a  person’s anus constituted a visual cavity search.  
 
Similarly, prior to January 2023, there is no record of MVPD training its officers in the  
last ten years on its written  policy governing strip and cavity searches. As a result, when  
we interviewed MVPD officers in  2022, they were generally unaware  of the  
Department’s policy and its requirements. When interviewed in 2022, senior MVPD 
officers continued  to  believe, erroneously, that visual cavity searches were strip  
searches.   

 

17  



 

 
MVPD revised its written policy regarding strip and cavity searches in  October 2022, 
following our feedback provided during our investigation. The  October  2022 revision  
does a far better job of providing guidance to  officers, but MVPD knew much earlier that 
the Department needed to change. Interviews suggest that, at least since we  
announced  our investigation in December 2021, senior MVPD leadership understood  
that it was critical to change the Department’s strip and cavity search practices.  But  
once it did  change  the  policy, the Department did not conduct comprehensive training  
on that new policy—even for the supervisors authorized to approve  requests to conduct 
strip or cavity searches under the new policy—until May  2023,  almost seven months 
after the  policy change  and more than  a  year after learning  that the  policy needed to  
change. Such lengthy delays  in  policy revision  and  training reflect the difficulty MVPD 
continues to have  executing  even urgently needed changes to its policies and  practices.   
 
Moreover, MVPD does  not yet have in place  adequate systems to  ensure that officers 
comply with the new policies and training. MVPD’s unconstitutional strip and cavity 
searches were pervasive, and MVPD rarely documented  these searches when they 
occurred. MVPD must institute robust supervision and accountability measures to  
ensure that officers have discontinued  these  practices.  
 

3.  MVPD Makes Unlawful Arrests in Violation of the Fourth 
Amendment  

We find that MVPD engages in  a pattern or practice of unconstitutional arrests in  
violation  of the Fourth  Amendment.  We  found significant evidence that MVPD makes  
arrests that lack probable cause. This includes MVPD officers conducting unlawful 
arrests to  perform strip searches;  arresting individuals present during service of a  
search warrant even though officers did not have probable cause  to  arrest those  
individuals;  and arresting people for behavior that does not constitute a crime.  

 
The Fourth Amendment requires that arrests be supported by probable cause. Probable  
cause requires  “facts and circumstances within the officer's knowledge that are 
sufficient to warrant a  prudent person, or one of reasonable caution, in believing, in the  
circumstances shown,  that the suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to  
commit an offense.”   

Law enforcement officers, therefore,  may not arrest people in retaliation for criticism  
directed  at the  officers  that is protected speech under the First Amendment. As the  
Second Circuit recently affirmed, “‘the First Amendment protects a significant amount of 
verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers’—including  speech that,  had it 
been between civilians might, especially in bygone eras of greater civility, have  been  
viewed as ‘fighting words.’”

10 

11

 

   

10  Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31, 37 (1979).  

11  Rupp v. Buffalo, 91 F.4th  623, 635 (2d Cir. 2024) (quoting  City  of Houston, Texas v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 
461 (1987)) (brackets and  citation  omitted).  

 

18  



 

 
    

a.  MVPD Makes Arrests that Lack  Probable Cause, Including 
Unlawful Arrests to Perform Strip Searches;  Unlawful 
Arrests of  People Present when MVPD Served a  Search 
Warrant Without Independent Probable Cause for Arresting 
those People;  and Arrests of  People for Behavior that Does  
Not Constitute a Crime  

We found that MVPD officers frequently make arrests that lack probable cause. For 
example,  MVPD  officers detain people and transport them to the  police station for 
questioning or a  strip search.  Detaining individuals and  transporting  them to the station  
for a strip search constitutes an  arrest and is impermissible absent probable cause. The  
Fourth Amendment likewise prohibits officers from  extending detentions “for the  
purpose of gathering additional evidence to justify the arrest.”   While  Terry  v. Ohio  
allows officers to detain  an  individual for brief investigation where officers have  
reasonable suspicion that the individual may be involved in  criminal activity, Terry stops 
may not “resemble a traditional arrest.”

12

  Courts have resisted putting precise limits on  
the  permissible duration of Terry stops,  but MVPD’s practice of detaining individuals and  
transporting them to the station for questioning or a strip search  without probable cause  
clearly exceeds the  permissible scope of a  Terry  stop,  and therefore  violates the  
Constitution.  

MVPD’s pattern of unconstitutional arrests manifests in a number of ways, including  
making  unlawful arrests to conduct questioning or perform strip searches, arresting  
people present when  MVPD served  a search warrant without independent probable  
cause  for arresting those people, and arresting people for behavior that does not 
constitute  a crime:   

•  Following a  2020 roll call training  at which MVPD officers were instructed that 
strip searches must be conducted at the police station, MVPD officers began  
unconstitutionally detaining  persons, in the  absence  of probable cause for an  
arrest, to transport them to the station  and conduct strip searches.  When  
interviewed in 2022, key supervisory officers did not understand  that involuntarily 
detaining individuals and transporting them to the station constituted an arrest.   

•  The occupant of an apartment that was subject to  a search warrant  was arrested  
at the outset of the execution  of the search warrant—not merely detained while  
the  apartment was searched—without any documented probable cause. MVPD 
officers described  this as standard practice, extending even  to residents of an  
apartment for which a  search warrant was issued who were  not  at the premises.  

•  The  mother of a victim  who was struck by a stray bullet was detained for initial 
investigation  and ultimately brought back to the station for further interrogation  
and  not permitted to leave—without any articulation of probable cause to support 

13

12 County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 56 (1991); see also Brown, 422 U.S. at 605 (station 
house detention  and questioning “in the hope that something  might turn up” requires probable cause).  

13  Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court, 542 U.S. 177, 185-86 (2004).  

 

19an arrest—while her daughter was taken to the hospital without her and 
ultimately died. 

• MVPD officers arrested and charged a pedestrian with Obstructing Governmental 
Administration solely on the basis that an MVPD officer ordered him to stop and 
he ran away. However, such a charge requires the use of intimidation or physical 
force, leading a Mount Vernon city court to dismiss it as facially inadequate 
because “fleeing from a police officer, in and of itself, is not a crime and does not 
amount to the type of physical force or interference required by the statute even if 
the defendant is a suspect of a police investigation.”14 

• MVPD officers arrested a person for shouting profanity at them while they were 
making another arrest. The officers searched for the passerby after completing 
the first arrest, found him, chased him into a private residence, and used force to 
arrest him. He was charged with resisting arrest and possession of marijuana 
found on him after his arrest. No valid basis was ever articulated for the officers’ 
pursuit in the first instance. Similarly, other Mount Vernon residents told us that 
they were arrested for engaging in verbal confrontations with MVPD officers. The 
residents had the criminal cases against them dismissed or were acquitted at 
trial. Arresting a person for engaging in protected speech violates both the First 
and Fourth Amendments. 

b. MVPD Lacks Effective Policies, Training, Oversight, and 
Accountability of Arrests 

MVPD’s pattern or practice of unconstitutional arrests results from its failure to have 
adequate policies, training, and supervision. MVPD does not have any operational 
procedures explaining what constitutes an arrest, the need for probable cause, and the 
criteria for a valid determination of such probable cause. Similarly, MVPD’s operational 
procedures fail to provide any guidance on when a stop of a vehicle occupant or a 
pedestrian becomes an arrest. Nor, as discussed below, does MVPD’s training fill these 
gaps. These significant omissions contribute to MVPD officers making arrests without 
valid probable cause and, at times, without any apparent understanding that they are in 
fact making an arrest. In our interviews, officers repeatedly described their actions as 
detaining persons or bringing them back to the station when they were, in fact, arresting 
those persons. 

Similarly, MVPD fails to use effective measures to review arrests to identify and correct 
constitutional violations or provide counseling and guidance to its officers. MVPD 

15 

14  People v. Williams, 73  Misc. 3d 1226(A) (N.Y. City Ct. Mt. Vernon 2021).  

15  It is not clear that the officer had cause to  enter the home without a warrant. See  Brigham City, Utah v. 
Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted) (“It is a basic  principle of Fourth 
Amendment law that searches and seizures  inside a home without a warrant are  presumptively  
unreasonable.”). While officers in “hot pursuit” of  a fleeing suspect are granted an  exigency exception to  
the general  principle prohibiting a search of a home without a warrant,  it is  not clear that this qualifies as a  
“hot pursuit” where the officer had  insufficient basis to believe the  man had committed a specific crime, or  
that any other exigency existed here permitting the officer to enter the home. See id.  

 

20  



 

 

conducts minimal substantive review of the justification  for particular arrests and  does 
not collect and  analyze  sufficient  data  to identify problematic patterns in these  activities.  
We found  deficiencies throughout MVPD’s review of officers’ justifications for arrests.  
MVPD front line supervisors consistently sign off  on incident reports describing  the  
basis for warrantless arrests, even where the  reports on their face  describe egregious 
constitutional violations. Our review did not identify a single arrest questioned  by a  
supervisor outside the  context of the complaint or use of force review process. These  
practices do not  ensure constitutional policing.  
    

4.  MVPD’s  Vehicle Stops  Raise Serious Concerns  

We  have serious concerns that MVPD’s vehicle stops may violate the Fourth  
Amendment,  but, in part due  to  deficiencies in  MVPD’s recordkeeping practices for 
these stops and searches,  we do not find a  pattern or practice of constitutional 
violations at this time. The Fourth Amendment protects drivers and  occupants of motor 
vehicles from unreasonable stops, searches, and seizures. “The law is settled that in 
Fourth Amendment terms a  traffic stop  entails a seizure of the driver even  though the  
purpose of the stop is limited  and the resulting detention  quite brief,” a principle that the  
Supreme Court has extended  to vehicle passengers as well.   “An automobile stop is 
thus subject to  the constitutional imperative that it not be ‘unreasonable’ under the  
circumstances.”

16

  The Second Circuit has held  “that the reasonable suspicion of a  traffic 
violation  provides a sufficient basis under the  Fourth Amendment for law enforcement  
officers to make  a traffic stop.”

17

 
 
The full scope of MVPD’s practices is difficult to determine because, other than  minimal 
call-for-service data,  MVPD does not document  vehicle  stops unless they result in  an 
arrest  or a  ticket.  Such an information deficit not only limited  our review, but also 
impedes  supervisory review by MVPD of stops that do not lead  to arrests or citations— 
stops for which such review is imperative. The failure to document stops makes it 
impossible for either MVPD or DOJ to determine, for example: how often stops lead to  
the  discovery of weapons or contraband; whether there is any disparity in who is 
stopped  and how often the stops lead to searches or arrests; and  the justification for 
stops that do not lead to  citations or arrests.  MVPD is thus unable to adequately audit 
its officers’ activities and interactions with the  public and to determine whether its 
officers are complying  with MVPD’s own policies.   
 
Despite these limitations, we reviewed stops that did  result in  an  arrest or a ticket—i.e., 
incidents where officers presumably had stronger indicia of criminality to justify a stop. 
Our review suggests that MVPD officers frequently make motor vehicle stops  based  on  
limited  or implausible  explanations. Even those presumably more supportable stops 
raised serious constitutional concerns.  

 

18 

16  Brendlin v. California, 551  U.S. 249, 255, 256-59 (2007).  

17  Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810 (1996).   

18  United  States v. Stewart, 551 F.3d 187, 193 (2d Cir. 2009).  

 

21  



 

 

MVPD’s policies and training  for vehicle stops contribute to these questionable 
practices. MVPD’s Motor Vehicle Stops Operational Procedure, for example,  fails to  
provide sufficient guidance to officers about what constitutes a lawful basis for a vehicle  
stop. It suggests that a motor vehicle may be  stopped “[i]n the investigation of a  
suspicious automobile  and/or person(s)” where that suspicion is reasonable, without 
requiring that the  reasonable suspicion  relate to  unlawful conduct. This is inconsistent 
with the Fourth Amendment, which requires that traffic stops “be justified by probable  
cause  or a reasonable  suspicion, based  on specific and articulable facts,  of unlawful 
conduct.”   
 
Compounding the absence  of clear policies,  MVPD does not appear to offer any post-
academy training on the law regarding  the appropriate basis for vehicle stops, the  
permissible  investigative steps in connection  with a stop, or the point at which  a stop  
becomes an  arrest and  the  necessary justification. Officers appear to learn these  
practices on the job, which has entrenched  questionable practices  as  the  norm. Finally, 
as discussed below, MVPD’s post-incident and complaint review processes are  
inadequate, with cursory review, frequent conflicts of interest, and inadequate training  
for reviewers.  
 

5.  MVPD’s  Evidentiary  Practices  Raise Serious Constitutional 
Concerns   

Although we do not make a finding that MVPD engages in a pattern or practice of 
falsifying  evidence, MVPD’s evidentiary practices raise serious Fourth Amendment  
concerns. Based  upon  interviews, civilian complaints,  news  reports, and  video  
recordings—as well as an investigation  by the Westchester County District Attorney’s 
Office, resulting in dozens of dismissals of cases—we are concerned by numerous  
plausible  allegations that MVPD falsely planted evidence  and  knowingly misidentified  
suspects.  

An arrest based  upon false evidence, to the extent the arresting officer otherwise lacks 
probable cause, violates the Fourth Amendment.  Additionally, the use of false evidence  
beyond an initial arrest can create “deprivations of liberty that go  hand in  hand with  
criminal prosecutions” and result in  a Fourth  Amendment violation.

19 

  

We found  a number of  instances in which officers claimed to have found  drugs on  a  
person, but there is evidence that these claims were falsified.  For example, one resident 
alleges that two officers searched him, found  nothing, then went to a nearby flower bed  
where they found two  balls of crack cocaine  which they claimed were his. The  man  
denied it and refused to plead guilty, and  the  case  fell apart.  The resident’s allegation  
that the officers planted  the  drugs is  corroborated  by an MVPD officer’s recording in  

20 

19  See United States v. Scopo, 19 F.3d 777, 781 (2d Cir. 1994) (quotation  marks omitted) (emphasis  
added).  

20  Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 274 (1994) (plurality opinion); see also  Manuel v. City of Joliet, 580 
U.S. 357, 367 (2017) (“If the complaint is that a form of legal process resulted  in pretrial detention  
unsupported by probable cause, then the right allegedly infringed  lies in the Fourth Amendment.”).  

 

22  



 

    
     

 
    

 
 

      

 
    

 
   
    

   
  

  
    

  
  

 
   

    
   

 

   
     

  
     

  
  

     
  

 

which an officer discusses the incident. In the recording, the officer notes that officers 
had wanted to arrest the man for some time and explains that the drugs recovered 
“probably wasn’t his [the person’s]” but that the officers “said it was [his] because they 
wanted to arrest him because they had been trying to get him for months.” From our 
interviews and review of civilian complaints, we found similar allegations stretching back 
years. While the record of what occurred in each of these incidents is not always clear, 
the striking similarity of the allegations raises significant concerns. 

Additionally, several incidents indicate that some MVPD officers may be improperly 
misidentifying suspects. In one example, a resident was charged with selling drugs to 
an undercover officer in Mount Vernon but was in fact in North Carolina at the time of 
the alleged drug sale—a fact confirmed by the resident’s Instagram posts, bus receipts, 
and browser history. The WCDAO ultimately dropped the charge. 

This was not the only incident that involved a problematic identification or discrepancies. 
The WCDAO’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) announced in 2023 that it would seek to 
vacate the convictions and charges of 27 individuals for their alleged drug sales to an 
undercover officer during an MVPD operation. The May 2023 CRU report noted 
“discrepancies, inconsistencies and contradictions in the undercover and MVPD reports 
detailing purported drug sales” and a lack of “corroborative evidence sufficient to 
overcome the identified inconsistencies and unreliability of the undercover and MVPD 
officer accounts and problematic identifications.”

21 

MVPD’s practices around 
identification of suspects not only raise constitutional concerns, they also undermine 
MVPD’s ability to gather evidence that can be used to support criminal convictions and 
fight crime. 

The CRU report is consistent with one of the undercover recordings, which suggests 
that MVPD officers have at times planted evidence. While a separate WCDAO 
investigation found insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against the MVPD 
officers identified in those recordings,

22 

 the issues were nevertheless sufficient to vacate 
numerous charges and convictions. These allegations suggest serious violations of the 
Fourth Amendment. MVPD must improve oversight of its evidentiary practices, including 
its documentation and review of the seizure of evidence and identification of suspects, 
to ensure that these practices meet constitutional standards. 

23

21  See  Conviction Review Unit, Report on the Review of  Convictions  Stemming from a 2017  Mount 
Vernon Undercover Narcotics Operation  (May 10, 2023), 
https://www.westchesterda.net/images/stories/pdfs/2023/cruvacatursreport.pdf  [https://perma.cc/D2NW-
6ZLW].  

22  Id.  at 2.  

23  See  Law Enforcement Integrity Bureau,  Report on the Criminal Investigation into  the Mount Vernon 
Police Department’s Narcotics Division  (May  10, 2023), 
https://www.westchesterda.net/images/stories/pdfs/2023/leibcriminalinvestigationr.pdf   

[https://perma.cc/LB4W-CUQ7].  

