Today, the Commissioner of the Department of Investigations, Mark Peters, named Philip Eure as the first Inspector General for the New York City Police Department. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York School of Law proposed the creation of the office in 2012 to add much needed oversight of police counterterrorism operations.
“By appointing an inspector general who has shown that he is not afraid to make real change, the Administration has signaled that it is serious about protecting both our safety and our civil liberties,” said Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at theBrennan Center. “Mr. Eure has a real opportunity to make the NYPD better and stronger through rigorous oversight and we eagerly anticipate his next steps.”
“Philip Eure is a dedicated reformer,” said Michael Price, counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center. “He has a big job ahead of him, but Mr. Eure is an effective, proven leader on police oversight issues and we look forward to working with him.”
Eure has a strong track record of working with police agencies to safeguard civil liberties. Eure served as the first executive director of the Office of Police Complaints in Washington D.C. where he monitored investigations of civilian complaints of officer misconduct and developed best practices on how civilian oversight boards can curb police abuse. He is a former senior attorney in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and currently sits on the board of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
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