Interim head of NYC's police oversight board resigns as Adams makes 'leadership changes'

NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- The interim head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board announced on Monday she will resign her post, months after Mayor Eric Adams said he was making "leadership changes."

In a letter to the mayor on Monday, chairwoman Arva Rice wrote that her resignation will take effect on Aug. 15. City Hall has previously said her interim term was up this month.

"While I will no longer serve on the CRB, my commitment to holding police officers accountable for misconduct remains unchanged," wrote Rice, 56, who is also the president of the New York Urban League.

In the letter, she listed several accomplishments during her term, including eliminating a backlog of open investigations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and publishing a report on the police response to the 2020 racial justice protests.

Rice has led the CCRB—a civilian oversight agency tasked with investigating complaints against the NYPD—since February 2022. She was appointed to the board by Mayor Bill de Blasio and later named interim head by Adams.

Rice has criticized the police department, especially in the fatal shooting of a 32-year-old man, Kawaski Trawick, in the kitchen of his Bronx home in 2019. Rice said it took police 18 months to hand over body camera footage in the shooting, passing the CCRB's statute of limitations. The Bronx D.A. ultimately declined to charge the officers involved, and NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said in April that they wouldn't face internal discipline .

According to the New York Times , Rice had requested $15 million more in funding for the CCRB's budget this year than Adams had proposed. And she pushed for changes at the state level that would have allowed the CCRB broader oversight, including to body cam footage.

In an interview with PIX 11 in late April, Adams called Rice a "holdover" from the de Blasio administration, saying he was "shifting people around" halfway through his term and had told Rice directly that "she does not have to leave the CCRB board."

"I have been making leadership changes," Adams said. "Keep in mind, no matter who's the chair, it has to be a dual agreement by the City Council and the mayor. Making these movements throughout my administration, this is what you do when you get to the halfway point."

"Rice was appointed on the board from previous administration," Adams continued. "Should a mayor, even when you have someone to hold over, should a mayor and a City Council or whomever, should they decide who's going to be the chair and the leadership?"

"You just don't automatically state, after two years, I think she brings a wealth of knowledge and opportunity," Adams said. "Shouldn't I make the determination who's in a leadership position as the next mayors will make that determination? That is how this is done. You pick the chairs that you want to make the leadership changes that you want."

In a blistering statement Monday, the nonprofit Legal Aid society asserted that Rice was forced out by Adams and accused his administration of engaging in "a death-by-a-thousand-cuts campaign to neutralize the checks and balances in place that hold the NYPD to account."

The statement continued: "From defunding the Civilian Complaint Review Board into a state of paralysis to rejecting disciplinary recommendations from the NYPD watchdog, to now pushing out the Interim Chairwomen of the CCRB after she criticized the NYPD’s handling of the investigation into the police killing of Kawaski Trawick, this Administration continues to prioritize the NYPD’s impunity over building trust between the Department and the New Yorkers that they are sworn to serve."

"A City devoid of the necessary safeguards to check police misconduct weakens public safety and reinforces a sentiment that officers are above the law and that the rest of us are all de facto second-class citizens," the legal aid provider said.