 

23  

https://www.westchesterda.net/images/stories/pdfs/2023/cruvacatursreport.pdf
https://perma.cc/D2NW-6ZLW
https://perma.cc/D2NW-6ZLW
https://www.westchesterda.net/images/stories/pdfs/2023/leibcriminalinvestigationr.pdf
https://perma.cc/LB4W-CUQ7


 

6.  We Have  Serious Concerns that Some MVPD Officers  
Discriminate Against Black  People, Targeting Them for Arrests  

We find serious cause  for concern that MVPD engages in a pattern or practice of 
discriminatory policing  against Black people  in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act 
of 1964 and the Omnibus Crime Control and  Safe  Streets Act of 1968. These laws 
forbid police conduct with an unjustified  disparate impact based on race.  Here, we have  
found evidence that MVPD disproportionately targets Black people  for arrest, together 
with repeated reports of MVPD officers using racial slurs.  However, because MVPD 
does not adequately document many of its interactions with citizens—and, in some  
cases, does not document them at all—we do not have the information needed to reach  
a finding  at this time.  

The information MVPD does record allowed  us to perform regression analyses that  
tested whether MVPD officers are more likely to  make arrests in predominantly Black 
neighborhoods.  We found  that MVPD officers are significantly more likely to  make an  
arrest when responding to  the same types of complaints (40% more likely) or during  the  
same types of  traffic stops (56% more likely) in predominantly Black neighborhoods.  

Our concerns are heightened  by the  numerous reports we heard from Mount Vernon  
residents alleging that MVPD officers use racial epithets. These allegations go back  
many years, and even  former MVPD officers have stated that  some  officers target Black 
people  for excessive force.  

MVPD does not maintain many of the records needed to directly and comprehensively 
assess the Department’s treatment of Black people. For instance, MVPD officers often  
fail to  document significant interactions with  people—including, in particular, MVPD 
officers’ use of force, as well as searches that do  not find contraband.  In  addition, MVPD 
officers often fail to record the race of individuals with whom they interact when those  
interactions do not lead to  an  arrest, such  as pedestrian stops.  This failure kept us from  
analyzing search records for evidence of racial discrimination, just as it prevents MVPD 
from conducting such  a review itself.  Without this information, neither we nor MVPD can  
directly compare MVPD officers’ treatment of Black people  with the  treatment people  of 
other races.  MVPD’s almost complete inability to assess the impact of its policing  
practices on Black  people, by itself, gives  us  serious concern.  

 

24  



 

The sparse records MVPD does keep reinforce our concerns about  MVPD’s policing  
practices.  MVPD records are sufficient to analyze the arrest rates during  the same  types 
of  traffic stops and 911 calls in predominantly Black neighborhoods (more than 75% 
Black according to census data) as compared with neighborhoods  that are less than  
50% Black.  These  analyses show  that MVPD 
officers are 56% more likely to make  an  arrest In  predominantly Black  
during  a traffic stop in  predominantly Black  neighborhoods, MVPD 
neighborhoods than they are in neighborhoods  that  officers are  56% more  
are less than 50% Black.  That means that for  every likely to make  an 
three  people arrested  during  a traffic stop in  arrest during a traffic  
predominantly Black neighborhoods, only two are stop than they are in  
arrested in neighborhoods that are less than  50% neighborhoods less than  
Black.  Similarly, even  when responding  to similar 50% Black.  
types of calls, MVPD officers are 40% more likely 
to  make  an  arrest in predominantly Black  
neighborhoods.   

We  analyzed  more than 350,000 MVPD police  blotter entries of officer activity from  
2015 through 2022.  Nearly 200,000 of these  entries contained sufficient information to  
determine the location  to which the officer responded.  After geocoding these blotter 
entries, we categorized those  entries based  on whether they occurred within a Census 
Block Group that was less than  half Black, 50% to 75% Black, or more than 75% Black, 
according to  the 2020  U.S. Census.  Within that subset  of approximately 200,000  police  
blotter entries, we identified 911 calls and other citizen requests for service, which  
totaled  more than 80,000.  For about 10% of calls, MVPD did not use sufficiently specific 
labels (e.g., “Police Service Call” and “Investigations”) to  enable us to determine  that  
similar calls were being compared, so these  were removed from the analysis.  We  
categorized the remaining calls for services into fifteen different types—e.g., a report of 
disorder, a domestic dispute, a  property crime, a complaint concerning drugs or alcohol, 
or a report of violence.  We  also identified traffic stops within the geocoded blotter 
entries, totaling just under 30,000.  Finally, we linked these calls for service and traffic 
stops to MVPD records reflecting an arrest.   

With this data, we then conducted regression  analyses to  determine  whether, when  
responding  to (a) traffic stops or (b) calls for service of the same type, MVPD officers 
are more likely to make an arrest when those stops or calls occur in  predominantly 
Black neighborhoods as compared with neighborhoods  that are less  than 50% Black.  
These regression analyses found large  and statistically significant differences between  
the rates at which MVPD officers make arrests in predominantly Black neighborhoods, 
as compared with  neighborhoods  that are less than 50% Black, when we controlled for 
the type  of call to which officers were responding.  

 

25  



 

   
  

  

  
  

 
 

  
 

  
  

 
  

  

  
   

 

  
   

  
 

 
   

  

 

  

  

 
 

  

■ 

■ 

With respect to traffic stops, these analyses showed that MVPD officers are 56% more 
likely to make an arrest in predominantly Black neighborhoods than they are in 
neighborhoods that are less than 50% Black. Similarly, our regression analyses of 
MVPD responses to calls for service found that, after controlling for the type of 

complaint, MVPD officers are 44% more 
likely to make an arrest in predominantly 
Black neighborhoods. For instance, when 
MVPD officers respond to calls about 
drugs and alcohol, they are 39% more 

45% likely to make an arrest in predominantly 
40% Black neighborhoods as compared with 
35% neighborhoods that are less than 50% 
30% Black. More tellingly, in neighborhoods that 
25% are less than 50% Black, MVPD officers 
20% 

are two-and-a-half times more likely to not 
15% 

make an arrest when responding to a drug 
10% 

or alcohol complaint. Stated differently, 
5% 

MVPD officers make no arrest in just 16% 
0% 

of their responses to drug or alcohol calls 
in predominantly Black neighborhoods, but 
in neighborhoods that are less than 50% 
Black, MVPD officers make no arrest in 
40% of responses. 

These analyses raise significant concerns that at least MVPD’s arrest practices have an 
unwarranted disparate impact on Black people in Mount Vernon. Combined with 
allegations we received that MVPD officers use racial epithets when performing 
enforcement activities involving Black people, and MVPD officers’ own statements that 
other officers in MVPD target Black people for unlawful conduct,

Share of Drug or Alcohol Complaints 
Not Leading to an Arrest 

By Neighborhood Composition 

Drug or Alcohol Complaints 

<50% Black Neighborhoods 

≥75% Black Neighborhoods 

 these analyses 
demonstrate that MVPD must improve its data collection and analysis to ensure that 
discriminatory policing is not taking place. 

B.  SYSTEMIC  DEFICIENCIES IN  MVPD’S PRACTICES LEAD  
TO  CONSTITUTIONAL  VIOLATIONS  

The incidents, patterns, and practices described above do not arise in isolation.  MVPD 
does not have adequate policies in place to guide  officer action, and it does not 
adequately train its officers in constitutional policing, including with respect to  use  of 
force,  strip searches, and arrests.  When such incidents are reviewed, that review is 
often cursory and rarely results in  discipline or even counseling.  And when complaints  
arise, the investigation  of those complaints is similarly lacking.  As a result, officers are  

24

24  See, e.g.,  George Joseph,  A  Black  Cop Says  His  Boss  Called  Him  a Rat  for Exposing  Corruption.  Here  
Are His  Secret Recordings,  GOTHAMIST, Nov. 25, 2019,  https://gothamist.com/news/black-cop-says-his-
boss-called-him-rat-exposing-corruption-here-are-his-secret-recordings  [https://perma.cc/MR49-4L44].  

 

26  

https://gothamist.com/news/black-cop-says-his-boss-called-him-rat-exposing-corruption-here-are-his-secret-recordings
https://gothamist.com/news/black-cop-says-his-boss-called-him-rat-exposing-corruption-here-are-his-secret-recordings
https://perma.cc/MR49-4L44


 

instructed neither before nor after their actions cross the line.  All of these organizational 
failures contribute to the pattern or practice of constitutional violations we found.  

1.  MVPD’s Policies and Policy Development  Are Inadequate  

MVPD’s policies provide insufficient guidance  to officers on constitutional requirements.  
As discussed above, MVPD does not have  any policies to  guide officer action on  
numerous topics, including what constitutes an arrest or when a stop  or detention  
converts into  an  arrest.  When  policies do exist, they frequently misstate the law or 
provide such wide discretion that an  officer may comply with  the policy and still violate  
the Constitution.  And  those  policies  are not updated regularly to ensure they comply 
with  current constitutional standards—indeed, until October  2022, MVPD had not 
updated its policy on strip and cavity searches since it had been issued in  1993.  

 
MVPD must develop a  comprehensive, current set of policies and procedures to provide  
officers with sufficient guidance to police within the bounds of the Constitution.  It  also 
must develop  a system to update its policies to ensure they reflect current legal 
requirements.  

 
2.  MVPD Fails to Adequately  Train Its Officers   

To evaluate MVPD’s training  practices, we reviewed the Department’s training  policies 
and all  training  material provided to  officers since 2011, interviewed  training staff  and  
officers throughout the  Department, and  toured  the Department’s training facilities.  The  
training that MVPD officers receive is inadequate  in many respects,  contributing to the  
repeated constitutional violations outlined  above.  Appropriate  training is necessary to  
advance safe  and constitutional policing.  Indeed, throughout our investigation, officers 
acknowledged that gaps in training  have caused problems within the Department.  As 
one  officer told us, “[T]raining would probably prevent a lot of problems that you’re  
looking  at[.]” We found that inadequate development and execution  of training programs 
jeopardizes both  officer safety and public safety, and leaves officers unprepared to  
safely and  effectively police the Mount Vernon community.  

MVPD  has failed  to  prioritize  and support officer training, resulting in a lack of 
standardized  training across the Department.  MVPD does not have  a full-time training  
officer, nor are the supervisors responsible for front-line training sufficiently experienced  
and  trained  themselves. Compounding  the  problem, and  partly due  to high rates of 
turnover, MVPD does not have sufficiently  qualified  field training officers  to train  
incoming officers.  As a result, inexperienced  officers are tasked with training  new 
officers.   

The Department’s failure to invest in training  staff  and develop  training priorities and  
goals has created an uncoordinated and ineffective training regimen. For example, 
MVPD’s Training Unit offers five “mandatory” days of in-service  training to officers each  
year, although  officers may miss several of these trainings. While MVPD does schedule  
“makeup” trainings for officers who miss a day of in-service  training, the  only training  
sessions that MVPD requires officers to make up  are the firearms and use of force 

 

27  



 

trainings. Thus, the only training MVPD officers consistently receive  are trainings in  
firearms and  use  of force.   

In addition, supervisors do  not receive standardized  and consistent  supervisory or 
managerial training from MVPD. MVPD supervisory staff  have expressly acknowledged  
that there is “irregularity” in the  training for lieutenants and command staff, and  that the  
lack of such training is a concern. As one  command staff  member noted, the  
Department does not provide any training to officers after they become  sergeants:  
“everything  else [is] the school of hard knocks.”  

MVPD’s failure to provide adequate training  programs and curricula  on constitutional 
doctrines governing  policing has directly contributed to the unlawful conduct we 
uncovered in our investigation.  

3.  MVPD Fails to Adequately  Supervise  Its Officers   

During our investigation, we saw multiple  deficiencies in how MVPD supervisors  guided  
and reviewed  the work of its subordinates. This failure to supervise directly contributes 
to the constitutional violations we found. Many of those deficiencies stemmed from  a  
lack of effective training for MVPD supervisors. Although there is state-mandated  
training for supervisors,  the  training does not focus on specific issues unique to Mount 
Vernon. Additionally, the training  does not focus on developing leadership skills as 
supervisors. One  high-ranking  officer told us, “Everybody identifies that you  don’t really 
get any [training] after sergeant and you kinda have to figure it out.”  As a result, we saw 
situations where supervisors should have taken action  but did not.   

We  also saw supervisors reviewing use of force reports for incidents in which they were  
personally involved. In  one  example, a sergeant and  a lieutenant used force against  an  
individual who damaged a  police cruiser. When the sergeant and lieutenant grabbed  the  
individual’s arms to arrest him, he pulled  his arms away and locked them so  he could 
not be  handcuffed.  Because  the sergeant and lieutenant were having difficulty arresting  
the  person, additional officers arrived  on  the  scene  to  assist.  One  of the  arriving officers 
hit the individual with  a closed  fist on his thigh multiple times “in  an  attempt to  gain 
compliance.”  Another officer, at the direction  of the lieutenant, “drive stunned” the  
individual with his Taser. After being  tased by the  officer four times, the individual 
allowed the  officers to  handcuff him without further incident. The lieutenant then ordered  
the sergeant to have  the arriving officers complete  use  of force reports on the Taser use  
and  fist strikes. The sergeant did so, and reviewed  and  approved the officer’s use  of the  
Taser and the  other officer’s use of strikes. The report was approved  throughout the  
chain of command, and the sergeant was depicted  as a witness to the use of force, 
instead of as an involved officer. No one in the chain of command asked the force 
review to be assigned to an independent supervisor, and  no  one in the chain of  
command asked  the sergeant or lieutenant to submit a report for their own uses of  
force.  

MVPD must improve its supervision practices to ensure that its officers stay within  
constitutional limits. It must provide sufficient training to supervisors throughout the  
chain of command to do their jobs effectively and  hold their subordinates accountable to  

 

28  



 

MVPD’s policies and procedures. And MVPD must have systems in  place to ensure that 
supervision is routine and proactive, identifying officers and supervisors who are not 
fulfilling their duties.  

4.  MVPD Fails to Hold Officers Accountable for Misconduct  

MVPD has inadequate  systems to  hold officers accountable for misconduct,  which  allow  
the  pattern or practice  of constitutional violations described  above  to  go  unchecked.  
MVPD has  inadequate  policies and  training  for misconduct investigations, resulting  in  
investigations that are neither objective nor thorough. When  discipline is imposed, which  
is rare, the sanctions are ineffective  at deterring future officer misconduct.  

  
a.  MVPD’s Policies, Training, and Accountability Systems Are  

Inadequate  

MVPD’s policies governing  misconduct investigations are vague and do  not provide  
proper guidance  for classifying or investigating  complaints.  The policy categorizes only 
a limited number of allegations, such  as allegations of criminal activity, as falling within  
IA’s jurisdiction.  All other allegations of misconduct  not specifically assigned to  IA by  
policy—including civilian complaints, complaints received internally from  other officers, 
and  those alleging  egregious but non-criminal conduct—are typically investigated by the  
officer’s immediate supervisor. This results in inadequate investigation and the failure to  
hold officers  accountable for serious misconduct.  

MVPD’s policies also provide little  guidance  on how to conduct misconduct 
investigations, and  training  on investigations is lacking.  There is no  manual that  
specifies how IA investigators are to interview officers or witnesses,  obtain and analyze  
evidence, assess credibility,  or make  a recommended finding.  Similarly, MVPD has no  
policy for supervisor investigations.  The Department’s training for both IA investigators 
and supervisors is inadequate.  Supervisors typically learn on the job  from  other 
supervisors how to conduct investigations.  While IA investigators receive an initial two-
week training, they  do  not consistently receive ongoing training to keep  up  their skills.  

MVPD similarly fails to  adequately to  track complaints.  MVPD’s electronic system for 
tracking complaints  is not sufficiently functional, since  due to software lapses, it does  
not include  cases prior to 2022.  As described  below, MVPD deficiencies in policy, 
training, and  oversight result in investigations that are incomplete  and allow misconduct 
to go unchecked.  

b.  Misconduct Investigations Are Not Objective or Thorough  

Whether conducted by IA investigators or by  an officer’s immediate  supervisor, MVPD 
misconduct investigations are routinely inadequate.  Our review  indicated that IA  
investigators frequently failed  to complete basic steps when conducting their  
investigations, including,  in many cases, failing  to interview complainants  or civilian  
witnesses.  And investigators fail to  ask crucial questions of officers—in fact, officers are 
rarely, if ever, personally interviewed. The standard practice at MVPD is for officers to 
simply submit a statement.  When  officers submit statements, investigators fail to  ask 

 

29  



 

follow-up questions regarding the statement,  leaving  unaddressed  gaps, 
inconsistencies,  and omissions in the officers’ version of events.   

