Two Brooklyn cops have been penalized for not properly categorizing dozens of encounters recorded on their body-worn cameras, according to NYPD documents.
Officers Aron Baksh and Berland Prince, partners at the 78th Precinct, which mostly covers Park Slope, each lost five days’ pay, according to documents posted online by the NYPD earlier this month. The wrongdoing dates back to February 2022, with the case delayed in part because of COVID.
The officers rejected the opportunity to accept a command discipline and opted to go through an administrative trial at One Police Plaza in January. They could have lost 20 days’ pay for the charges related to their cameras, the penalty recommended by a department prosecutor, Emily Collins. But an NYPD trial judge, Anne Stone, lowered the penalty to five days after finding the officers guilty, with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch in March agreeing to the penalty that Stone recommended.
Still, Stone was critical of the officers.
According to the documents, Baksh and Prince ignored email warnings from supervisors that they faced disciplinary action if they did not correct their mistakes — Baksh 48 times and Prince 44 times failing to properly categorize each video and instead “bulk categorizing” the footage, meaning the officers in a “matter of seconds” labeled each of their videos the same way, such as an “investigative encounter.”
Going through each video is more time-consuming, but properly categorizing each one greatly eliminates the possibility that the department will not have access to videos when a case is prosecuted or if a lawsuit is filed. An investigative encounter, for instance, must be retained in the NYPD’s cloud-based storage system for 18 months, while an arrest video must be kept for five years, according to NYPD policy. Videos involving murder cases must be kept forever, while those involving the issuance of summonses can be deleted after two years.
Baksh testified he didn’t think the emails were meant for him, and Prince contended “he was surprised” to be on the list of officers who needed to fix their mistakes.
Stone didn’t buy their explanations, saying that if they were “confused as to what they were doing wrong they should have asked for clarification.”
The officers, who were in the same 2010 Police Academy class, refused comment, as did their lawyer, Michael Martinez.
Baksh lost 27 other days’ pay for other infractions, including working a security job without department approval, being late to a transit post and making logbook errors. Prince lost 12 other days’ pay, including for the same transit post infraction and for logbook issues.
Stone noted Collins had called for harsher penalties, including asking that both cops be placed on dismissal probation and suspended 30 days with no pay. But neither officer had prior disciplinary issues, Stone said.
