➤ POLICE CULTURE, from p.32
between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
with a Graham subordinate, Captain
Ronald Shindel, and a group
of offi cers holding a line west of
the march with another line to the
east. Graham then instructed a
group of offi cers on horseback to
do something. It was never clear
what that instruction was. What
they did was charge into the crowd
seriously injuring three people.
Graham joined the NYPD in
1973. By 1981, he was a sergeant
and would have made lieutenant
sooner than 1986 had he not led a
group of offi cers into Blues Bar, a
Manhattan business that served a
predominantly transgender clientele,
in 1982 where they wrecked
the bar, threatened customers
with violence, and used anti-gay
and racist slurs because they
blamed clients there for an assault
on two detectives. Graham retired
in 2010. He had been promoted to
deputy chief when he left.
Shindel joined the NYPD in 1982.
In a 2000 deposition taken as part
of the Shepard vigil lawsuits, he
said he had “in excess of 20 civilian
complaints” and “numerous”
investigations by the NYPD’s Internal
Affairs Bureau. Shindel had
been promoted to deputy inspector
when he left the NYPD in 2002. In
2013, he was hired by the Port Authority
Police Department (PAPD)
as a captain and was promoted
to deputy inspector in 2015. The
PAPD is part of the MTA, which
is a state agency that is not under
the control of New York City government.
Former NYPD detective Tom Verni,
who is gay, said he encountered
“older guys left from the ‘60s” who
were “all about kicking ass and
taking names” when he joined the
NYPD in 1992. He left in 2013 and
a culture that had once accepted
or even approved of misconduct
had changed.
“The training has been vastly
improved,” Verni said. “The command
staff in every precinct and
every unit just doesn’t tolerate that
kind of behavior.”
Stephen Bishopp, a sergeant in
the Dallas Police Department who
has a Ph.D. in criminology from
the University of Texas at Dallas
and has authored or co-authored
several studies on policing, said
that police who “use more force
than necessary or have anger-issues”
tend to be less successful in
their careers.
“Such a thing doesn’t help a career
and I have not seen any research
in the last decade that suggests
otherwise,” Bishopp wrote in
an email. “In my own experience, it
negatively affects the offi cers, particularly
if the complaint against
them is upheld or sustained.”
Bishopp said that the “wrong
kind of aggressive” may have been
seen among police “to some extent
30+ years ago” noting that his father
may have one of those offi -
cers.
“My dad retired as a police chief
having started his policing career
circa 1975,” he wrote. “He was certainly
known for being this kind of
offi cer but it was viewed positively
back then.”
Dr. Maria Haberfeld, a professor
at the John Jay College of Criminal
Justice and director of the NYPD
Police Studies Program, has authored
or co-authored multiple
books and peer-reviewed journal
articles on policing. Haberfeld was
defi nitive.
“In many departments, including
the NYPD, it will actually prevent
you or slow down your promotion
opportunities,” Haberfeld
wrote in an email. “I cannot speak
for the entire history of NYPD, but
certainly this is not the case in the
past few decades.”
While the mayor said that his
reforms had altered the NYPD’s
culture, his view was that work
was not yet done.
He pointed to the swift action
take against an offi cer caught in
video using a chokehold, which has
been banned by the NYPD for over
20 years, on an arrestee on June
21. That offi cer was suspended
“within hours” and his disciplinary
process had begun, the mayor
said.
“It proves that change can come,
but we need a lot more change,” he
said. “One of the things we’re going
to be working on going forward is
making sure there’s a much better
mechanism for weeding out
the cops who should not be on the
force and for bringing up a leadership
from the grassroots that
represents all New York City and
represents a more reform minded
view of policing because we have
to break what’s still wrong in that
culture.”
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June 25- July 15, 2 54 020 | GayCityNews.com
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