In one  high-profile case involving  unlawful  body cavity searches of several individuals, 
IA did not open  an investigation until three years after the incident occurred. The  
decision  to open the investigation was not prompted  by MVPD’s own internal 
accountability processes, but rather by a lengthy media article about the searches, 
complete with video recordings. The  IA investigation took less than two months to  
complete, and  the investigator did not interview the  officers, subjects of the search,  or 
witnesses. Although the IA investigator reviewed the videos at issue, the report contains  
virtually no  analysis of the videos or other evidence, nor does it even identify the  
applicable MVPD policy that may have  been  violated. The findings section  of the report 
is  a single conclusory sentence, in which the  IA investigator states that the  actions of  
the  officers were reasonable given that they were executing a search warrant and  
narcotics were discovered. Despite the  brevity of the report, the IA investigator’s failure  
to interview anyone connected with the incident, and  the utter lack of analysis of the  
evidence or applicable policies and laws, the  Deputy Commissioner  nevertheless  
approved the  IA investigator’s recommendation to  exonerate all four officers involved  in  
the search.   

Supervisor investigations of complaints are even  more inadequate than  those  
conducted by IA. In  one incident, the complainant alleged that he was stopped and  
searched by two detectives for no reason, and that the two detectives acted  
unprofessionally. The  supervisor  who investigated the complaint  did not interview the  
detectives, but relied instead on statements they  submitted in response to  the  
complaint. In the  statements, the  detectives asserted that they stopped  the complainant  
because he had  a plastic bag containing a can of beer sticking  out of his pants pocket.  
They then conducted  a pat down of the complainant for “officer safety.” The supervisor  
found  that the detectives never filed  a report documenting the stop, as required by 
MVPD policy.  Even  though  the detectives did not demonstrate, or even articulate, that 
they had reasonable suspicion  to believe  that the  man was armed  and dangerous  in 
their statement, the supervisor determined  that the pat down did not violate  the law or 
MVPD policy.  The supervisor only  recommended counseling  for the  detectives’ failure to  
record the stop.  

Two examples highlight the  problems with  supervisors investigating  misconduct 
complaints involving  officers  they manage, and the supervisory bias that taints these  
investigations.  In  the  first, an  apartment tenant filed  a complaint with  MVPD, alleging  
that officers unlawfully and  forcibly entered his home without a search warrant. The  
officers’ patrol supervisor, who was on duty and involved in the  matter, investigated the  
incident and cleared the officers of any misconduct, stating  that the  officers were 
required  to  make a  forced entry to further investigate. Regardless of whether this  
conclusion is correct,  the supervisor’s involvement in the  forced entry with a warrant 
undermines the credibility of the conclusion, because the supervisor himself had an  
interest in the outcome.  

In  the second  case, the complainant alleged  that as he was standing near a  building  
listening  to  music, two  detectives stopped  him, took him to  the police station,  and strip  

 

30  



 

 

searched him for no reason. The complaint was assigned  to  the  detectives’ immediate  
supervisor for investigation. The supervisor interviewed the complainant by phone  and  
did not ask the complainant about the strip search allegation. Additionally, although  the  
arrest report submitted by one  of the  officers stated that the  officers performed  a search 
incident to  arrest at the police  station, in their  statements to the investigating supervisor, 
the  officers never mentioned whether they conducted  any type  of search. Instead of 
probing the inconsistencies between the officers’ statements  and  the arrest report and  
following up with  the complainant, the supervisor simply concluded in his report— 
without any evidence to support his determination—that the officers did not conduct a  
strip search.  

These failures in misconduct investigations by both IA investigators and officers’  direct 
supervisors undermine an  effective accountability system. Troublingly, in  a  number of 
the  examples given above, the chain of command and  the public safety commissioner 
reviewed  the recommendations of IA investigators and supervisors,  without any request 
for further investigation. These failures in MVPD’s accountability system contributed to  
the  pattern or practice of constitutional violations we  describe above.   

c.  MVPD Does  Not Impose Effective  Discipline   

MVPD’s accountability system  for misconduct violations is further undermined  by the  
ineffective imposition of discipline.  As an initial matter, MVPD lacks systems to  ensure  
consistency in its imposition of discipline.  Although  MVPD does have a  disciplinary 
matrix, it is vague  and  rarely used.   Even if MVPD did use  the  matrix, however,  in the  
vast majority of cases  we reviewed, MVPD did not impose any discipline. Out of all  the  
misconduct files reviewed, we found  disciplinary penalties  imposed in only eight percent  
of cases,  which included no terminations,  and  only one  unpaid suspension. There, the  
officer received a two-week suspension for posting  a racist meme on Instagram. The  
most serious discipline imposed in the other cases was 40  hours of forfeited leave. 
Despite  troubling incidents with constitutional violations, supervisor recommendations  
including  no  discipline  or minor discipline  were  adopted  by the chain of command, 
including  the police chief and  public safety commissioner,  often with  a simple “concur.”   

Although  the City has  made some attempt to  address accountability issues within the  
Department  by hiring an outside  attorney to assist the  police chief  and IA, this effort has 
largely been ineffective. The  attorney reviews IA investigations involving possible  
criminal conduct to  determine whether the case should be referred to the Westchester 
County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution. The attorney also reviews completed  
IA investigations and  determines what disciplinary penalties should be imposed  against 
the  officer. If the officer disagrees with the  penalty, the case is heard by a hearing  
officer, and  the attorney administratively prosecutes the case against the officer at the  

25

25  A disciplinary matrix “specifies the nature of offenses  or policy violations and  associates them with 
specific penalty options or ranges  of discipline.” U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented  Policing  
Services, Standards and Guidelines for Internal Affairs:  Recommendations from a Community of  Practice  
53 (2009),  https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov/resourcecenter/RIC/Publications/cops-p164-pub.pdf  
[https://perma.cc/8URA-6N3A].  It helps to ensure fairness and consistency in the imposition of discipline.  
Id.   

 

31  

https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov/resourcecenter/RIC/Publications/cops-p164-pub.pdf
https://perma.cc/8URA-6N3A


 

 

32 

hearing. The attorney’s impact on how IA functions appears to be negligible, however. 
Although the City informed us that the attorney has been providing advice and counsel 
to the police chief and IA since early 2021, during initial interviews with City counsel, the 
police chief and executive staff, and the head of IA, the attorney was never mentioned. 
Instead of helping improve public trust in the police department and ensure that IA 
investigations for serious misconduct are fair, comprehensive, and free from conflicts of 
interest, a good deal of the attorney’s efforts have been skirmishes with the 
Westchester County District Attorney’s Office about its perceived failure to definitively 
identify problem officers within the Department and its reticence to put certain MVPD 
officers on the stand due to integrity issues.  

5. MVPD Fails to Equip Officers Appropriately and Deploy 
Resources Effectively 

The lack of resources, along with the Department’s inefficient management of 
resources, are major factors contributing to unlawful policing and low morale. It lacks 
adequate body-worn camera systems, training facilities, Taser cartridges, and 
numerous other resources that are necessary to oversee its officers and equip and train 
them adequately. MVPD also lacks the resources to compete with neighboring 
jurisdictions as it seeks to hire police officers. As noted earlier in this report, the starting 
salaries of MVPD officers are significantly less than those of officers employed in 
neighboring towns.  

These challenges—mismanaged resources and a history of financial challenges—have 
prompted large numbers of officers to leave, including senior officers. One officer noted 
that some of the officers training others had been with the Department for only two 
years. This misuse of resources, and its attendant undermining of morale, contributes to 
MVPD’s lack of effective and constitutional policing. 

*  *  * 

MVPD’s lack of resources and equipment due to financial mismanagement, outdated 
policies and inadequate training, and ineffective systems of supervision, accountability, 
and discipline, all contribute to the pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing we 
found. These practices are not only unconstitutional, they also breed community 
distrust, undermining effective policing, which is built on a healthy relationship between 
the police and the community it serves. 

  



 

 RECOMMENDED REMEDIAL MEASURES 

The recommended remedial measures below provide  a framework for the changes that 
the City and MVPD must adopt to restore public faith in the police department and instill  
constitutional and effective policing.   

1. Enhance Use-of-Force Policies,  Training, and Reporting Systems.  MVPD  should 
revise  all policies and training  materials on  use of force  and de-escalation  tactics to  
provide  officers and supervisors with clear guidance on when force is appropriate  and  
decrease the need for officers to resort to force. MVPD should ensure that officers 
report uses of force with sufficient detail to determine the appropriateness of the force 
and whether de-escalation tactics were used.  

2. Ensure Adequate  Supervision and Accountability of Strip Searches.  MVPD 
should put accountability measures in place to ensure that unconstitutional strip and  
body cavity searches do not take place, such  as auditing  of search reports, regular 
review of complaints related  to strip searches, and review of body-worn camera footage  
to determine whether these  practices continue.  

3. Conduct Lawful Arrests and Detentions.  MVPD should implement policies,  
training,  and practices that will  ensure that arrests and  detentions are constitutional and  
supported  by probable cause, and that arrests are not made in retaliation for individuals 
engaging in protected  activity.   

4.  Develop Policies  and Training Related to Vehicle Stops.  MVPD should provide  
policies and training regarding the appropriate basis for vehicle stops, the  investigative  
steps  that  may be taken in connection with a  stop, and when a stop  becomes an  arrest 
and  how it must be justified.  

5. Collect and Analyze Data Related to Stops, Searches, and Arrests.  MVPD should 
collect data  on  all stops  (including  those that do not result in  a citation or arrest), 
searches,  citations, arrests, uses of force, and investigative  activities,  and maintain such  
data  in a manner that allows for analysis of racial disparities. Where MVPD finds racial 
disparities in its enforcement practices, it should implement changes to policies,  
training, supervision, tactics, or enforcement strategies to  address those  disparities.  

6. Increase Oversight of Evidentiary Practices.  MVPD should improve its 
documentation  and review of the seizure of evidence and identification of suspects,  
including improved  data collection and  analysis, training, and supervision.  

7. Improve  Training for Supervisors.  MVPD should  ensure that supervisors at all  
levels receive supervisory or leadership  training appropriate for their rank that provides 
them with the skills to  do their jobs effectively and hold subordinates accountable.  

8. Adopt More Stringent Accountability Measures.  MVPD  should  ensure that IA  
conducts timely, objective, and thorough investigations of complaints and interview all  
witnesses and  officers connected with the incident. MVPD should create a clear and  
specific process for classifying, assigning, and  investigating complaints and  disciplining  

 

33  



 

officers for violations of policy. MVPD should  hold supervisors accountable for failing to  
report or address misconduct.  

9. Improve  Technology Infrastructure.  The City should devote resources to  ensuring  
that MVPD’s technology infrastructure is capable of effectively monitoring officer activity 
by collecting and  analyzing data.  

10.  Enhance Officer Safety and Wellness.  The City and MVPD should build on the  
resources they have already invested to ensure that officers are provided with the  
equipment required  to  perform their jobs effectively and constitutionally. The City and  
MVPD should  develop  effective strategies for recruitment, retention, and staffing.  

 

 

34

Investigation of the Mount Vernon 
Police Department 

United States Attorney’s Office 
Southern District of New York 

Civil Division 

and 

United States Department of Justice 
Civil Rights Division 

December 12, 2024 



 

 

 
 

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS  

EXECUTIVE  SUMMARY ...............................................................................................  2  

BACKGROUND  ............................................................................................................  3  

A.  Mount Vernon, New York  .........................................................................  3  

B.  Mount Vernon Police  Department  ............................................................  4  

C.  Financial Mismanagement Within City Government and MVPD  ..............  6  

D.  MVPD Incidents Undermining Public Trust  ..............................................  7  

FINDINGS  .....................................................................................................................  7  

A.  MVPD Engages in a Pattern or Practice of Conduct that Violates the  
United States Constitution and Laws  .......................................................  7  

1.  MVPD Uses Excessive Force  ...........................................................  8  

2.  MVPD Unlawfully Conducted Strip and Body Cavity Searches of All  
Arrestees .........................................................................................  13  

3.  MVPD Makes Unlawful Arrests in Violation of the Fourth  
Amendment .....................................................................................  18  

4.  MVPD’s Vehicle  Stops Raise Serious Concerns .............................  21  

5.  MVPD’s Evidentiary Practices Raise Serious  Constitutional 
Concerns .........................................................................................  22  

6.  We Have Serious Concerns that Some MVPD Officers Discriminate  
Against Black People,  Targeting Them  for Arrests  .........................  24  

B.  Systemic Deficiencies in MVPD’s Practices Lead to Constitutional 
Violations  ...............................................................................................  26  

1.  MVPD’s Policies and Policy Development Are Inadequate .............  27  

2.  MVPD Fails to Adequately Train Its Officers  ...................................  27  

3.  MVPD Fails to Adequately Supervise Its Officers  ...........................  28  

4.  MVPD Fails to Hold Officers Accountable for Misconduct ...............  29  

5.  MVPD Fails to Equip  Officers Appropriately and Deploy Resources  
Effectively ........................................................................................  32  

RECOMMENDED REMEDIAL MEASURES ...............................................................  33  
 



 

 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

In June  2020, Mount Vernon  Police Department (MVPD)  officers conducted a traffic 
stop  of two women, one  65  years  old and  the  other  75  years old, claiming  that they saw 
the women engage in  a hand-to-hand drug transaction. The  driver of the car explained  
that she  had given her husband  a five-dollar bill to purchase  a lottery ticket.  An Internal 
Affairs (IA) investigation later determined that the MVPD officer had  lied and there was  
no basis for the  traffic stop. Without a  basis  for the stop, the officers ordered the women  
out of the car and searched it, but they found  no contraband. The officers handcuffed  
the women and  took them to the  police station. At the police station,  with supervisory 
approval,  two  female detectives made  the women completely disrobe—including their  
bras and underwear—and told them  to bend  over and cough. No contraband was 
recovered, and the two women  were  driven  back to  their car and released. One  of the  
women filed an IA complaint, recounting that she was “very humiliated” and was “on the  
verge of fainting I was so scared for my life.”   

According to MVPD’s records, this is the only case in  the last ten years in which MVPD 
acknowledged that a strip search was wrongful. Yet both  of the female detectives who  
performed  the strip and cavity searches confirmed  to  IA  that they routinely conducted  
strip and visual cavity searches of all female arrestees, consistent with MVPD practice. 
One  of the supervising officers who approved the  arrest and search insisted  that he and  
his officers did nothing  wrong and were simply following long-standing practice. The  
only discipline imposed  on the officers involved in  the arrest and search was the loss of 
several days of accrued leave.  

This incident is emblematic of the inadequate policies, training, supervision, and  
accountability that have  contributed to  MVPD’s  conduct that violates the Constitution, 
including  the unconstitutional arrests and  invasive strip and visual cavity searches 
described above.  

After completing  a thorough investigation, the Department of Justice concludes that  
there is reasonable cause to believe that MVPD engages in  a pattern or practice of 
conduct that violates the Constitution. MVPD engages in a  pattern or practice of:  
(1)  using  excessive force; (2) conducting  unlawful strip searches and body cavity 
searches until at least 2023; and (3) making  arrests without probable cause, including  
unlawful arrests to perform strip searches, arresting  people merely present when MVPD 
served a search warrant without independent probable cause for arresting  those people, 
and  arresting  people for behavior that does not constitute a crime.  

While it appears that MVPD curtailed its unconstitutional strip search and body cavity  
search practices during our investigation, we are not confident that these  practices have  
ended. These unlawful searches were deeply ingrained in MVPD’s practices, occurring  
over many years, and  were  highly intrusive. MVPD only changed its practices during  our 
investigation. Without  sufficient oversight, we remain concerned that these practices will 
recur. We also have serious concerns about MVPD’s vehicle  stop  and  evidence  
collection  practices, as well as serious concerns  that MVPD’s practices may result in  
discriminatory policing.   

 

2  



 

  
    

    

    
   

 

      
    

 
  

  
 

 
    

  

    
      

  
  

    
  

    

   
  

  
    

 
  

 

 

MVPD’s practices are directly attributable to significant systemic deficiencies in MVPD’s 
policies, training, supervision, and accountability systems, all of which are rooted in a 
long history of municipal dysfunction. Municipal financial mismanagement has seriously 
eroded MVPD’s ability to follow basic practices standard in modern policing, such as 
keeping its 911 system up and running, providing its officers with Taser cartridges so 
they have a less-lethal force option, and ensuring that officers who interact with the 
public are equipped with body-worn cameras. 

Leadership failures have resulted in the absence of needed policies or ones that have 
not been updated in decades; a complete lack of training on critical topics; and 
ineffective supervision, including supervisors investigating incidents in which they were 
personally involved. MVPD’s data collection and records management are also deeply 
deficient. MVPD keeps no records of stops unless they result in arrests, for example, 
and despite our standing requests from early in the investigation for all misconduct files, 
MVPD continued to discover new files up until a few months ago. Put simply, MVPD 
does not have much of the basic infrastructure necessary to provide Constitutional and 
effective policing in the 21st century. 

Comprised of approximately four square miles just north of the Bronx, Mount Vernon 
has significant poverty and has suffered from years of political turmoil. And even though 
Mount Vernon is located within one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, it 
struggles to adequately equip, train, and pay its officers. Instead, it consistently loses 
members of the police force to higher paying departments in neighboring towns. These 
long-standing challenges still plague the Department and contribute to the pattern of 
unconstitutional policing identified during this investigation. 

Fortunately, the current leadership of the City and MVPD are taking steps to remedy 
this dysfunction and improve policing, including by revising MVPD’s outdated policies, 
working to equip all officers with body-worn cameras and less-lethal weapons, and 
creating an officer and community wellness program. Although significant challenges 
remain, the City and MVPD have expressed a commitment to improvement. The City 
and MVPD have fully cooperated with this investigation, and we appreciate their 
engagement in this process. 

BACKGROUND 

A.  MOUNT  VERNON,  NEW  YORK  

The City of Mount Vernon is in Westchester County, New York, immediately north  of the  
Bronx. It has a  population of roughly 67,000.  The City’s population is approximately 
61% Black, 20% White, 17% percent Latino, and  2% Asian. The  median income in  
Mount Vernon is $68,300,  consistent with  the  national average, but far  below the  
median income of $114,650  for Westchester County.  

Mount Vernon is governed  by a  mayor and  a five-member City Council.  Both  the mayor 
and city  councilmembers, who serve at large, are elected  for four-year terms.  The City’s 
current mayor is Shawyn Patterson-Howard, who was elected to office in 2019  and  

 

3  



 

   
  

 
 

    

   
   

    
  

 

of Black Residents in 
Mount Vernon 
Percentage of Black Residents by 
Census Block Group 

0-20% -20-40% -40-60% -60-80% -80-100% 

-=-=--==--Mik>s 
0 0.1 0.2 0.5 0.7 1 

reelected in 2023. Mayor Patterson-Howard, who is Black, is the first female mayor of 
Mount Vernon, the first woman of color, and the first sitting mayor in 20 years to win 
reelection. The Mayor is responsible for appointing City agency heads, including the 
Commissioner of Public Safety. The City Council is presided over by Council President 
Cathlin Gleason, who was elected to the council in 2021. 

Like many cities in the United States, Mount Vernon is heavily segregated by race, with 
Black residents largely residing on the southern side of the city, closest to the Bronx. A 
majority of white residents live in the northern neighborhoods, closest to Bronxville, one 
of the wealthiest communities in Westchester. 

B.  MOUNT  VERNON  POLICE DEPARTMENT  

The Mount Vernon Police Department (MVPD) has a  force of approximately 164  sworn 
officers.  Forty-nine  percent of MVPD officers are Black, 27% are white, and  23% are 
Hispanic. The Department is led by the Commissioner of Public Safety, who is 
appointed by the  mayor.  Since May 2023, David Gibson  has served  as Interim  
Commissioner, assuming office following the retirement of  Glenn  Scott.  Commissioner  
Gibson  joined MVPD in the fall  of 2022 as Deputy Commissioner, after a  30-year career 
at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and  Explosives.  The Commissioner is 
responsible for the  administration, operation, and  discipline  of the  police department. He 

 

4  



 

  
  

   
  

  
  

  

 

    
   

  
   

 
 

    

   
 

    

 

 

  

■ 

is assisted in his responsibilities by Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Lackard and Chief of 
Police Marcel Olifiers. 

The Department has five divisions: the Patrol Division, Detective Division, Training and 
Personnel Division, Support Services Division, and Community Wellness Division. The 
Patrol Division covers seven geographic patrol areas within the City, as well as the K-9 
Unit. The Patrol Division also includes the Emergency Service Unit (ESU), which 
handles high risk search warrant entries and responds to calls of individuals in crisis. 
The Detective Division investigates criminal activity within the City and includes the 
Major Case Unit, which investigates homicides and other major crimes; the Violent 
Crimes Unit, which investigates pattern crimes; and the Youth Unit. 

The Department also has an Internal Affairs Unit (IA). IA investigates allegations of 
criminal misconduct against Department employees, although it also may investigate 
matters assigned to it by the commissioner or the police chief. IA is staffed by a 
sergeant and two investigators. 

The Mount Vernon Police Association represents the interests of sworn MVPD 
members below the rank of Deputy Chief. The union has a collective bargaining 
agreement (CBA) with the City which establishes the terms and conditions of 
employment, and the union is currently in the process of negotiating a new CBA. 

MVPD salaries in 2024 start at $45,567 for the most junior officers. In comparison, the 
starting salaries for police officers in two neighboring towns in Westchester County— 
Yonkers and New Rochelle—were $72,233 (as of 2021) and $61,183 (as of 2024). 

1

Officer Salary by Location and Experience 

80,000 

70,000 

60,000 

50,000 

40,000 

30,000 

20,000 

10,000 

0 

Mount Vernon Yonkers New Rochelle 

Junior Officer Salary 

1  Mount Vernon Police Department,  https://cmvny.com/525/Executive-Leadership-Organizational-Char   
[https://perma.cc/H9M3-ZF4R].  

 

5  

https://cmvny.com/525/Executive-Leadership-Organizational-Char
https://perma.cc/H9M3-ZF4R


 

 
 

 

C.  FINANCIAL  MISMANAGEMENT  WITHIN  CITY 
GOVERNMENT  AND  MVPD  

Mount Vernon  has a long  history of dysfunction  and  financial struggles, which  has 
significantly impacted  MVPD.  The  Office  of the New York State Comptroller audited  
Mount Vernon’s finances for the years 2017 through September 2020 and issued a  
report in January 2022.  The  State concluded  that the  then-comptroller failed  to  pay 
more than $2  million in claims  and  created a  voucher system that “restricted  the  ability 
of officials and employees to monitor operations” and “prevented  officials from  
determining whether vendors had been paid.”  The State  further found  that the  
comptroller had  made  more than $16  million  of unauthorized electronic disbursements  
and withdrawals.  The current administration is taking steps to address these financial 
problems, and  a new comptroller was elected  in 2021. However, the administration  
faced—and still faces—a serious financial shortfall created by the  prior years of  
dysfunction.   

These financial problems have significantly affected  MVPD’s policing operations. MVPD 
leadership explained that due to  the actions of the last comptroller, MVPD had difficulty  
paying  outstanding invoices, and  thus could not obtain  or replace  a sufficient amount of 
body-worn cameras or Taser cartridges. As of  September 2024, approximately 40  
officers still need  body-worn cameras,  and the Department has access to only a limited  
number of Tasers. During an interview on December 11, 2021, Commissioner Scott  
complained that officers lacked  Taser cartridges, stating  that officers “don’t have less 
than lethal force.”  In December 2021, the Commissioner reported that “911 ha[d]  been  
down three  times since January 2020  due to unpaid bills.”  Financial difficulties are also 
undermining MVPD’s ability to hire  new officers; in 2020, newly hired  Probationary 
Police Officers were not paid for seven weeks  and,  in 2021, new recruits were not paid 
for at least two weeks. MVPD officers are also forced  to  buy much of their own 
equipment, despite their low pay relative to  neighboring departments.  One  officer noted  
that her vest is fifteen  years old and thus likely ineffective, but that she cannot afford to  
replace it.   

The  City’s monetary challenges  have undermined MVPD’s ability to  hire and supervise  
officers, train them adequately, and  provide them with appropriate equipment to  police  
constitutionally. By the  fourth  quarter of 2023,  however, the City had  made some  
progress in reducing its debt and  managing its financial operations.  Nevertheless, it still 
faces significant monetary shortfalls.  Until the  City’s financial difficulties are fully 
addressed, MVPD will continue to be vulnerable to non-payment of invoices for 
equipment and resources it needs to conduct constitutional and effective policing.   
 

2 

2  Office of the New York  State Comptroller, City of Mount Vernon  –  Non  Payroll Disbursements (2021M-
163)  1  (2022), https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/local-government/audits/2022/pdf/mount-vernon-2021-163.pdf  
[https://perma.cc/XX8R-GXRH].   

 

6  

https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/local-government/audits/2022/pdf/mount-vernon-2021-163.pdf
https://perma.cc/XX8R-GXRH


 

D.  MVPD  INCIDENTS  UNDERMINING  PUBLIC  TRUST  

MVPD has also had  numerous incidents undermining community confidence in  the  
Department over the last few years. Former MVPD Police  Chief Richton Ziadie was 
suspended for overtime abuse  in 2019, leading to an investigation  by the Westchester 
County District Attorney’s Office  (WCDAO). The  WCDAO  ultimately declined to  bring  
criminal charges, but Ziadie retired shortly thereafter.  In  2017, an  officer,  after observing  
illegal searches and  uses of force,  recorded  his fellow officers discussing misconduct 
and corruption within the Department’s narcotics unit. As a result of the  public outcry 
following the recording’s release  by a media outlet in 2021, the  Department disbanded  
the  narcotics unit; however, that unit appears to have  been reconstituted under another 
name. MVPD initiated  an internal affairs investigation into the incident  but,  three years 
after the recordings were made  public, the investigation is still ongoing.   

Incidents such as these have come at a price to the City—both literally and  figuratively.  
One  officer, now retired, cost the City so  much in lawsuits and settlements that he was  
dubbed  by local media as the City’s “Million Dollar Man.”  More tellingly, however, these  
incidents have cost MVPD significant public  trust, as many community members lack 
confidence in the  Department’s ability to police lawfully and  hold officers accountable.  

FINDINGS  

A.  MVPD  ENGAGES  IN  A  PATTERN  OR  PRACTICE  OF  
CONDUCT  THAT  VIOLATES THE UNITED  STATES  
CONSTITUTION  AND  LAWS  

The  Department of Justice, through the  United States Attorney’s Office for the  Southern  
District of New York and the Civil Rights Division,  opened this investigation  on  
December 3, 2021. We conducted  the investigation pursuant to the  police  misconduct 
statute, 34 U.S.C. §  12601, which prohibits law enforcement agencies from engaging in  
a “pattern or practice” of conduct that deprives people of rights protected  by the U.S.  
Constitution or federal law.  Where we  develop reasonable cause  to  believe  that an  
agency engages in a  prohibited pattern or practice, we may bring  a lawsuit to eliminate  
it.   

We  find that  MVPD  engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the  
Constitution.  This pattern or practice is rooted  in MVPD’s deficient policies,  training,  
equipment,  supervision, and  accountability systems for officer activity, and  it  manifests 
in specific Constitutional violations: (1) MVPD  routinely uses unreasonable force; 
(2)  MVPD engaged  in  unlawful strip searches and body cavity searches  until at least  
2023; and (3)  MVPD unlawfully arrests individuals without probable cause, including  
unlawful arrests to perform strip searches. This includes  arresting people present when  
MVPD served  a search warrant without independent probable cause for arresting those  
people, and  arresting people for behavior that does not constitute a crime.  And  although  
we do  not make  a finding that MVPD’s vehicle  stop or evidence collection  practices 
violate the Constitution, or that MVPD’s practices result in discriminatory policing in  
violation  of the Constitution  or federal law, we have serious concerns about those  

 

7  



 

practices.   

We  make these  findings after a comprehensive investigation into MVPD’s practices.  We  
consulted  a broad set of sources and sought the  perspective of numerous stakeholders.  
In total, we conducted  more than  one  hundred interviews  of current Department officers 
and command staff, City Hall officials, leadership of  the  Mount Vernon  Police  
Association, residents of Mount Vernon,  local civic associations,  prosecutors,  and  
witnesses and lawyers involved in criminal and civil litigation with the Department.  We  
examined more than one hundred thousand  pages of internal Mount Vernon  
documents, including  MVPD’s policies, use of force reports, arrest reports, civilian  
complaints, internal discipline files, command  discipline files, training materials, video  
footage, and  years of  stop, search, and arrest data.  We conducted  multiple tours of the  
Department, which  include  participating in overnight ride-alongs with patrol officers.  
During the course of our investigation,  we consulted with  law enforcement experts  with  
experience in  the relevant issues and  hired  data technicians  to assist us in  analyzing  
MVPD data on stops, arrests, and  other enforcement activities.  

At all times, MVPD and City leadership  took  a cooperative and  professional approach  to  
our investigation.  We  are grateful to MVPD personnel for their candor and insights 
during interviews.  We  are likewise grateful to  the leadership of the  Mount Vernon  Police  
Association, which met with us on  multiple occasions and invited us to speak to union  
members.  We  also met with  a substantial number of people in the broader Mount 
Vernon community.  We are thankful for the  many  community members who came  
forward to share information with  us, even when  doing so involved  reliving difficult 
personal experiences.  

1.  MVPD Uses  Excessive Force   

MVPD engages in  a pattern or practice of using excessive force  that  manifests in  
various ways, including: (1) by unnecessarily escalating  minor encounters,  resulting  in 
excessive force;  and (2) through  excessive use of Tasers and closed-fist strikes, 
including  against  individuals  who have  already been taken to  the ground, are controlled  
by a large number of officers, and/or are already fully or partially restrained.  

Excessive physical force claims are analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s objective  
reasonableness standard.  The analysis requires balancing  the intrusion on the  
individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the governmental interests at stake.  
The criteria to assess whether a law enforcement officer used excessive force include  
the severity of the crime at issue, the presence of  an immediate safety threat to the  
officers or others, and the subject’s  resistance to  or attempt to evade arrest. Objective 
reasonableness is determined from the  perspective  of a reasonable officer at the  time  
the force was used, or whether a reasonable officer would be aware that the force used  
was excessive.  Reasonableness is a fact-dependent inquiry based  on the totality of the  
circumstances.  

Even if the use of some  force is justified, the  particular level of force used may still be  
excessive if it is disproportionate  to the resistance  or threat encountered.  “The fact that 
a person whom  a police officer attempts to arrest resists, threatens, or assaults the  

 

8  



 

officer no doubt justifies the  officer’s use of some  degree of force, but it does not give 
the  officer license to use force without limit.”   It is well-established that use  of force on  
an arrestee who is already handcuffed  or confined in custody is excessive when  the  
arrestee is not actively resisting or reasonably perceived to be a threat.  Similarly, the  
use of force following surrender is excessive because the  threat of force and level of 
resistance is low, even where the subject is being  arrested  for a violent crime.  High  
levels of force used to  effectuate an arrest for a non-violent, non-threatening violation  
are more likely to be unreasonable. Force may also be  excessive where it is in  
response to simple noncompliance.  And courts have held that it is “an excessive and  
unreasonable use of force for a  police  officer repeatedly to  administer electrical shocks 
with a taser on an individual who no longer is armed, has been brought to the  ground, 
has been restrained  physically by several other officers, and no longer is actively 
resisting arrest.”

3

 

a.  MVPD’s Overly Aggressive  Tactics Unnecessarily Escalate 
Encounters and Result in Excessive Force   

We  found  numerous instances where relatively minor offenses that could lead to a  
peaceable arrest instead  led  to significant use of force due to  overly aggressive MVPD 
tactics.  Many of these incidents involved  Tasers,

4 

  which  courts have recognized “is a  
serious use of force. The weapon is designed to cause  . . . excruciating pain and  
application can burn a  subject’s flesh.”

5

  As discussed in the next section, MVPD’s use  
of Tasers is often  excessive even where some use of force is justified, but we also 
found MVPD officers using  Tasers when  no  force was likely justified but for MVPD 
officers escalating the  situation.  The following examples illustrate MVPD’s use  of overly 
aggressive tactics which resulted in  excessive force:  

•  Five MVPD officers used force on a  man  they suspected  of selling narcotics 
despite not announcing their presence beforehand or attempting to peacefully 
arrest him. One officer approached the  man from  behind  and attempted an  

 

6

3  Sullivan v. Gagnier,  225 F.3d 161, 165-166 (2d Cir. 2000); see  also Curry v. City  of Syracuse, 316 F.3d 
324, 332 (2d Cir. 2003) (holding that fact that arrestee  struck police officer did not automatically defeat 
excessive force claim if arrestee could show that officer used  more force than necessary to subdue him).  

4  Meyers v. Baltimore County, 713 F.3d 723, 734 (4th Cir. 2013).  

5  A Taser is  a  weapon that  “‘can  be used  either  in ‘probe’  mode or in ‘stun’  mode.  In  probe  mode,  two probes  
are fired  from  a distance, attached  to thin electrical  wires, to lodge  in  the  skin of the  subject. The  Taser then  
delivers  a fixed  five-second cycle of electricity  designed  to cause electro-muscular disruption, effectively  
freezing  the  subject’s  muscles  and thereby  temporarily  disabling him. In stun  mode, the  probe  cartridge is  
removed  and the  Taser’s  electrodes  are applied  directly  to the  subject. The  Taser operator can  then  deliver  
a painful electric shock, the duration of which is completely  within the operator’s control. In stun mode, the  
Taser does  not  cause  muscular disruption or incapacitation, but rather  functions  only  as  a ‘pain  compliance’  
tool.’”  Meyers  v. Baltimore  County, 713 F.3d  723, 728 n.3  (4th Cir. 2013)  (alterations  omitted)  (quoting 
Meyers, 814  F. Supp. 2d  552, 555 n.3 (D. Md. 2011)). “[U]sing  drive stun  mode  ‘to achieve pain compliance 
may  have  limited  effectiveness  and, when used repeatedly, may  even exacerbate  the  situation.’”  Armstrong  
v. Pinehurst, 810  F.3d  at  902  (quoting  Police Exec. Research Forum  &  Cmty. Oriented Policing  Servs., 
2011 Electronic Control  Weapon Guidelines  14 (2011)).  

6  Estate of  Armstrong v. Vill. of Pinehurst, 810 F.3d  892, 902 (4th  Cir. 2016) (internal quotation  marks and 
citations omitted).  

 

9  



 

 

10 

“upper body hold” simultaneous with announcing his presence. This prompted an 
altercation in which one officer threw the man to the ground, breaking his nose; 
another officer drive-stunned him with his Taser five times; a third officer 
punched the man repeatedly in the head; and a fourth officer used his baton to 
pry apart the man’s arms. The man suffered a fractured nose and bruises to his 
face and back. This force was not only unreasonable, but potentially 
unnecessary had MVPD officers attempted a less confrontational initial 
approach. Instead, the situation rapidly escalated due to MVPD officers’ 
immediate aggressive actions. Officers recovered a small amount of drugs and 
MVPD found the uses of force justified. 

• Seven officers responded to a welfare check for a person who had behavioral 
health issues. Instead of attempting to calm the individual, the officers 
immediately handcuffed him. This increased the person’s alarm and distress, and 
he began to struggle. The officers further escalated the encounter by placing him 
in a body wrap restraint, but the individual was able to reach out and grab an 
officer’s hand. MVPD officers then tased him seven times to gain compliance, all 
while he was handcuffed, on the ground, and in a body wrap restraint. Two 
officers received discipline; the sergeant who deployed the Taser lost 32 hours of 
leave and had his Taser certification suspended, while another sergeant was 
given verbal counseling for failure to intervene. As explained below, such 
discipline is exceedingly rare, allowing an incident like this one to occur in the 
first place. 

• Two officers responded to a domestic disturbance that appeared to be 
resolving—the man was walking away from the apartment when officers arrived. 
Instead of escorting him from the scene and interviewing the parties, the officers 
immediately attempted to arrest the man when he pushed past one of the officers 
and attempted to leave. The reports give no indication of the probable cause for 
that arrest; the man was ultimately charged only with obstruction of a government 
officer and resisting arrest. During the arrest, both officers deployed their Tasers. 
One officer tased the man; then the second officer attempted to tase the man, 
but accidentally tased the first officer instead; finally, the second officer tased the 
man (successfully this time), after which the man was handcuffed. While the 
second officer was counseled to “better visualize his target when deploying a 
Taser,” the use of force was found “justified” and “within Department guidelines,” 
and no disciplinary action was taken. 

• One MVPD officer pushed a handcuffed woman in MVPD detention into her cell 
so forcefully that she stumbled over a trash bin and hit a cinderblock wall face-
first. The incident was captured on body-worn camera video, and the officer was 
subsequently charged with reckless endangerment. The case against the officer 
was ultimately dismissed by a judge.  

 



 

b.  MVPD Regularly Uses  Tasers  and Closed-Fist Strikes to the  
Head When This  Level of Force Is Not Reasonable  

Even when  some force may be required, MVPD’s use of  Tasers is frequently excessive  
and  unnecessary, particularly in circumstances where officers already have sufficient 
control of a  person.  MVPD officers also frequently punch  individuals  in the head and  
face  during  physical confrontations, even when multiple  officers are in the process of  
restraining the  person  and  at times when the  individual  has already been taken  to the  
ground.  While the  use  of a  Taser or closed-fist strikes can be justified under certain 
circumstances, officers’ use of force must be reasonably related to the threat posed. 
MVPD’s use of Tasers and  closed  fist  strikes often occurs even  when the arrestee  does 
not pose an active  threat and  officers have sufficient personnel  to gain compliance  
without this level of force.  

For example, four officers pursued a  man  on  foot on suspicion of selling marijuana.  
When they caught him,  they took him to  the ground and used significant force while 
attempting to handcuff  him: based upon the officers’ own descriptions, one officer kneed  
him in  the chest and  punched him  multiple  times in the body; another punched him  
twice in the face with  a closed  fist; another officer punched him multiple times on his 
body and then twisted  his ankle (a tactic described by MVPD as “pain compliance”); and  
the fourth officer  used  a baton  to  force  his arms behind his back. Despite  their numbers 
and already  substantial use of force, a  fifth  officer arrived and  twice fired his Taser into  
the  man’s back. The officers eventually recovered seven  grams of marijuana  and the  
individual was charged with possession  of marijuana, resisting arrest, and obstructing  
governmental functions. While some  of the initial  force may have been justified, the  
head strikes to the face and the two instances of tasing  after the  man  was already on  
the  ground and  being restrained by four officers were unreasonable.   

In another incident, two officers confronted a  man  who  had been acting erratically, but 
not dangerously,  in a store. The officers took the  man  to  the ground  but—stating that he  
displayed “extra  ordinary strength, possibly due to the fact that he was high on  
narcotics”—were unable to  place him in handcuffs. Additional officers appeared on the  
scene  while the  original officers  attempted  to  handcuff him. During  the struggle the  
lieutenant advised the  officer to use his Taser and drive-stun the  man, which  the officer 
did four times. Body-worn camera footage reveals that,  at the  point where the  Taser 
was deployed, several  officers were on  top  of the  man, who was refusing to turn over 
onto his stomach so that he could be handcuffed. Again, given the  degree  of control the  
officers already had  over the  man, the use of the  Taser was unreasonable.  

We  examined other cases reflecting poor police tactics that led to  unnecessarily violent 
encounters, including  head strikes  with closed fists. For example, an officer stopped a  
vehicle based upon  a report of vehicular assault on an officer in another jurisdiction.  
Rather than wait for additional backup  (beyond the second officer already at the scene), 
which was only minutes away, the  officer reached in through the  driver’s  window to turn 
off the ignition. This prompted an altercation,  during which  both  officers struck the  man  
multiple times  with closed fists, including in  the head,  to subdue  him  and  get him out of  
the vehicle. Though  force may have  been justified once  the driver reacted to the  
officer’s initial movement, the  officer’s actions in reaching through the window likely 

 

11  



 

escalated the incident.  The officer’s actions also put him  in an  extremely dangerous  
position that may have resulted in  his  being dragged by the car, had the  driver 
accelerated when  the  officer reached through the door. In addition, once several more  
officers arrived  and the individual was on the  ground, they  continued to repeatedly strike  
him  in the head  with their fists.  These head strikes by the officers after the  individual 
was already on the ground were unreasonable. No  discipline or counseling resulted, as  
it was determined  that the  officers “used proper tactics during  this incident.” Indeed, 
none of the incidents listed  above resulted in  any disciplinary action.   

c.  MVPD’s Excessive Force Is Attributable to Inadequate 
Policies, Training, Supervision, and Accountability  

MVPD’s use of force policies and training  do  not provide  adequate  guidance to officers 
on how to  use force consistent with the Fourth Amendment. For example, MVPD’s use  
of force policy states that “[f]orce shall not be  used  by an officer . . . [a]gainst persons 
who are handcuffed or restrained unless it is used to prevent injury, escape, or 
otherwise overcome  active or passive resistance posed by the subject.”  This language  
allows MVPD officers to deploy force against a handcuffed suspect who is merely failing  
to comply with demands  (passive resistance),  which would be  unconstitutional in most  
circumstances.   

Officers also fail to consistently report force so it can be appropriately investigated. As is 
evident from  many of the descriptions of force incidents above, reports about those  
incidents vary widely, with some officers reporting that little to no force was used, while  
other officers document significant force such  as head strikes and  Taser use. For 
example, in the incident where five officers collectively struck a  man  multiple  times in  
the  head, one  officer’s report stated that he “did not observe officers using  other than  
restraining force” during the entire struggle.  

MVPD’s use of force training is likewise inadequate. While  use  of force is one of the few 
areas on which regular training is provided, that training is often inadequate, ad hoc,  
and  poorly organized. For example, although  MVPD’s policy on conducted energy 
weapons states that  Tasers may not be used “[o]n  a handcuffed  or secured  prisoner,  
absent overtly assaultive behavior that cannot be reasonably dealt with in any other less 
intrusive fashion,” the incidents described  above demonstrate that  MVPD officers do  not 
adhere  to this policy.  Indeed, MVPD’s use  of force training suffers from  the same  
failures that we found  pervade all of MVPD’s training: a lack of full-time  training staff,  
standardized materials, or any systemic training for supervisors. These failures are 
described in  more detail in Section B.2  below.   

Finally, supervision and accountability after use of force incidents are also inadequate. 
Supervisors who are involved in  use  of force incidents often provide  the first level of  
review, notwithstanding their personal involvement in those incidents.  In  one case, for 
example,  a sergeant who was on  the scene for an  arrest also completed the initial use  
of force review in which he found the officers’ use  of force was justified.   

Moreover, MVPD leadership signs off on officers’ actions in nearly every instance, 
including  all but a  handful of those discussed  here. This approval occurs even though, 

 

12  



 

as described  above, officers’ accounts contain numerous inconsistencies, including  
whether officers used  force at all  and the  amount of  force used. MVPD supervisors 
make no attempt to reconcile these inconsistent statements or to hold officers 
accountable for  deficient  force reporting  even when it is obviously insufficient or non-
existent. In the rare instances when MVPD does carry out a  force investigation, it is by 
an inadequately experienced, trained, or staffed Internal Affairs.  

2.  MVPD Unlawfully  Conducted  Strip and Body Cavity Searches  of 
All Arrestees  

Until at least October  2022, it was MVPD’s practice to subject every person  they  
arrested  to  a strip search—and, in many cases, a visual cavity search —which are  
among  the most degrading  and intrusive searches officers can perform.  In the words of 
a commanding  officer who oversaw many of those searches, MVPD officers strip  
searched “every single person who walked in  th[e] building.” After an internal review of 
its strip and cavity search practices in 2023  that was prompted by our investigation, 
MVPD concluded as follows: “There is a  question of whether the Mount Vernon Police  
Department had a history of regularly conducting  strip searches  on  arrestees. The  
simple answer to this would be  []  yes . . .  .” The  Department  found “the regular 
searching of an  arrestee so  as to have their underwear exposed” was the result of 
MVPD’s inadequate  policy and training; with a policy change in October 2022  and  
subsequent training, MVPD aimed  to “ensure that a strip search was, in fact, a rare 
occurrence.” Because  strip  searches  and visual cavity searches are permissible only 
when  an officer has reasonable suspicion that evidence  or weapons were concealed in  
a person’s clothing  or body cavities,  this practice was a gross violation of Fourth  
Amendment rights.  

During this period, MVPD searches of  individuals suspected of possessing  narcotics 
sometimes included  unconstitutional manual cavity searches.  Manual body cavity 
searches, where an  officer inserts or removes something from  a suspect’s body, are so  
intrusive that they are wholly prohibited (outside the  prison context) absent a warrant 
explicitly permitting such a search or exigent circumstances.

7

 We did not find  evidence  
that MVPD’s manual cavity searches were justified by exigent circumstances or 
authorized  by a warrant.  

Arrestees were not the only ones subject to  unconstitutional strip  or cavity searches.  
Prior to 2023, MVPD officers regularly conducted strip searches and visual cavity 
searches of individuals prior to  any lawful arrest. As with the other unconstitutional 
policies and practices we have found, MVPD’s practice of conducting unconstitutional 

 

8 

7  “A ‘strip search,’ though  an umbrella term,  generally refers to an inspection of  a naked  individual, without  
any  scrutiny  of the  subject's  body  cavities. A  ‘visual  body  cavity  search’  extends  to visual  inspection  of the  
anal  and genital  areas. A  ‘manual  body  cavity  search’  includes  some  degree of  touching or probing  of body  
cavities.”  Blackburn v. Snow, 771 F.2d 556, 561  n.3 (1st Cir.  1985).   

8  See Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 770 (1996) (“[A]bsent an  emergency,” “[s]earch warrants  are 
required where intrusions into the human body are concerned.”); accord People v. Hall, 10 N.Y.3d 303, 
311 (2008).  

 

 

13  



 

strip and body cavity searches was the result of deficient policies, a  lack of training, and  
a lack of meaningful oversight and  accountability.  MVPD now represents that the  
Department has put a  stop to these practices  by updating its policy and  providing  
training,  but  it  admits that it has not put oversight and  accountability measures in place  
to verify that representation  or ensure that it remains  true.  We remain concerned that 
MVPD’s unconstitutional strip and body cavity search practices may  still be occurring or 
could recur. The  practice was a serious violation of the Fourth Amendment,  and it was 
deeply ingrained  in MVPD’s culture. MVPD did not take steps to end the  practice 
through a new policy on these searches  until nearly a year into our investigation  and, as  
described below, then  took months to  begin training  officers on the  new policy. Without 
meaningful oversight,  we are not confident that MVPD’s  unconstitutional strip  and cavity 
searches have been eliminated.  

a.  MVPD Officers Subjected Arrestees to Suspicionless  Strip 
and Visual Cavity Searches  

Until at least October 2022, it was MVPD’s practice to subject persons  they arrested to  
a strip search and, in  many cases, a visual cavity search. They did so as a matter of 
course, regardless of any reasonable suspicion to  believe contraband or evidence was 
secreted under the  arrestee’s clothing.  Many of these  arrestees—particularly those  
arrested in connection  with narcotics—were also made  to remove their underwear and  
subjected to visual cavity searches, whether or not the MVPD officers had reasonable  
suspicion contraband  was hidden inside  a body  cavity. As MVPD arrested  about 8,000  
people across approximately 14,500 arrests from 2015 to 2022,  this practice resulted in  
a gross violation of the Fourth  Amendment on an  enormous scale.  
 
MVPD has conceded that it subjected all arrestees to strip  searches until the  
Department issued a  new written policy governing strip  and cavity searches  in 2022.  
MVPD’s practice of subjecting all arrestees to strip searches and, in many cases, visual 
cavity searches led MVPD officers to conduct suspicionless—and thus unlawful—strip  
and cavity searches of many arrestees. Though MVPD officers rarely noted in their  
incident reports or elsewhere that they conducted these routine strip and cavity 
searches, they did document these searches in a few cases. For example, MVPD 
officers conducted a visual cavity search of an individual from whom they had recovered  
two plastic twists of suspected cocaine  during a search of his pockets.  One  of the two  
sergeants who supervise the Violent Crime Unit authorized the cavity search. However, 
in their incident report  concerning the  arrest, the officers documented no  reasonable 
basis to believe the  person  was concealing contraband in  his body cavity, and  no  
contraband was found  during the search.  Without such a  basis, the  search was 
unconstitutional.  

In addition, a number of arrestees reported  to  us during interviews and in civilian  
complaints that MVPD officers conducted multiple, redundant strip searches or visual 
cavity searches, even though  they were under MVPD observation at all times between  
these searches. Because  MVPD rarely documented strip and cavity searches, it is 
difficult to determine whether, or how often, this occurred.  Because  there can  be  no  

 

14  



 

reasonable suspicion of contraband in such a  situation, redundant searches like those  
alleged are unconstitutional.  
 
MVPD circulated  to its officers a  new written policy governing strip  and cavity searches  
in October 2022—backdated to July 2022—meant to  end suspicionless strip and cavity 
searches. However, we are not confident that MVPD stopped subjecting arrestees to  
suspicionless strip  or cavity searches in  October 2022. MVPD has no record of training  
on the  new policy until January  2023; the Department did not begin to document strip or 
cavity searches until 2023; and, to this day, MVPD has not taken any steps to audit or 
otherwise test officers’  compliance with the new policy, which  depends on officers only 
conducting such searches in  the presence  of a supervisor and that supervisor logging  
the search.  

According to MVPD’s new log, it has conducted only a single strip search and  no cavity 
searches since  2023. One  of the  primary supervisory officers responsible for approving  
requests to conduct strip searches who  was re-interviewed in 2024  stated that, since  
the change in policy in  the last year or so,  he  was aware  of only that  single strip  search.  
In addition, there have  been no recent civilian  complaints concerning  strip or cavity 
searches—though MVPD’s civilian complaint intake  process has, historically,  been  
unreliable, see infra  Section B.4.  If MVPD’s log is accurate, and the  Department  has  
almost entirely stopped conducting strip  and  cavity searches, that would be  a dramatic 
change in  practice  in a short period  of time. However, in  April 2024,  another supervisory 
officer told us that, contrary to the  new policy, officers may be conducting strip searches  
outside the presence of supervisors. While it appears that MVPD has at least curtailed  
its practice of subjecting arrestees to suspicionless strip and cavity searches, given the  
above, we are not confident that the practice  has ended.  

b.  MVPD Officers Conducted Unconstitutional Strip and Visual 
Cavity Searches  Prior to Any Lawful Arrest  

MVPD officers not only conducted suspicionless searches of arrestees, but they also 
regularly conducted strip searches of people  prior to arrest.  Until at least 2023, when  
MVPD officers lacked  probable cause  to  arrest individuals suspected of possessing  
narcotics,  they frequently conducted illegal strip searches and visual cavity searches in  
the  hopes of recovering narcotics that would support an arrest.  In  many cases, an  
MVPD officer searched  an individual’s pockets for narcotics,  found  no contraband,  and  
then  conducted  an  unconstitutional strip search—sometimes after detaining and  
transporting the  person  to  the station—even  though  the  individual was not seen to  
conceal anything under his or her clothing and the officer lacked reasonable suspicion  
to believe that narcotics were concealed there.  When no contraband was found, MVPD 
would release these  individuals, as they lacked probable cause  for an arrest. This 
unconstitutional conduct is exemplified by the unlawful detention  and visual cavity 
searches of the  65-year-old woman and  75-year-old woman  described in the  beginning  
of this report.  
 
Unconstitutional strip searches prior to  any arrest were particularly common when  
MVPD officers executed search warrants on suspicion  of narcotics violations. When  

 

15  



 

 

executing these warrants, MVPD officers routinely conducted strip searches and visual 
cavity searches of the individuals present, regardless of the requisite reasonable  
suspicion. This is  unconstitutional.  

 
In 2015, a  federal district court, in connection  with a private lawsuit alleging  that MVPD 
officers conducted illegal strip searches while  executing a search warrant, reminded  
Mount Vernon that “it is clear that the  existence of a warrant authorizing the search of a  
person  or persons, without more, does not justify the extraordinary invasion of privacy 
caused by a strip search.”  The  officer who supervised the searches at issue in that 
lawsuit—which was ultimately settled—went on to  become MVPD’s Commissioner from  
2020 to 2023.  

 
Despite  this 2015 judicial decision, the MVPD continued the strip search practice for 
years. In a video  of a search conducted in  an  apartment pursuant  to  a general warrant,  
an MVPD officer tells a visitor to the  apartment, “All right . . . you know the  deal, we got 
a search warrant,” and then proceeds to conduct a visual cavity search. A supervisory 
officer who reviews many of MVPD’s warrants wrongly insisted, when we interviewed  
him in  2022, that such  searches are authorized by a general search warrant.  Many  
other  supervisory  officers also advised us during interviews that it was standard practice  
to conduct strip searches, if not visual cavity searches, when executing a general 
search warrant.   

 
c.  MVPD Officers Conducted Unconstitutional Manual Body 

Cavity Searches of Narcotics Suspects  

Though MVPD’s written policies have long recognized that manual cavity searches are  
prohibited absent a warrant expressly authorizing such a search or exigent 
circumstances, until at least October 2022  MVPD officers nevertheless conducted  
manual cavity searches in violation of this policy and  individuals’ Fourth Amendment 
rights. Illegal manual cavity searches occurred in the field, when MVPD officers were  
executing general search warrants, and at the police station, when conducting  post-
arrest searches of individuals suspected  of narcotics activity.  This conduct violated  
MVPD’s written policy, which required  a warrant or exigent circumstances and  that “a 
medical doctor” conduct such  a search in a  medical facility. More importantly, it violated  
these  individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights.   
 
We found  complaints alleging that  MVPD officers conducted  manual cavity searches in  
the field while executing general search warrants related to narcotics investigations. For 
example, MVPD executed  a search warrant authorizing the search of an  apartment and  
those present at the time  of the search in connection with  a narcotics investigation.  
When MVPD officers attempted to conduct a  strip search of one  of the individuals 
present in the  apartment, he resisted; the  person  alleges that an MVPD officer held him  
down and inserted a finger into his rectum at least twice. A contemporaneous video  
captured MVPD officers speaking about a “search” of this individual  and instructing the  

9 

9  Green v. City of  Mount Vernon, 96 F. Supp. 3d  263, 292 (S.D.N.Y. 2015).  

 

16  



 

officer alleged to  have  conducted the  manual cavity search to “get some gloves.” No 
narcotics were recovered from the  person.  
 
We  also found  in the years prior to 2023, nine individuals filed civilian complaints or 
lawsuits alleging MVPD officers conducted manual cavity searches  at the station. The  
details alleged in these  complaints—including how, where, and by whom those  
searches were performed—are consistent and mirror video evidence of other MVPD 
visual cavity searches.  

Complaint of  Manual  Cavity Search  at Police  Station  
 
A  man  filed  a  complaint alleging  that, after he  was arrested  for selling  narcotics  
to  an  undercover officer, an  MVPD officer placed  him  in a  holding  cell, instructed  
him  to  remove  his clothes and  then  bend  over, spread  his buttocks, squat,  and  
cough. After he  dressed  himself  again,  the  officer’s partner came,  removed  him  
from  the  holding  cell  (which had  a  camera),  and  took  him  to  another  room  without  
a  camera. The  complainant  alleges this officer put on  blue  gloves, removed  the  
complainant’s pants, put a  hand  on  his  back  to  bend  him  over, and  then  inserted  
a  finger into  the  complainant’s anus.  MVPD has no  record  of  investigating  this  
complaint.   

 
d.  MVPD’s Unconstitutional Strip and Cavity  Search Practices  

Are the Result of Inadequate Policies, Training, and 
Supervision  

The unconstitutional strip and cavity search practices described  above result from  
MVPD’s failure to provide officers with  adequate  policies, training, and supervision.  At 
the time we started  our investigation,  MVPD’s policy  on strip and cavity searches  had  
not been revised since it was  issued in  1993.  It did not define  a “Strip Search”  and  did  
not distinguish between strip searches and visual body cavity searches.  The policy set 
out inconsistent standards on when  a strip search is permissible;  in its initial paragraph, 
the  policy erroneously suggested  that a “full strip search” may be  permissible if an  
officer had  a “rational basis for doing so.”  Later  on, the  policy correctly referenced  the  
need for reasonable suspicion of concealed contraband or evidence.  And MVPD’s 
policy made no mention of visual cavity searches. MVPD leadership  has admitted that,  
at least prior to  2022,  MVPD officers did not understand that stripping a person down to  
undergarments constituted a strip search, and they did not understand that visually 
inspecting a  person’s anus constituted a visual cavity search.  
 
Similarly, prior to January 2023, there is no record of MVPD training its officers in the  
last ten years on its written  policy governing strip and cavity searches. As a result, when  
we interviewed MVPD officers in  2022, they were generally unaware  of the  
Department’s policy and its requirements. When interviewed in 2022, senior MVPD 
officers continued  to  believe, erroneously, that visual cavity searches were strip  
searches.   

 

17  



 

 
MVPD revised its written policy regarding strip and cavity searches in  October 2022, 
following our feedback provided during our investigation. The  October  2022 revision  
does a far better job of providing guidance to  officers, but MVPD knew much earlier that 
the Department needed to change. Interviews suggest that, at least since we  
announced  our investigation in December 2021, senior MVPD leadership understood  
that it was critical to change the Department’s strip and cavity search practices.  But  
once it did  change  the  policy, the Department did not conduct comprehensive training  
on that new policy—even for the supervisors authorized to approve  requests to conduct 
strip or cavity searches under the new policy—until May  2023,  almost seven months 
after the  policy change  and more than  a  year after learning  that the  policy needed to  
change. Such lengthy delays  in  policy revision  and  training reflect the difficulty MVPD 
continues to have  executing  even urgently needed changes to its policies and  practices.   
 
Moreover, MVPD does  not yet have in place  adequate systems to  ensure that officers 
comply with the new policies and training. MVPD’s unconstitutional strip and cavity 
searches were pervasive, and MVPD rarely documented  these searches when they 
occurred. MVPD must institute robust supervision and accountability measures to  
ensure that officers have discontinued  these  practices.  
 

3.  MVPD Makes Unlawful Arrests in Violation of the Fourth 
Amendment  

We find that MVPD engages in  a pattern or practice of unconstitutional arrests in  
violation  of the Fourth  Amendment.  We  found significant evidence that MVPD makes  
arrests that lack probable cause. This includes MVPD officers conducting unlawful 
arrests to  perform strip searches;  arresting individuals present during service of a  
search warrant even though officers did not have probable cause  to  arrest those  
individuals;  and arresting people for behavior that does not constitute a crime.  

 
The Fourth Amendment requires that arrests be supported by probable cause. Probable  
cause requires  “facts and circumstances within the officer's knowledge that are 
sufficient to warrant a  prudent person, or one of reasonable caution, in believing, in the  
circumstances shown,  that the suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to  
commit an offense.”   

Law enforcement officers, therefore,  may not arrest people in retaliation for criticism  
directed  at the  officers  that is protected speech under the First Amendment. As the  
Second Circuit recently affirmed, “‘the First Amendment protects a significant amount of 
verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers’—including  speech that,  had it 
been between civilians might, especially in bygone eras of greater civility, have  been  
viewed as ‘fighting words.’”

10 

11

 

   

10  Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31, 37 (1979).  

11  Rupp v. Buffalo, 91 F.4th  623, 635 (2d Cir. 2024) (quoting  City  of Houston, Texas v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 
461 (1987)) (brackets and  citation  omitted).  

 

18  



 

 
    

a.  MVPD Makes Arrests that Lack  Probable Cause, Including 
Unlawful Arrests to Perform Strip Searches;  Unlawful 
Arrests of  People Present when MVPD Served a  Search 
Warrant Without Independent Probable Cause for Arresting 
those People;  and Arrests of  People for Behavior that Does  
Not Constitute a Crime  

We found that MVPD officers frequently make arrests that lack probable cause. For 
example,  MVPD  officers detain people and transport them to the  police station for 
questioning or a  strip search.  Detaining individuals and  transporting  them to the station  
for a strip search constitutes an  arrest and is impermissible absent probable cause. The  
Fourth Amendment likewise prohibits officers from  extending detentions “for the  
purpose of gathering additional evidence to justify the arrest.”   While  Terry  v. Ohio  
allows officers to detain  an  individual for brief investigation where officers have  
reasonable suspicion that the individual may be involved in  criminal activity, Terry stops 
may not “resemble a traditional arrest.”

12

  Courts have resisted putting precise limits on  
the  permissible duration of Terry stops,  but MVPD’s practice of detaining individuals and  
transporting them to the station for questioning or a strip search  without probable cause  
clearly exceeds the  permissible scope of a  Terry  stop,  and therefore  violates the  
Constitution.  

MVPD’s pattern of unconstitutional arrests manifests in a number of ways, including  
making  unlawful arrests to conduct questioning or perform strip searches, arresting  
people present when  MVPD served  a search warrant without independent probable  
cause  for arresting those people, and arresting people for behavior that does not 
constitute  a crime:   

•  Following a  2020 roll call training  at which MVPD officers were instructed that 
strip searches must be conducted at the police station, MVPD officers began  
unconstitutionally detaining  persons, in the  absence  of probable cause for an  
arrest, to transport them to the station  and conduct strip searches.  When  
interviewed in 2022, key supervisory officers did not understand  that involuntarily 
detaining individuals and transporting them to the station constituted an arrest.   

•  The occupant of an apartment that was subject to  a search warrant  was arrested  
at the outset of the execution  of the search warrant—not merely detained while  
the  apartment was searched—without any documented probable cause. MVPD 
officers described  this as standard practice, extending even  to residents of an  
apartment for which a  search warrant was issued who were  not  at the premises.  

•  The  mother of a victim  who was struck by a stray bullet was detained for initial 
investigation  and ultimately brought back to the station for further interrogation  
and  not permitted to leave—without any articulation of probable cause to support 

13

12 County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 56 (1991); see also Brown, 422 U.S. at 605 (station 
house detention  and questioning “in the hope that something  might turn up” requires probable cause).  

13  Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court, 542 U.S. 177, 185-86 (2004).  

 

19an arrest—while her daughter was taken to the hospital without her and 
ultimately died. 

• MVPD officers arrested and charged a pedestrian with Obstructing Governmental 
Administration solely on the basis that an MVPD officer ordered him to stop and 
he ran away. However, such a charge requires the use of intimidation or physical 
force, leading a Mount Vernon city court to dismiss it as facially inadequate 
because “fleeing from a police officer, in and of itself, is not a crime and does not 
amount to the type of physical force or interference required by the statute even if 
the defendant is a suspect of a police investigation.”14 

• MVPD officers arrested a person for shouting profanity at them while they were 
making another arrest. The officers searched for the passerby after completing 
the first arrest, found him, chased him into a private residence, and used force to 
arrest him. He was charged with resisting arrest and possession of marijuana 
found on him after his arrest. No valid basis was ever articulated for the officers’ 
pursuit in the first instance. Similarly, other Mount Vernon residents told us that 
they were arrested for engaging in verbal confrontations with MVPD officers. The 
residents had the criminal cases against them dismissed or were acquitted at 
trial. Arresting a person for engaging in protected speech violates both the First 
and Fourth Amendments. 

b. MVPD Lacks Effective Policies, Training, Oversight, and 
Accountability of Arrests 

MVPD’s pattern or practice of unconstitutional arrests results from its failure to have 
adequate policies, training, and supervision. MVPD does not have any operational 
procedures explaining what constitutes an arrest, the need for probable cause, and the 
criteria for a valid determination of such probable cause. Similarly, MVPD’s operational 
procedures fail to provide any guidance on when a stop of a vehicle occupant or a 
pedestrian becomes an arrest. Nor, as discussed below, does MVPD’s training fill these 
gaps. These significant omissions contribute to MVPD officers making arrests without 
valid probable cause and, at times, without any apparent understanding that they are in 
fact making an arrest. In our interviews, officers repeatedly described their actions as 
detaining persons or bringing them back to the station when they were, in fact, arresting 
those persons. 

Similarly, MVPD fails to use effective measures to review arrests to identify and correct 
constitutional violations or provide counseling and guidance to its officers. MVPD 

15 

14  People v. Williams, 73  Misc. 3d 1226(A) (N.Y. City Ct. Mt. Vernon 2021).  

15  It is not clear that the officer had cause to  enter the home without a warrant. See  Brigham City, Utah v. 
Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted) (“It is a basic  principle of Fourth 
Amendment law that searches and seizures  inside a home without a warrant are  presumptively  
unreasonable.”). While officers in “hot pursuit” of  a fleeing suspect are granted an  exigency exception to  
the general  principle prohibiting a search of a home without a warrant,  it is  not clear that this qualifies as a  
“hot pursuit” where the officer had  insufficient basis to believe the  man had committed a specific crime, or  
that any other exigency existed here permitting the officer to enter the home. See id.  

 

20  



 

 

conducts minimal substantive review of the justification  for particular arrests and  does 
not collect and  analyze  sufficient  data  to identify problematic patterns in these  activities.  
We found  deficiencies throughout MVPD’s review of officers’ justifications for arrests.  
MVPD front line supervisors consistently sign off  on incident reports describing  the  
basis for warrantless arrests, even where the  reports on their face  describe egregious 
constitutional violations. Our review did not identify a single arrest questioned  by a  
supervisor outside the  context of the complaint or use of force review process. These  
practices do not  ensure constitutional policing.  
    

4.  MVPD’s  Vehicle Stops  Raise Serious Concerns  

We  have serious concerns that MVPD’s vehicle stops may violate the Fourth  
Amendment,  but, in part due  to  deficiencies in  MVPD’s recordkeeping practices for 
these stops and searches,  we do not find a  pattern or practice of constitutional 
violations at this time. The Fourth Amendment protects drivers and  occupants of motor 
vehicles from unreasonable stops, searches, and seizures. “The law is settled that in 
Fourth Amendment terms a  traffic stop  entails a seizure of the driver even  though the  
purpose of the stop is limited  and the resulting detention  quite brief,” a principle that the  
Supreme Court has extended  to vehicle passengers as well.   “An automobile stop is 
thus subject to  the constitutional imperative that it not be ‘unreasonable’ under the  
circumstances.”

16

  The Second Circuit has held  “that the reasonable suspicion of a  traffic 
violation  provides a sufficient basis under the  Fourth Amendment for law enforcement  
officers to make  a traffic stop.”

17

 
 
The full scope of MVPD’s practices is difficult to determine because, other than  minimal 
call-for-service data,  MVPD does not document  vehicle  stops unless they result in  an 
arrest  or a  ticket.  Such an information deficit not only limited  our review, but also 
impedes  supervisory review by MVPD of stops that do not lead  to arrests or citations— 
stops for which such review is imperative. The failure to document stops makes it 
impossible for either MVPD or DOJ to determine, for example: how often stops lead to  
the  discovery of weapons or contraband; whether there is any disparity in who is 
stopped  and how often the stops lead to searches or arrests; and  the justification for 
stops that do not lead to  citations or arrests.  MVPD is thus unable to adequately audit 
its officers’ activities and interactions with the  public and to determine whether its 
officers are complying  with MVPD’s own policies.   
 
Despite these limitations, we reviewed stops that did  result in  an  arrest or a ticket—i.e., 
incidents where officers presumably had stronger indicia of criminality to justify a stop. 
Our review suggests that MVPD officers frequently make motor vehicle stops  based  on  
limited  or implausible  explanations. Even those presumably more supportable stops 
raised serious constitutional concerns.  

 

18 

16  Brendlin v. California, 551  U.S. 249, 255, 256-59 (2007).  

17  Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810 (1996).   

18  United  States v. Stewart, 551 F.3d 187, 193 (2d Cir. 2009).  

 

21  



 

 

MVPD’s policies and training  for vehicle stops contribute to these questionable 
practices. MVPD’s Motor Vehicle Stops Operational Procedure, for example,  fails to  
provide sufficient guidance to officers about what constitutes a lawful basis for a vehicle  
stop. It suggests that a motor vehicle may be  stopped “[i]n the investigation of a  
suspicious automobile  and/or person(s)” where that suspicion is reasonable, without 
requiring that the  reasonable suspicion  relate to  unlawful conduct. This is inconsistent 
with the Fourth Amendment, which requires that traffic stops “be justified by probable  
cause  or a reasonable  suspicion, based  on specific and articulable facts,  of unlawful 
conduct.”   
 
Compounding the absence  of clear policies,  MVPD does not appear to offer any post-
academy training on the law regarding  the appropriate basis for vehicle stops, the  
permissible  investigative steps in connection  with a stop, or the point at which  a stop  
becomes an  arrest and  the  necessary justification. Officers appear to learn these  
practices on the job, which has entrenched  questionable practices  as  the  norm. Finally, 
as discussed below, MVPD’s post-incident and complaint review processes are  
inadequate, with cursory review, frequent conflicts of interest, and inadequate training  
for reviewers.  
 

5.  MVPD’s  Evidentiary  Practices  Raise Serious Constitutional 
Concerns   

Although we do not make a finding that MVPD engages in a pattern or practice of 
falsifying  evidence, MVPD’s evidentiary practices raise serious Fourth Amendment  
concerns. Based  upon  interviews, civilian complaints,  news  reports, and  video  
recordings—as well as an investigation  by the Westchester County District Attorney’s 
Office, resulting in dozens of dismissals of cases—we are concerned by numerous  
plausible  allegations that MVPD falsely planted evidence  and  knowingly misidentified  
suspects.  

An arrest based  upon false evidence, to the extent the arresting officer otherwise lacks 
probable cause, violates the Fourth Amendment.  Additionally, the use of false evidence  
beyond an initial arrest can create “deprivations of liberty that go  hand in  hand with  
criminal prosecutions” and result in  a Fourth  Amendment violation.

19 

  

We found  a number of  instances in which officers claimed to have found  drugs on  a  
person, but there is evidence that these claims were falsified.  For example, one resident 
alleges that two officers searched him, found  nothing, then went to a nearby flower bed  
where they found two  balls of crack cocaine  which they claimed were his. The  man  
denied it and refused to plead guilty, and  the  case  fell apart.  The resident’s allegation  
that the officers planted  the  drugs is  corroborated  by an MVPD officer’s recording in  

20 

19  See United States v. Scopo, 19 F.3d 777, 781 (2d Cir. 1994) (quotation  marks omitted) (emphasis  
added).  

20  Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 274 (1994) (plurality opinion); see also  Manuel v. City of Joliet, 580 
U.S. 357, 367 (2017) (“If the complaint is that a form of legal process resulted  in pretrial detention  
unsupported by probable cause, then the right allegedly infringed  lies in the Fourth Amendment.”).  

 

22  



 

    
     

 
    

 
 

      

 
    

 
   
    

   
  

  
    

  
  

 
   

    
   

 

   
     

  
     

  
  

     
  

 

which an officer discusses the incident. In the recording, the officer notes that officers 
had wanted to arrest the man for some time and explains that the drugs recovered 
“probably wasn’t his [the person’s]” but that the officers “said it was [his] because they 
wanted to arrest him because they had been trying to get him for months.” From our 
interviews and review of civilian complaints, we found similar allegations stretching back 
years. While the record of what occurred in each of these incidents is not always clear, 
the striking similarity of the allegations raises significant concerns. 

Additionally, several incidents indicate that some MVPD officers may be improperly 
misidentifying suspects. In one example, a resident was charged with selling drugs to 
an undercover officer in Mount Vernon but was in fact in North Carolina at the time of 
the alleged drug sale—a fact confirmed by the resident’s Instagram posts, bus receipts, 
and browser history. The WCDAO ultimately dropped the charge. 

This was not the only incident that involved a problematic identification or discrepancies. 
The WCDAO’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) announced in 2023 that it would seek to 
vacate the convictions and charges of 27 individuals for their alleged drug sales to an 
undercover officer during an MVPD operation. The May 2023 CRU report noted 
“discrepancies, inconsistencies and contradictions in the undercover and MVPD reports 
detailing purported drug sales” and a lack of “corroborative evidence sufficient to 
overcome the identified inconsistencies and unreliability of the undercover and MVPD 
officer accounts and problematic identifications.”

21 

MVPD’s practices around 
identification of suspects not only raise constitutional concerns, they also undermine 
MVPD’s ability to gather evidence that can be used to support criminal convictions and 
fight crime. 

The CRU report is consistent with one of the undercover recordings, which suggests 
that MVPD officers have at times planted evidence. While a separate WCDAO 
investigation found insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against the MVPD 
officers identified in those recordings,

22 

 the issues were nevertheless sufficient to vacate 
numerous charges and convictions. These allegations suggest serious violations of the 
Fourth Amendment. MVPD must improve oversight of its evidentiary practices, including 
its documentation and review of the seizure of evidence and identification of suspects, 
to ensure that these practices meet constitutional standards. 

23

21  See  Conviction Review Unit, Report on the Review of  Convictions  Stemming from a 2017  Mount 
Vernon Undercover Narcotics Operation  (May 10, 2023), 
https://www.westchesterda.net/images/stories/pdfs/2023/cruvacatursreport.pdf  [https://perma.cc/D2NW-
6ZLW].  

22  Id.  at 2.  

23  See  Law Enforcement Integrity Bureau,  Report on the Criminal Investigation into  the Mount Vernon 
Police Department’s Narcotics Division  (May  10, 2023), 
https://www.westchesterda.net/images/stories/pdfs/2023/leibcriminalinvestigationr.pdf   

[https://perma.cc/LB4W-CUQ7].  

 

23  

https://www.westchesterda.net/images/stories/pdfs/2023/cruvacatursreport.pdf
https://perma.cc/D2NW-6ZLW
https://perma.cc/D2NW-6ZLW
https://www.westchesterda.net/images/stories/pdfs/2023/leibcriminalinvestigationr.pdf
https://perma.cc/LB4W-CUQ7


 

6.  We Have  Serious Concerns that Some MVPD Officers  
Discriminate Against Black  People, Targeting Them for Arrests  

We find serious cause  for concern that MVPD engages in a pattern or practice of 
discriminatory policing  against Black people  in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act 
of 1964 and the Omnibus Crime Control and  Safe  Streets Act of 1968. These laws 
forbid police conduct with an unjustified  disparate impact based on race.  Here, we have  
found evidence that MVPD disproportionately targets Black people  for arrest, together 
with repeated reports of MVPD officers using racial slurs.  However, because MVPD 
does not adequately document many of its interactions with citizens—and, in some  
cases, does not document them at all—we do not have the information needed to reach  
a finding  at this time.  

The information MVPD does record allowed  us to perform regression analyses that  
tested whether MVPD officers are more likely to  make arrests in predominantly Black 
neighborhoods.  We found  that MVPD officers are significantly more likely to  make an  
arrest when responding to  the same types of complaints (40% more likely) or during  the  
same types of  traffic stops (56% more likely) in predominantly Black neighborhoods.  

Our concerns are heightened  by the  numerous reports we heard from Mount Vernon  
residents alleging that MVPD officers use racial epithets. These allegations go back  
many years, and even  former MVPD officers have stated that  some  officers target Black 
people  for excessive force.  

MVPD does not maintain many of the records needed to directly and comprehensively 
assess the Department’s treatment of Black people. For instance, MVPD officers often  
fail to  document significant interactions with  people—including, in particular, MVPD 
officers’ use of force, as well as searches that do  not find contraband.  In  addition, MVPD 
officers often fail to record the race of individuals with whom they interact when those  
interactions do not lead to  an  arrest, such  as pedestrian stops.  This failure kept us from  
analyzing search records for evidence of racial discrimination, just as it prevents MVPD 
from conducting such  a review itself.  Without this information, neither we nor MVPD can  
directly compare MVPD officers’ treatment of Black people  with the  treatment people  of 
other races.  MVPD’s almost complete inability to assess the impact of its policing  
practices on Black  people, by itself, gives  us  serious concern.  

 

24  



 

The sparse records MVPD does keep reinforce our concerns about  MVPD’s policing  
practices.  MVPD records are sufficient to analyze the arrest rates during  the same  types 
of  traffic stops and 911 calls in predominantly Black neighborhoods (more than 75% 
Black according to census data) as compared with neighborhoods  that are less than  
50% Black.  These  analyses show  that MVPD 
officers are 56% more likely to make  an  arrest In  predominantly Black  
during  a traffic stop in  predominantly Black  neighborhoods, MVPD 
neighborhoods than they are in neighborhoods  that  officers are  56% more  
are less than 50% Black.  That means that for  every likely to make  an 
three  people arrested  during  a traffic stop in  arrest during a traffic  
predominantly Black neighborhoods, only two are stop than they are in  
arrested in neighborhoods that are less than  50% neighborhoods less than  
Black.  Similarly, even  when responding  to similar 50% Black.  
types of calls, MVPD officers are 40% more likely 
to  make  an  arrest in predominantly Black  
neighborhoods.   

We  analyzed  more than 350,000 MVPD police  blotter entries of officer activity from  
2015 through 2022.  Nearly 200,000 of these  entries contained sufficient information to  
determine the location  to which the officer responded.  After geocoding these blotter 
entries, we categorized those  entries based  on whether they occurred within a Census 
Block Group that was less than  half Black, 50% to 75% Black, or more than 75% Black, 
according to  the 2020  U.S. Census.  Within that subset  of approximately 200,000  police  
blotter entries, we identified 911 calls and other citizen requests for service, which  
totaled  more than 80,000.  For about 10% of calls, MVPD did not use sufficiently specific 
labels (e.g., “Police Service Call” and “Investigations”) to  enable us to determine  that  
similar calls were being compared, so these  were removed from the analysis.  We  
categorized the remaining calls for services into fifteen different types—e.g., a report of 
disorder, a domestic dispute, a  property crime, a complaint concerning drugs or alcohol, 
or a report of violence.  We  also identified traffic stops within the geocoded blotter 
entries, totaling just under 30,000.  Finally, we linked these calls for service and traffic 
stops to MVPD records reflecting an arrest.   

With this data, we then conducted regression  analyses to  determine  whether, when  
responding  to (a) traffic stops or (b) calls for service of the same type, MVPD officers 
are more likely to make an arrest when those stops or calls occur in  predominantly 
Black neighborhoods as compared with neighborhoods  that are less  than 50% Black.  
These regression analyses found large  and statistically significant differences between  
the rates at which MVPD officers make arrests in predominantly Black neighborhoods, 
as compared with  neighborhoods  that are less than 50% Black, when we controlled for 
the type  of call to which officers were responding.  

 

25  



 

   
  

  

  
  

 
 

  
 

  
  

 
  

  

  
   

 

  
   

  
 

 
   

  

 

  

  

 
 

  

■ 

■ 

With respect to traffic stops, these analyses showed that MVPD officers are 56% more 
likely to make an arrest in predominantly Black neighborhoods than they are in 
neighborhoods that are less than 50% Black. Similarly, our regression analyses of 
MVPD responses to calls for service found that, after controlling for the type of 

complaint, MVPD officers are 44% more 
likely to make an arrest in predominantly 
Black neighborhoods. For instance, when 
MVPD officers respond to calls about 
drugs and alcohol, they are 39% more 

45% likely to make an arrest in predominantly 
40% Black neighborhoods as compared with 
35% neighborhoods that are less than 50% 
30% Black. More tellingly, in neighborhoods that 
25% are less than 50% Black, MVPD officers 
20% 

are two-and-a-half times more likely to not 
15% 

make an arrest when responding to a drug 
10% 

or alcohol complaint. Stated differently, 
5% 

MVPD officers make no arrest in just 16% 
0% 

of their responses to drug or alcohol calls 
in predominantly Black neighborhoods, but 
in neighborhoods that are less than 50% 
Black, MVPD officers make no arrest in 
40% of responses. 

These analyses raise significant concerns that at least MVPD’s arrest practices have an 
unwarranted disparate impact on Black people in Mount Vernon. Combined with 
allegations we received that MVPD officers use racial epithets when performing 
enforcement activities involving Black people, and MVPD officers’ own statements that 
other officers in MVPD target Black people for unlawful conduct,

Share of Drug or Alcohol Complaints 
Not Leading to an Arrest 

By Neighborhood Composition 

Drug or Alcohol Complaints 

<50% Black Neighborhoods 

≥75% Black Neighborhoods 

 these analyses 
demonstrate that MVPD must improve its data collection and analysis to ensure that 
discriminatory policing is not taking place. 

B.  SYSTEMIC  DEFICIENCIES IN  MVPD’S PRACTICES LEAD  
TO  CONSTITUTIONAL  VIOLATIONS  

The incidents, patterns, and practices described above do not arise in isolation.  MVPD 
does not have adequate policies in place to guide  officer action, and it does not 
adequately train its officers in constitutional policing, including with respect to  use  of 
force,  strip searches, and arrests.  When such incidents are reviewed, that review is 
often cursory and rarely results in  discipline or even counseling.  And when complaints  
arise, the investigation  of those complaints is similarly lacking.  As a result, officers are  

24

24  See, e.g.,  George Joseph,  A  Black  Cop Says  His  Boss  Called  Him  a Rat  for Exposing  Corruption.  Here  
Are His  Secret Recordings,  GOTHAMIST, Nov. 25, 2019,  https://gothamist.com/news/black-cop-says-his-
boss-called-him-rat-exposing-corruption-here-are-his-secret-recordings  [https://perma.cc/MR49-4L44].  

 

26  

https://gothamist.com/news/black-cop-says-his-boss-called-him-rat-exposing-corruption-here-are-his-secret-recordings
https://gothamist.com/news/black-cop-says-his-boss-called-him-rat-exposing-corruption-here-are-his-secret-recordings
https://perma.cc/MR49-4L44


 

instructed neither before nor after their actions cross the line.  All of these organizational 
failures contribute to the pattern or practice of constitutional violations we found.  

1.  MVPD’s Policies and Policy Development  Are Inadequate  

MVPD’s policies provide insufficient guidance  to officers on constitutional requirements.  
As discussed above, MVPD does not have  any policies to  guide officer action on  
numerous topics, including what constitutes an arrest or when a stop  or detention  
converts into  an  arrest.  When  policies do exist, they frequently misstate the law or 
provide such wide discretion that an  officer may comply with  the policy and still violate  
the Constitution.  And  those  policies  are not updated regularly to ensure they comply 
with  current constitutional standards—indeed, until October  2022, MVPD had not 
updated its policy on strip and cavity searches since it had been issued in  1993.  

 
MVPD must develop a  comprehensive, current set of policies and procedures to provide  
officers with sufficient guidance to police within the bounds of the Constitution.  It  also 
must develop  a system to update its policies to ensure they reflect current legal 
requirements.  

 
2.  MVPD Fails to Adequately  Train Its Officers   

To evaluate MVPD’s training  practices, we reviewed the Department’s training  policies 
and all  training  material provided to  officers since 2011, interviewed  training staff  and  
officers throughout the  Department, and  toured  the Department’s training facilities.  The  
training that MVPD officers receive is inadequate  in many respects,  contributing to the  
repeated constitutional violations outlined  above.  Appropriate  training is necessary to  
advance safe  and constitutional policing.  Indeed, throughout our investigation, officers 
acknowledged that gaps in training  have caused problems within the Department.  As 
one  officer told us, “[T]raining would probably prevent a lot of problems that you’re  
looking  at[.]” We found that inadequate development and execution  of training programs 
jeopardizes both  officer safety and public safety, and leaves officers unprepared to  
safely and  effectively police the Mount Vernon community.  

MVPD  has failed  to  prioritize  and support officer training, resulting in a lack of 
standardized  training across the Department.  MVPD does not have  a full-time training  
officer, nor are the supervisors responsible for front-line training sufficiently experienced  
and  trained  themselves. Compounding  the  problem, and  partly due  to high rates of 
turnover, MVPD does not have sufficiently  qualified  field training officers  to train  
incoming officers.  As a result, inexperienced  officers are tasked with training  new 
officers.   

The Department’s failure to invest in training  staff  and develop  training priorities and  
goals has created an uncoordinated and ineffective training regimen. For example, 
MVPD’s Training Unit offers five “mandatory” days of in-service  training to officers each  
year, although  officers may miss several of these trainings. While MVPD does schedule  
“makeup” trainings for officers who miss a day of in-service  training, the  only training  
sessions that MVPD requires officers to make up  are the firearms and use of force 

 

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trainings. Thus, the only training MVPD officers consistently receive  are trainings in  
firearms and  use  of force.   

In addition, supervisors do  not receive standardized  and consistent  supervisory or 
managerial training from MVPD. MVPD supervisory staff  have expressly acknowledged  
that there is “irregularity” in the  training for lieutenants and command staff, and  that the  
lack of such training is a concern. As one  command staff  member noted, the  
Department does not provide any training to officers after they become  sergeants:  
“everything  else [is] the school of hard knocks.”  

MVPD’s failure to provide adequate training  programs and curricula  on constitutional 
doctrines governing  policing has directly contributed to the unlawful conduct we 
uncovered in our investigation.  

3.  MVPD Fails to Adequately  Supervise  Its Officers   

During our investigation, we saw multiple  deficiencies in how MVPD supervisors  guided  
and reviewed  the work of its subordinates. This failure to supervise directly contributes 
to the constitutional violations we found. Many of those deficiencies stemmed from  a  
lack of effective training for MVPD supervisors. Although there is state-mandated  
training for supervisors,  the  training does not focus on specific issues unique to Mount 
Vernon. Additionally, the training  does not focus on developing leadership skills as 
supervisors. One  high-ranking  officer told us, “Everybody identifies that you  don’t really 
get any [training] after sergeant and you kinda have to figure it out.”  As a result, we saw 
situations where supervisors should have taken action  but did not.   

We  also saw supervisors reviewing use of force reports for incidents in which they were  
personally involved. In  one  example, a sergeant and  a lieutenant used force against  an  
individual who damaged a  police cruiser. When the sergeant and lieutenant grabbed  the  
individual’s arms to arrest him, he pulled  his arms away and locked them so  he could 
not be  handcuffed.  Because  the sergeant and lieutenant were having difficulty arresting  
the  person, additional officers arrived  on  the  scene  to  assist.  One  of the  arriving officers 
hit the individual with  a closed  fist on his thigh multiple times “in  an  attempt to  gain 
compliance.”  Another officer, at the direction  of the lieutenant, “drive stunned” the  
individual with his Taser. After being  tased by the  officer four times, the individual 
allowed the  officers to  handcuff him without further incident. The lieutenant then ordered  
the sergeant to have  the arriving officers complete  use  of force reports on the Taser use  
and  fist strikes. The sergeant did so, and reviewed  and  approved the officer’s use  of the  
Taser and the  other officer’s use of strikes. The report was approved  throughout the  
chain of command, and the sergeant was depicted  as a witness to the use of force, 
instead of as an involved officer. No one in the chain of command asked the force 
review to be assigned to an independent supervisor, and  no  one in the chain of  
command asked  the sergeant or lieutenant to submit a report for their own uses of  
force.  

MVPD must improve its supervision practices to ensure that its officers stay within  
constitutional limits. It must provide sufficient training to supervisors throughout the  
chain of command to do their jobs effectively and  hold their subordinates accountable to  

 

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MVPD’s policies and procedures. And MVPD must have systems in  place to ensure that 
supervision is routine and proactive, identifying officers and supervisors who are not 
fulfilling their duties.  

4.  MVPD Fails to Hold Officers Accountable for Misconduct  

MVPD has inadequate  systems to  hold officers accountable for misconduct,  which  allow  
the  pattern or practice  of constitutional violations described  above  to  go  unchecked.  
MVPD has  inadequate  policies and  training  for misconduct investigations, resulting  in  
investigations that are neither objective nor thorough. When  discipline is imposed, which  
is rare, the sanctions are ineffective  at deterring future officer misconduct.  

  
a.  MVPD’s Policies, Training, and Accountability Systems Are  

Inadequate  

MVPD’s policies governing  misconduct investigations are vague and do  not provide  
proper guidance  for classifying or investigating  complaints.  The policy categorizes only 
a limited number of allegations, such  as allegations of criminal activity, as falling within  
IA’s jurisdiction.  All other allegations of misconduct  not specifically assigned to  IA by  
policy—including civilian complaints, complaints received internally from  other officers, 
and  those alleging  egregious but non-criminal conduct—are typically investigated by the  
officer’s immediate supervisor. This results in inadequate investigation and the failure to  
hold officers  accountable for serious misconduct.  

MVPD’s policies also provide little  guidance  on how to conduct misconduct 
investigations, and  training  on investigations is lacking.  There is no  manual that  
specifies how IA investigators are to interview officers or witnesses,  obtain and analyze  
evidence, assess credibility,  or make  a recommended finding.  Similarly, MVPD has no  
policy for supervisor investigations.  The Department’s training for both IA investigators 
and supervisors is inadequate.  Supervisors typically learn on the job  from  other 
supervisors how to conduct investigations.  While IA investigators receive an initial two-
week training, they  do  not consistently receive ongoing training to keep  up  their skills.  

MVPD similarly fails to  adequately to  track complaints.  MVPD’s electronic system for 
tracking complaints  is not sufficiently functional, since  due to software lapses, it does  
not include  cases prior to 2022.  As described  below, MVPD deficiencies in policy, 
training, and  oversight result in investigations that are incomplete  and allow misconduct 
to go unchecked.  

b.  Misconduct Investigations Are Not Objective or Thorough  

Whether conducted by IA investigators or by  an officer’s immediate  supervisor, MVPD 
misconduct investigations are routinely inadequate.  Our review  indicated that IA  
investigators frequently failed  to complete basic steps when conducting their  
investigations, including,  in many cases, failing  to interview complainants  or civilian  
witnesses.  And investigators fail to  ask crucial questions of officers—in fact, officers are 
rarely, if ever, personally interviewed. The standard practice at MVPD is for officers to 
simply submit a statement.  When  officers submit statements, investigators fail to  ask 

 

29  



 

follow-up questions regarding the statement,  leaving  unaddressed  gaps, 
inconsistencies,  and omissions in the officers’ version of events.   

In one  high-profile case involving  unlawful  body cavity searches of several individuals, 
IA did not open  an investigation until three years after the incident occurred. The  
decision  to open the investigation was not prompted  by MVPD’s own internal 
accountability processes, but rather by a lengthy media article about the searches, 
complete with video recordings. The  IA investigation took less than two months to  
complete, and  the investigator did not interview the  officers, subjects of the search,  or 
witnesses. Although the IA investigator reviewed the videos at issue, the report contains  
virtually no  analysis of the videos or other evidence, nor does it even identify the  
applicable MVPD policy that may have  been  violated. The findings section  of the report 
is  a single conclusory sentence, in which the  IA investigator states that the  actions of  
the  officers were reasonable given that they were executing a search warrant and  
narcotics were discovered. Despite the  brevity of the report, the IA investigator’s failure  
to interview anyone connected with the incident, and  the utter lack of analysis of the  
evidence or applicable policies and laws, the  Deputy Commissioner  nevertheless  
approved the  IA investigator’s recommendation to  exonerate all four officers involved  in  
the search.   

Supervisor investigations of complaints are even  more inadequate than  those  
conducted by IA. In  one incident, the complainant alleged that he was stopped and  
searched by two detectives for no reason, and that the two detectives acted  
unprofessionally. The  supervisor  who investigated the complaint  did not interview the  
detectives, but relied instead on statements they  submitted in response to  the  
complaint. In the  statements, the  detectives asserted that they stopped  the complainant  
because he had  a plastic bag containing a can of beer sticking  out of his pants pocket.  
They then conducted  a pat down of the complainant for “officer safety.” The supervisor  
found  that the detectives never filed  a report documenting the stop, as required by 
MVPD policy.  Even  though  the detectives did not demonstrate, or even articulate, that 
they had reasonable suspicion  to believe  that the  man was armed  and dangerous  in 
their statement, the supervisor determined  that the pat down did not violate  the law or 
MVPD policy.  The supervisor only  recommended counseling  for the  detectives’ failure to  
record the stop.  

Two examples highlight the  problems with  supervisors investigating  misconduct 
complaints involving  officers  they manage, and the supervisory bias that taints these  
investigations.  In  the  first, an  apartment tenant filed  a complaint with  MVPD, alleging  
that officers unlawfully and  forcibly entered his home without a search warrant. The  
officers’ patrol supervisor, who was on duty and involved in the  matter, investigated the  
incident and cleared the officers of any misconduct, stating  that the  officers were 
required  to  make a  forced entry to further investigate. Regardless of whether this  
conclusion is correct,  the supervisor’s involvement in the  forced entry with a warrant 
undermines the credibility of the conclusion, because the supervisor himself had an  
interest in the outcome.  

In  the second  case, the complainant alleged  that as he was standing near a  building  
listening  to  music, two  detectives stopped  him, took him to  the police station,  and strip  

 

30  



 

 

searched him for no reason. The complaint was assigned  to  the  detectives’ immediate  
supervisor for investigation. The supervisor interviewed the complainant by phone  and  
did not ask the complainant about the strip search allegation. Additionally, although  the  
arrest report submitted by one  of the  officers stated that the  officers performed  a search 
incident to  arrest at the police  station, in their  statements to the investigating supervisor, 
the  officers never mentioned whether they conducted  any type  of search. Instead of 
probing the inconsistencies between the officers’ statements  and  the arrest report and  
following up with  the complainant, the supervisor simply concluded in his report— 
without any evidence to support his determination—that the officers did not conduct a  
strip search.  

These failures in misconduct investigations by both IA investigators and officers’  direct 
supervisors undermine an  effective accountability system. Troublingly, in  a  number of 
the  examples given above, the chain of command and  the public safety commissioner 
reviewed  the recommendations of IA investigators and supervisors,  without any request 
for further investigation. These failures in MVPD’s accountability system contributed to  
the  pattern or practice of constitutional violations we  describe above.   

c.  MVPD Does  Not Impose Effective  Discipline   

MVPD’s accountability system  for misconduct violations is further undermined  by the  
ineffective imposition of discipline.  As an initial matter, MVPD lacks systems to  ensure  
consistency in its imposition of discipline.  Although  MVPD does have a  disciplinary 
matrix, it is vague  and  rarely used.   Even if MVPD did use  the  matrix, however,  in the  
vast majority of cases  we reviewed, MVPD did not impose any discipline. Out of all  the  
misconduct files reviewed, we found  disciplinary penalties  imposed in only eight percent  
of cases,  which included no terminations,  and  only one  unpaid suspension. There, the  
officer received a two-week suspension for posting  a racist meme on Instagram. The  
most serious discipline imposed in the other cases was 40  hours of forfeited leave. 
Despite  troubling incidents with constitutional violations, supervisor recommendations  
including  no  discipline  or minor discipline  were  adopted  by the chain of command, 
including  the police chief and  public safety commissioner,  often with  a simple “concur.”   

Although  the City has  made some attempt to  address accountability issues within the  
Department  by hiring an outside  attorney to assist the  police chief  and IA, this effort has 
largely been ineffective. The  attorney reviews IA investigations involving possible  
criminal conduct to  determine whether the case should be referred to the Westchester 
County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution. The attorney also reviews completed  
IA investigations and  determines what disciplinary penalties should be imposed  against 
the  officer. If the officer disagrees with the  penalty, the case is heard by a hearing  
officer, and  the attorney administratively prosecutes the case against the officer at the  

25

25  A disciplinary matrix “specifies the nature of offenses  or policy violations and  associates them with 
specific penalty options or ranges  of discipline.” U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented  Policing  
Services, Standards and Guidelines for Internal Affairs:  Recommendations from a Community of  Practice  
53 (2009),  https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov/resourcecenter/RIC/Publications/cops-p164-pub.pdf  
[https://perma.cc/8URA-6N3A].  It helps to ensure fairness and consistency in the imposition of discipline.  
Id.   

 

31  

https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov/resourcecenter/RIC/Publications/cops-p164-pub.pdf
https://perma.cc/8URA-6N3A


 

 

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hearing. The attorney’s impact on how IA functions appears to be negligible, however. 
Although the City informed us that the attorney has been providing advice and counsel 
to the police chief and IA since early 2021, during initial interviews with City counsel, the 
police chief and executive staff, and the head of IA, the attorney was never mentioned. 
Instead of helping improve public trust in the police department and ensure that IA 
investigations for serious misconduct are fair, comprehensive, and free from conflicts of 
interest, a good deal of the attorney’s efforts have been skirmishes with the 
Westchester County District Attorney’s Office about its perceived failure to definitively 
identify problem officers within the Department and its reticence to put certain MVPD 
officers on the stand due to integrity issues.  

5. MVPD Fails to Equip Officers Appropriately and Deploy 
Resources Effectively 

The lack of resources, along with the Department’s inefficient management of 
resources, are major factors contributing to unlawful policing and low morale. It lacks 
adequate body-worn camera systems, training facilities, Taser cartridges, and 
numerous other resources that are necessary to oversee its officers and equip and train 
them adequately. MVPD also lacks the resources to compete with neighboring 
jurisdictions as it seeks to hire police officers. As noted earlier in this report, the starting 
salaries of MVPD officers are significantly less than those of officers employed in 
neighboring towns.  

These challenges—mismanaged resources and a history of financial challenges—have 
prompted large numbers of officers to leave, including senior officers. One officer noted 
that some of the officers training others had been with the Department for only two 
years. This misuse of resources, and its attendant undermining of morale, contributes to 
MVPD’s lack of effective and constitutional policing. 

*  *  * 

MVPD’s lack of resources and equipment due to financial mismanagement, outdated 
policies and inadequate training, and ineffective systems of supervision, accountability, 
and discipline, all contribute to the pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing we 
found. These practices are not only unconstitutional, they also breed community 
distrust, undermining effective policing, which is built on a healthy relationship between 
the police and the community it serves. 

  



 

 RECOMMENDED REMEDIAL MEASURES 

The recommended remedial measures below provide  a framework for the changes that 
the City and MVPD must adopt to restore public faith in the police department and instill  
constitutional and effective policing.   

1. Enhance Use-of-Force Policies,  Training, and Reporting Systems.  MVPD  should 
revise  all policies and training  materials on  use of force  and de-escalation  tactics to  
provide  officers and supervisors with clear guidance on when force is appropriate  and  
decrease the need for officers to resort to force. MVPD should ensure that officers 
report uses of force with sufficient detail to determine the appropriateness of the force 
and whether de-escalation tactics were used.  

2. Ensure Adequate  Supervision and Accountability of Strip Searches.  MVPD 
should put accountability measures in place to ensure that unconstitutional strip and  
body cavity searches do not take place, such  as auditing  of search reports, regular 
review of complaints related  to strip searches, and review of body-worn camera footage  
to determine whether these  practices continue.  

3. Conduct Lawful Arrests and Detentions.  MVPD should implement policies,  
training,  and practices that will  ensure that arrests and  detentions are constitutional and  
supported  by probable cause, and that arrests are not made in retaliation for individuals 
engaging in protected  activity.   

4.  Develop Policies  and Training Related to Vehicle Stops.  MVPD should provide  
policies and training regarding the appropriate basis for vehicle stops, the  investigative  
steps  that  may be taken in connection with a  stop, and when a stop  becomes an  arrest 
and  how it must be justified.  

5. Collect and Analyze Data Related to Stops, Searches, and Arrests.  MVPD should 
collect data  on  all stops  (including  those that do not result in  a citation or arrest), 
searches,  citations, arrests, uses of force, and investigative  activities,  and maintain such  
data  in a manner that allows for analysis of racial disparities. Where MVPD finds racial 
disparities in its enforcement practices, it should implement changes to policies,  
training, supervision, tactics, or enforcement strategies to  address those  disparities.  

6. Increase Oversight of Evidentiary Practices.  MVPD should improve its 
documentation  and review of the seizure of evidence and identification of suspects,  
including improved  data collection and  analysis, training, and supervision.  

7. Improve  Training for Supervisors.  MVPD should  ensure that supervisors at all  
levels receive supervisory or leadership  training appropriate for their rank that provides 
them with the skills to  do their jobs effectively and hold subordinates accountable.  

8. Adopt More Stringent Accountability Measures.  MVPD  should  ensure that IA  
conducts timely, objective, and thorough investigations of complaints and interview all  
witnesses and  officers connected with the incident. MVPD should create a clear and  
specific process for classifying, assigning, and  investigating complaints and  disciplining  

 

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officers for violations of policy. MVPD should  hold supervisors accountable for failing to  
report or address misconduct.  

9. Improve  Technology Infrastructure.  The City should devote resources to  ensuring  
that MVPD’s technology infrastructure is capable of effectively monitoring officer activity 
by collecting and  analyzing data.  

10.  Enhance Officer Safety and Wellness.  The City and MVPD should build on the  
resources they have already invested to ensure that officers are provided with the  
equipment required  to  perform their jobs effectively and constitutionally. The City and  
MVPD should  develop  effective strategies for recruitment, retention, and staffing.  

 

 

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